At REFINA, a fair share of the conversations our technical team have with tradespeople happen after a job has gone wrong. Tiles drumming hollow, vinyl lifting at the seams or a resin coat peeling away in sheets. And when those failures are traced back, they rarely begin with the adhesive or the coating. They begin on the substrate, days earlier, with a step someone decided they could skip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, before the tools, it’s worth being clear about what a flooring contractor is actually paid to deliver. Not a floor, a bond, between a finish and whatever sits beneath it. Everything that follows is about earning that bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three things, and none can be traded off against another. It has to be sound: no soft screed, no laitance, nothing crumbling underneath. It has to be flat enough for the finish going down, and the tolerance for LVT is far tighter than for ceramic, because thin vinyl shows every ridge below it. And it has to be clean: no dust, no oil, no curing membrane, no old adhesive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miss any of those, and it won’t show on the day. It shows weeks later, which is usually when the phone rings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Diamond grinders and polishers<\/strong> are where most preparation budgets are best spent first. A machine like the PD 23.2, a 230mm plate<\/a><\/span>, 1.5kW motor, twin-handle frame, strips coatings, knocks down high spots and opens up the surface so adhesive and resin have something to bite into. Alternatively, an EIBENSTOCK EBS 1802 5″ Diamond Grinder<\/a><\/span> works perfectly for preparing concrete and stone surfaces as they’re built to handle demanding grinding and planning applications with precision. Changing the segments and grit takes the same machine from aggressive removal to a fine polish, and it handles terrazzo and epoxy floors that would defeat a hand scraper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Floor strippers<\/a><\/span><\/strong> do one job properly. Carpet tiles, foam-backed carpet, lino, sheet vinyl, LVT: a powered stripper lifts all of it far faster than a bolster and knee pads, leaving a cleaner, more consistent surface to work on rather than a floor full of torn backing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sanders<\/a><\/strong><\/span> are the gentle option, and the right one for timber and other materials. On boards or a raised access floor, a grinder is too aggressive and will dig in. A sander backs off coatings and smooths without wrecking the substrate beneath. Handheld units handle the edges; long-reach versions cover the open span.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scabblers and surface blasters<\/strong><\/a><\/span> come out when grinding isn’t working, when thick, built-up coatings, heavy contamination or a weak top layer need to be removed before anything else can happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Power floats<\/strong> are worth being precise about because they’re often misunderstood. A float like the 16″ EPG400 <\/span><\/a>isn’t a prep tool for an existing floor. It finishes fresh concrete or screed to a dense, flat surface in the first place. Laying the base? The float is doing the preparation. Standing on a cured slab? That’s a job for a grinder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n