World of Concrete

Tony Shelton

Tony Shelton

BS Detector, Esquire
Chris and I went to the World of Concrete convention yesterday. We spent almost all day and still didn't see half of it.

It looks like the biggest thing there is concrete polishing. This will not be the best thing in the world for maintenance cleaning once the costs come down and it moves from mostly inside to mostly outside concrete.

Ron had the same question I had about this polishing. "WHAT ABOUT WHEN IT'S WET?"
Well, the guys there were ready for it, they put water on it and invited me to try to slide. YOU CAN'T SLIDE ON IT WHEN IT'S WET!! It was amazing.

Here's a pic of one of the d demos. (the shiny stuff is NOT WET, it's just polished.

 
Here is a half-million dollar machine

<a href="http://s468.photobucket.com/albums/rr46/sonitx/?action=view&current=100204_151809.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr46/sonitx/100204_151809.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
 
tony szabo said:
so they etch the concrete. Then is it a sealer to give it the polish look?

By the way the grinding machine looks to be expensive.
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No etching. It is ground and polished.

A machine that can do 2200 ft2/hr runs about $5k. The consumables cost the operator around $1.50/ft2 if I understand correctly.

It takes 3-5 runs to make it shine like that. So that 2200 ft2/hr is really more like 700 ft2/hr in the real world.

But, at $1.00ft net that is still $700/hr

But here's some more math:

Say you've got a 5000 square foot entrance that you are cleaning every month @ 250.00. Say it takes 1 1/2 hr per month.

You make $3k - fuel/labor/yr in about 18 hrs

If you convert that to polished and charge $15k you net about $7500.00 in about 7 hrs. You still have to come and clean every month, but now you can do it in 15 minutes for $75.00 instead of $250.00 so each year you make an additional $900.00 for a total of 3 hrs work cleaning.

Over five years you make:

$15k with regular maintenance cleaning for 90 hrs work

or

$12k for polishing and minimal maintenance for 22 hrs work.

I don't know if there is polishing maintenance that could be sold every 5 years or not. But I do know that polishing will absolutely FIX hack damage. If polishing maintenance is required, there is a LOT of money to be made in this business.
 
It's hard enough to get them to clean their concrete let alone polish it at those prices.
 
The Cleaner said:
It's hard enough to get them to clean their concrete let alone polish it at those prices.
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True, Nick, but just like all other industries, eventually costs will come down. (or John B or someone else will just make their own grinding machines out of of a floor polisher and some sandpaper!)
 
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