Does Polyester Terrazzo Smell or Shrink While It's Being Laid?

The honest answer, upfront: yes to both. Polyester terrazzo gives off a genuine styrene odour while it is poured and cured, and it shrinks more than epoxy as it sets — which is exactly why we design divider strips and joint layout into the pour and insist on real ventilation and an empty programme while it happens. Neither is a defect; both are the trade the resin makes for curing faster and costing less than epoxy terrazzo. Know them before the pour starts and there are no surprises when it’s finished.

The smell, honestly

Polyester resin cures through a chemical reaction that releases styrene vapour — the same family of smell as fibreglass boat-building, because the resin chemistry is a close relative. It is strongest during mixing, pouring and the first cure, and it fades once the floor has cured and been ground and sealed. It is not a faint “new material” smell you can work around; it is noticeable enough that the space needs genuine airflow — open windows, extraction fans, or a period where the area is simply empty — while the pour is underway.

That is a real constraint for occupied buildings. A retail unit, an office floor or an inhabited villa needs to plan around it: closed for the pour and initial cure, not just for the grinding day. Epoxy terrazzo does not carry this issue in the same way — one of the reasons it remains the premium choice for spaces that cannot fully close.

The shrinkage, honestly

Polyester resin shrinks more than epoxy as it cures — a chemical property of the binder, not a sign of poor workmanship. Left unmanaged over a large plain field, that shrinkage looks for its own lines: hairline stress cracks that follow no pattern and undermine the seamless read terrazzo is meant to deliver.

The fix is designed in, not fixed after the fact. Divider strips — traditionally brass or zinc, sometimes plastic on budget work — break a large pour into panels small enough that each one shrinks within itself rather than fighting its neighbour. Good joint layout on a polyester floor is not decorative; it is the engineering that keeps the floor flat and crack-free for its working life. A polyester terrazzo quote that skips divider strips on a large open field is a quote worth questioning.

Why choose it anyway

Set against cement terrazzo — the classic mineral tradition, from AED 220/m² — and epoxy terrazzo’s jewel-clear premium finish, polyester earns its place on cost and programme. It cures faster than epoxy, so grinding can follow sooner, and it costs meaningfully less per square metre. For a large commercial field on a tight budget and schedule — a mall corridor, a back-of-house area, a retail floor where cost per square metre decides — the smell and the shrinkage are manageable trade-offs for a floor that still reads as real terrazzo for decades.

Where the floor is the centrepiece — a lobby, a flagship retail space, anything the design wants to be flawless — we say plainly that epoxy is worth the difference, odour and shrinkage risk included.

The verdict

Polyester terrazzo is not a flawed floor; it is a floor with two honest characteristics that need managing: real ventilation during the pour, and disciplined joint design across large areas. Handled that way by a crew that has done it before, it settles into a hard-wearing, handsome terrazzo floor with none of those installation-week issues left behind. Skip either the ventilation plan or the divider strips, and you inherit both problems on a finished floor.

Planning a terrazzo floor and weighing the resin systems against each other? Send us the space and the programme on WhatsApp or call +971 4 587 7086 — we lay all three terrazzo matrices with our own in-house crews and will tell you honestly which one fits your building and your budget. 8+ years in the UAE.