Grinding and polishing concrete is hard work.  The team from Pacific Decorative Concrete makes it look easy.

Filling the Saw Cuts with Ardex TWP

One of the decisions that we had to make was when and how to fill the saw cuts in the concrete.  We put the saw cuts in the concrete to attract any cracking that may occur.  Given the saw cuts are made, we now have to fill them.

We would have preferred not to make any saw cuts in our concrete.  Concrete cracks.  Given this fact, we wanted to do our best to minimize the probability of cracking and, when cracking does occur, we’d like to attract the cracking to certain locations.  Thus, we put in saw cuts so no single area was greater than 10 ft by 10 ft.

With the saw cuts in place, we need to fill them.  We didn’t want to have the saw cuts in a contrasting color; we do want the saw cuts to be the same feel and texture as the polished concrete.  We don’t want to feel where the saw cuts are located.

Consequently, Dave Ruiz and Hunter Martinez recommended that we fill the cracks now with Ardex TWP.  This would allow them to grind and polish the filled saw cuts so the saw cuts will never be felt.  Given their ‘hands on’ experience with grinding and polishing concrete, we went with their recommendation.

Ardex TWP (Tilt Wall Patch) compound.

Saw cuts at the bottom of the stairs.

Filled saw cut with Ardex, then ground and polished.

Hunter polishing the concrete in the bathroom in the Guest Suite.

Jo-Anne thought this lizard, on our exterior stairs, looked a bit thin. (She has the best material!)