How To Maintain a Decorative Concrete Floor

Residential homes require minimal maintenance due to the low amount of foot traffic. As a precaution against wear and tear put a floor mat at doorways and entrances to your home and at the base of steps.

Dry mop with a microfiber mop and occasionally clean with mild cleaning agents. Do not use vinegar or ammonia which will damage your finish or wax coat. If you have access to a high speed buffer with 1500-2000 RPM you can buff the floor with a soft white or champagne pad. Do not use the 175 RPM floor buffing machines. Ideal products for cleaning a residential floor are LemonWorks, Pine Valley or Freshworks. High speed floor buffers can be rented at many equipment rental stores. Garage floor paint and epoxies can be cleaned with Orangeworks which removes petroleum oils and black marks from tires.

Commercial floors like retail stores, restaurants, hair salons or any high traffic areas require easy, inexpensive but proper maintenance systems.

If you notice a Walmart, Target or many large grocery stores you will see clean, shiny floors. The reason is that they know the proper cleaning agents and systems to use. Plus they must be affordable. The large retailers are very image and cost conscious and take care of their floors. The loss of business from shutting down to repair floors is too high so they do it right.

We have heard many stories about retailers, restaurants and  hair salons  becoming disenchanted with their decorative concrete and epoxy floors because they don’t look as good as when they were finished. The fact is they don’t maintain them properly.  Using the proper system will actually make the floor much more durable and endure indefinitely.

In Fu Tung Chengs book Concrete At Home, Cheng features a photo of  one of the concrete floors at The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Built in 1927 the concrete floors are in excellent condition due to proper care after 80 years.

The key is to maintain the finish or wax coat.. We have worked extensively with Formula Technologies a highly sophisticated manufacturer of premium cleaning agents to bring you the featured products.

We start with a 2 product floor sealing system. Both are non hazardous Acrylic co-polymers. Apply 2 coats of Intersealer, 18% solids, then 2 coats of Accelerator a 30% solids sealer frequently referred to as a wax coat. These products can be applied over plain grey concrete or a decorative concrete application. Accelerator is an amazing finish coat and can be applied over Urethane coats as well.

After initial application Accelerator can be burnished with a brown Hogs hair pad using a high speed buffer. Then if planning a burnishing system use a soft pad such as a white or champagne pad. Accelerator will handle many burnishings.

The process of maintaining the Accelerator finish coat is daily cleaning with an everyday cleaner like Pine Valley, Lemonworks or Freshworks. A stronger cleaner such as  Waterworks works well for high traffic retail floors with improved performance from regular burnishing.

Other specific cleaners are Orangeworks , a great grease remover in restaurants. When making restaurant floor plans it is important to consider floor maintenance as part of overall cleaning strategy.  When grease is tracked through a restaurant from the kitchen  improper cleaning is going to smear the grease having a negative affect on curb appeal with expensive remediation later. The result is deteriorization of the finish and a haze covering the floor. Orangeworks should be one of your most important cleaning agents.

Hair salons have hairsprays which get on the floor which smear and get slippery. The solution is Reworks, a cleaning and restoring solution which can be mopped on with a microfiber mop and  burnished extending the life of the Accelerator coat. To improve finish Gripshine can be mopped on to give a mirror like non slip finish.

Other use specific products are Bionix which kill the bad bacteria in bathrooms, groutlines, wall switches and doorknobs, FixIt for neutralizing corrosive salts tracked into retail stores and restaurants, Yellowout which cleans Asphalt marks tracked inside from parking lots

Scrub & Recoat

This is what makes all the difference. The scrub part uses  a mild stripper removing a partial layer of the finish or wax coat. Its important to only remove a portion of the finish /wax coat and then reapply 2 coats of Accelerator. This process removes dirt and detergent buildup, scratches, marks and other blemishes. Remove 1 coat, add 2 coats and keep building over time. Over the course of a few years a properly maintained floor will have 6-12 coats of wax. This is good, the floor is strong, well protected and better than new.

Each floor is different the frequency required for the scrub and recoat process will vary from floor to floor. Usually when the floor looses is ability to shine its time for the scrub & recoat process. Some high traffic floors like Grocery stores may need the process every 2-3  months, restaurants or retail floors 6 months.

The product designed for this process is TurboForce. If  Accelerator has hardened too much from frequent burnishing TurboForce strength can be boosted with a small amount of Mission Impossible which will loosen the finish coat. Mop it up, remove with a wet vac ,recoat with Accelerator then resume normal cleaning process.

These cleaning agents and systems work! It’s easy and cost effective. We guarantee its cheaper to do it right than do it wrong.