Cheapest Way to Achieve Polished Concrete Floors (or Similar) in New Build

Thanks for the replies guys.

Just on the heating front the heating/ventilation system with heat pump, underfloor etc was coming in at over 90k installed which was crazy for a house that will need incredibly little heating (whole house only has heat load of 3.5kw). So we're dropping the heat pump/underfloor and using electric heating panels in the plasterboard of the walls/ceiling. That + similar MHRV system and a sort of heat pumps system for hot water is costing <25k installed. It'll be less efficient for sure with the heating but I'll be long dead before I'd make up the near 70k in savings from the heat pump!

On the flooring I realise the concrete polishing process itself is expensive/labour intensive. But my thought is if could just put down a concrete layer instead of screed, we could kill two birds with one stone in that we could put floorboards over some areas and polish the others. In theory the layer of concrete should be a fair bit cheaper than screed so that should allow us to have concrete ready to polish for less than the cost of screed and way less than having to put screed down, then a concrete layer, then polish this.

Let me know if you think this sounds feasible?

PS I looked at tiles that look like polished concrete but they are expensive. They's probably work out as if not more expensive than the polished concrete route and look substantially worse.

Thanks, yes it is a very big bungalow with a load of windows in so it was always going to be pricey. Keen not to reduce in size but there's lots of areas (like with the heating) where we can shave a decent amount off the price while not sacrificing too much.

Thanks for the link, that's a good read.

I'm finding with a lot of stuff there's a huge variety in pricing to achieve pretty much the same thing. For instance we are using porcelain tiles for the patio area, the architect was suggesting ones that cost €150 per m2. I found similar ones from Spain that look nicer, are better performing and are costing me €12 per m2!

Likewise with this, despite price rises, concrete is still a very cheap material. While I get the grinding is avery labour intensive and I'm fine with paying someone €80+ per m2 to grind it (we only want very light grinding, no exposed aggregate), where the price seems to be getting silly is when some of them want another €100 per m2 to pour it. We're talking about a 70-80mm layer, concrete is give or take €100 per m3 so in theory €100 of concrete should cover 10+ m2 at that level (ie <€10 per m2) so their pricing seems nuts.

Thus if possible I think it makes sense to get someone else (cheaper) to pour the concrete and just have it polished if this is doable. I've thought about doing it myself but it does look hard work and I'm wary of messing it up on first go. I suppose I could try it out in an area that I'm going to be covering with timber first to get the hang of it.

Thanks again for the advice!