Types of Finish Floors, Why have finish floors
Types of Finish Floors speaks to why have finish floors and how to finish floors.
Hard finish flooring materials such as concrete, stone and brick which are often chosen for their resistance to wear and moisture.
Being rigid and unyielding, they are not comfortable to stand on for extended periods of tome and they contribute to a live, noisy acoustic environment. Many of these materials, however, are so beautiful in their colours and patterns and so durable that they are considered among the most desirable types of flooring by designers and building owners alike.
Concrete
With a lightly textured wood float finish for traction, concrete makes an excellent finish floor for parking garages and many types of agricultural and industrial buildings. With a smooth, hard, steel trowel finish, concrete finds its way into a vast assortment of commercial and and institutional buildings and even homes and offices.
Colour can be added with a colorant admixture, a concrete stain or a couple of coats of colour paint. Concrete’s chief advantages as a finish flooring material are its low initial cost and its durability. On the minus side, extremely good workmanship is required to make an acceptable floor finish, and unless applied as a finish topping very close to the end of construction, even the best concrete surface is likely to sustain some damage and staining during construction.
Stone
Many types of building stone are used as flooring materials, in surface textures ranging from mirror polished marble and granite to split face slate and sandstone. Installation is a relatively simple but highly skilled procedure of bedding the stone pieces in mortar and filling the joints with grout.
Most stone floorings are coated with multiple applications of a clear sealer coating and are waxed periodically throughout the life of the building to bring out the color and figure of the stone.
Bricks and Brick Pavers
Both bricks and half thickness bricks called pavers are used for finish flooring, with paver4s often preferred because they add less thickness and dead weight to the floor. Bricks may be laid with their largest surface horizontal or on edge.
As with stone and tile flooring decorative joint patterns can be designed especially for each installation.
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