6 Floor Cleaning Solutions to Keep Your Floors Looking Brilliantly Shiny.

6 Floor Cleaning And Maintenance Tips

If you've ever had problems while cleaning floors (vinyl composite tile VCT) and don't know a workable solution, use these tips to help you out.  These maintenance tips are general references and additional cleaning and maintenance may be required to keep your floors looking beautiful and dirt-free.  Keep your floors cleaned,waxed and looking brilliantly shiny.

Follow this list to solve common floor cleaning problems and concerns, while cleaning and maintaining your floors. Proper steps to first strip your floors then wax them.

1. It takes several sessions to strip the floor.  First, check to see if you are properly using the correct mixture of stripper and water.  Second, the less often the floor is stripped, there are more coats of finish to remove.  If the floor has not been stripped in more than a year, there may be a lot of coats of wax, it may take a few sessions before all of it is removed.
2. After several coats of finish, there is no shine.  This probably means that you need to lay down a sealer.  our tile is old and/or porous.  Strip the coats of wax and apply two coats of a sealer.  Then, put down the necessary coats of wax.
3. It seems that the finish is worn out in a couple of days.  First, check with your supplier to see if the finish used for the particular floor is the right grade.  Second, you may just need to apply more coats because of the high traffic.  Third, this may be a signal to increase your maintenance procedures like dust mopping and making sure there are walk off mats at all the entrances.
4. A short time after the finish is put in the mop bucket, the finish seems to go bad.  This is probably a sign that the finish is being contaminated.  Try lining the mop bucket with a plastic trash can liner to keep the finish away from any dirt and chemicals that are in the bucket.
5. The floor no longer responds to buffing (burnishing).  The finish has worn down.  The floor needs to be re-coated.  Clean the floor and apply your normal coats of wax (3-5 general).
6. After buffing (burnishing), there are black specks throughout the finish.  The specks are dirt that has been buffed into the finish.  First, check to see if the buffing pad you are using is clean.  If it is not, throw it away and put on a new one.  Second, you might have forgotten to dust mop before burnishing.  Dust mopping will get rid of most of the dirt and dust that can cause a "dirty shine."

                                                       

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GLOSSARY

buffing:  the process of restoring the shine to a floor.   It is also done to remove scuff-marks.  A floor machine or high speed buffing machine along with buffing pads is generally used.
burnishing:  a synonym for buffing.  It usually is used when referring to high speed buffing (high speed burnishing).
floor machine:  a machine with a circular head and a vertical handle.  Different types of nylon pads are attached to the bottom of the head for various jobs.  They are mainly used in stripping and buffing.
homogenize:  a process which makes a liquid more uniform throughout.  The liquid is emulsified so that the different components do not separate.
plasticizer:  a factory finish on new tile that must be removed in order for the floor finish to adhere.
sealer:  an undercoating that is applied before waxing to fill in the tile's pores so the finish does not soak into the tile.
stripping:  the fist process in floor maintenance.  This is the process by which all the finish is removed from the tile using a stripping solution, mop and/or floor machine.