Slick Finish Floors

A slick finish is concrete closed up tight with a power trowel until the surface is dense, flat and just short of polished. It is what belongs on a garage floor, a basement, a workshop or a warehouse slab: nothing catches in it, oil and dust sweep straight off, and it takes an epoxy or a sealer without a grind first. Getting there is a timing job more than a muscle job. The slab has to be floated, then left to stiffen, then trowelled in several passes with the blades lifted a little further each time — too early and you seal water into the surface and it dusts and scales later; too late and the blades never close it. In an East Tennessee August that window can be twenty minutes, which is why we watch the slab instead of the clock. We pour interior floors from a few hundred square feet up to full commercial pads, and we will tell you plainly when a broom finish is the safer choice — a slick finish outdoors is slippery in the rain.