Cleaning Stained And Polished Concrete Floors

Stained concrete floors are very easy to maintain. Most days they should be dust mopped and depending on their location and the amount of traffic, wet mopped. Ideally, they should periodically be wet scrubbed. The stain will eventually wear in high traffic areas and need to be reapplied.

Polished concrete is also relatively low-maintenance flooring. However, it takes a little more attention and training in order to keep its glossy appearance.

To create a high-gloss concrete floor, a series of grinding and polishing steps are used. A coarse grinding tool is initially used (usually some sort of industrial diamond disk) to either wet or dry grind the concrete. A series of progressively less aggressive diamond pads then grind and polish until the desired level of gloss is attained. 

This initial process is typically performed by an experienced contractor with specialized equipment and tools. However, routine maintenance can be performed by most BSCs utilizing readily available supplies.

Daily cleaning is simple. Dust mopping and wet mopping or autoscrubbing with a neutral cleaner is required. However, scratches will eventually appear. They can be removed by using diamond pads that fit convention floor cleaning equipment. These pads are color-coded to denote aggressiveness and with a little instruction from your supplier, they can be used effectively.

Concrete floors are everywhere and it’s easy to profit from them. Just take the time to learn about the different styles of concrete flooring and how to maintain them.

Louie E. Davis Jr. is a jan/san industry veteran and freelance writer based in Birmingham, Ala.