The Foundation of Every Great Floor
Before you install epoxy, tile, or hardwood, your concrete subfloor must be clean, flat, and porous. Acids and strippers can't remove everything and often leave chemical residues behind. The only way to guarantee a bond is mechanical grinding.
Gaetano Cement Contractors utilizes industrial planetary diamond grinders connected to massive HEPA vacuums. We physically remove the top layer of concrete (the "cap") to expose fresh aggregate, ensuring that whatever you put on top of it sticks permanently.
Safety Service: Trip Hazard Removal
In Ohio, frost heave often causes sidewalk slabs to lift, creating dangerous lips that are trip hazards and liabilities. Instead of ripping out the entire slab, we can often grind down the raised edge to create a smooth, ADA-compliant transition. This is a cost-effective alternative to full replacement.
What We Remove
Our heavy-duty grinders make short work of stubborn contaminants that manual scrapers can't touch:
- Carpet Glue & Mastic: Thick, sticky adhesives are ground down to bare concrete.
- Old Paint & Epoxy: We strip failing coatings without using harsh chemicals.
- High Spots: We level out "curling" joints or humps in the slab.
- Rain Damage: We can grind off the weak, dusty surface of a slab that got rained on during pouring.
Our Equipment Specs
We don't use hand-held angle grinders that fill your house with dust. We use professional floor prep systems:
| Equipment | Function |
|---|---|
| Planetary Grinder | 3-headed machine that cuts flat and level (not gouged like single-head machines). |
| HEPA Dust Collection | Captures 99.9% of concrete dust, keeping your home or facility clean. |
| Diamond Tooling | We swap diamonds (from 16 grit to 120 grit) depending on the hardness of your concrete. |
| Surface Profile (CSP) | We can achieve anything from a light sand (CSP 1) to a heavy etch (CSP 3-4) for overlays. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the process really dust-free?
Virtually, yes. Our grinders are shrouded and connected via hose to industrial vacuums that run continuously. You won't find a layer of dust on your shelves when we are done.
How much concrete do you remove?
For standard prep (glue removal), we remove about 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch. For trip hazards, we can grind down up to 1 inch to level a slab.
Can you polish the concrete after grinding?
Yes. Grinding is the first step in polishing. If you want a "sealed concrete" look, we can switch to finer grit diamonds to hone the floor before sealing it.