Preparing commercial floors at Oxford Science Park and Westgate
Oxford's major employment sites include the Mini plant at Cowley, the Oxford Science Park, established in 1990, and the university's Begbroke Science Park to the north. In the centre, Westgate Oxford was rebuilt and extended to 750,000 sq ft in 2017. Between them, the city's laboratories, production halls and retail units all call for flat, sound floors. When a lab is refitted or a shop changes tenant, the new floor usually goes over an existing slab or screed that still carries the old one's adhesive, paint or coating.
That is the job a diamond grinder does. Segments set in rotating heads cut the surface back in thin passes, taking away residue, coatings, laitance, trowel marks and the ridges where bays were cast against each other. What is left is a clean, open surface ready for a primer and levelling compound, a new screed, sheet flooring, or a resin system that a specialist installs after us. We stop at preparation: resin and polished concrete are not finishes we lay.
For production and warehouse floors, grinding is often followed by a new screed, and that falls to our commercial screeding service. Where coatings are thick or the area runs to thousands of square metres, shot blasting or scarifying can be the faster route, and our floor preparation page covers both. We say which method suits before we price, so the programme is not built around the wrong machine.
Grinding in Headington, Marston and Cowley homes
At home, the same machine tidies up smaller floors. The inter-war and post-war semis across Headington, Marston and Cowley are typical extension projects, and where a new slab meets an older one, a lip at the doorway is common. Grinding takes the high edge down so a levelling coat can run across both. Lifted carpet or vinyl tends to leave adhesive behind that needs cutting back before anything new is stuck down, or before a thin coat of Oxford latex screed goes over it. Detached houses are 11% of Oxford's homes, and a garage being turned into a room usually has paint, oil or sealer on its slab that must come off before the conversion screed.
Two points are worth understanding before booking. Grinding cannot level a floor that slopes or sinks over a wide area; it removes local bumps, and the rest is made good with levelling compound across the floor or a new screed. Nor can a screed be ground down indefinitely, since taking too much leaves it under its minimum depth.
Then there is dust. Concrete, screed and tile contain silica, and grinding them throws out respirable crystalline silica dust. We grind only with extraction connected to the machine, seal doorways to the rest of the house or flat, and vacuum the floor before handing it back.
How we price floor grinding in Oxford
A fixed written price within 24 hours, once we know the area and what has to come off. See our floor screeding cost guide.
Who grinds your concrete floor in Oxford
K & B Screeding’s own team, led by director Donatas Bardisevicius. Founded 2019, company 12298780.
See what customers say in our Google reviews and on our testimonials page.
Concrete Floor Grinding from Slough to Oxford
As the crow flies, our yard in Slough is about 30.4 miles from Oxford, which lies to the west-north-west. Postcodes here include OX1, OX3, OX4 and OX44, and Kidlington (5 miles), Abingdon-on-Thames (5.7 miles), Witney (10 miles) and Didcot (10.1 miles) are close by.
More on floor grinding, part of our screeding services.