For too many years, low-maintenance polished concrete has been sold as the no maintenance floor. Though its durability exceeds any other flooring on the market, as with all flooring investments, polished concrete needs some minimal care to keep its aesthetic.
The largest contributors to premature shine deterioration are:
- Using the Wrong Cleaners: (Chemical Abrasion) Products designed for VCT, linoleum, and sealed concrete may be too stringent for polished concrete surfaces and could etch the shine. Cleaning products designed specifically for polished concrete floors, such as those available from CPS (www.go2cps.com), are neutral on the pH scale. It is important to note that on the pH scale, neutral is a number 7. A number 6 is 10 times more acidic, and a number 5 is 100 times more acidic.
- Abrasion: Constant foot traffic, forklifts, pallet jacks, and shopping carts are relentlessly picking up foreign soils and redistributing these soils throughout your floor, leading to “scuffing” and sheen deterioration. Additionally, stiff bristle brushes designed for VCT, and aggressive scrubbing will compound this deterioration and cause a loss of shine.
- Neglect: Dirt and debris will quickly abrade the surface of a polished concrete floor, causing a dulling effect and harming your investment. Routine use of a pH neutral soap which contains surfactants to suspend and remove the particulates is necessary to protect the surface. With the exception of specialized water-ionizing equipment, cleaning with water only will capture a minimal amount of dirt but will leave most of it on the floor and is another form of neglect.
Perfect Polish now offers a quarterly maintenance program for polished concrete. Once a quarter you can have a trained polished concrete craftsmen at your facility analyzing the needs of your floor and prepared to do minor repairs such as joint repair, filling pop-outs and patches, re-sealing high traffic areas or high spill zones, and working one on one with your cleaning staff to make sure they are trained correctly. This also includes high speed burnishing with diamond pads to ensure a consistent uniform gloss throughout the useful life of your floor. Utilizing this program, you can double or triple the useful life of your polished concrete floor.
