Refreshing and Maintaining your Polished Concrete Floors

As we enter a new retail year, its important to take some steps to protect your investment in polished concrete floor. Like any surface, regular cleaning and periodic buffing helps maintain the luster or regain some of the luster lost from traffic and wear. During the winter months, some regions also have the degrading effects of road salt that is being tracked in by customers and shopping carts. We are going to discuss some good practices to help maintain your floors as well as processes to rejuvenate your floors after certain amount of time, to regain their luster and integrity.

Simple Guidelines for Cleaning

The first line of defense is good sweeping and cleaning of the floors. Sand, dust, dirt, road salt, all act like abrasive sandpaper when that material is pressed between a moving shoe or cart wheel. That abrasiveness is the biggest contributor to wearing down the luster of a floor finish. This is best seen in areas of high traffic or where traffic is bottle necked like through cash wraps, entrances, and exits. When the floor is swept and cleaned, you are removing that abrasive debris from the surface and reducing the amount of wear on the floor.

Since polished concrete is a smooth surface, Microfiber dust mops are the most efficient way to sweep the floor and gather the most dirt vs a push broom. Floor scrubbers (ride on or walk behind) are the most efficient way to scrub and clean the floor vs hand mopping. When mopping by hand there is the tendency to not change the water in the mop bucket often enough, which means you are smearing around dirty water and leaving dirt streaks behind as the water dries. So, make sure to frequently change the soap and water in the bucket to avoid this.

When using a floor scrubber, it is important to use the right brushes or pads. Floor scrubbers with a cylinder type brush are too abrasive for polished concrete and will diminish the shine rapidly. Avoid using machines with that style of brush for your polished concrete surface. The best thing is using a floor scrubber that uses rotary discs for scrubbing pads. There are pads available in every size and diamond grit to match the finish of your floor. For instance, if your floor was finished at 1500 grit when being polished, you can use a 1500 grit diamond cleaning pad on your machine to clean the floor. Before each use, inspect the pads to make sure they are not worn through to the plate or stiff bristles that hold them in place. Those stiff bristles will scratch the floor.

When it comes to cleaners, the things you want to look for are PH Neutral cleaners that are safe to use in your floor scrubber or mop bucket and safe to dispose of down a sink. There are several on the market and even some that have concrete densifiers built into them in order to help fortify your floor as you clean. My thought on using the products with densifiers is that how much can really penetrate the concrete if your floor was finished with a polish guard or penetrating sealer that is designed to prevent other products from driving into the concrete. This may not provide much protection to a polished floor, so the main thing is to keep it PH Neutral.

What Processes are Available to Rejuvenate a Polished Concrete Floor

Depending on the age of your floor and severity of the wear and tear, you have a few options to economically rejuvenate your floor. If the concrete is still very smooth and well maintained and all you are seeing is the polish guard is worn off, you can simply have your floor cleaned, burnished with a diamond pad congruent to the final step of the floor polish, re-apply guard and polish again. This is an effective maintenance plan for high traffic areas usually on an annual basis.

If the floor has some age to it, longer than 5 years, and you are looking to return it to its original luster, there are multi step options with light weight propane burnishers that can achieve that quickly and economically. Several types of resin bonded pads and tooling have been developed to do a multi-step polish, quickly, effectively, and economically. These processes are more aggressive and help to minimize stains, re-plenish gloss, and cause as little disruption to the store as possible.

Summary

An environment enhanced by polished concrete can last a long time and provide a beautiful floor surface. It’s important to maintain that investment properly so it will last and continue to perform. The correct maintenance will make it last and the wrong maintenance or lack of will diminish the floor quicker than expected. Like all things, its only as good as you take care of it.