Maintaining Polished Concrete and Polished Concrete Cleaning Essentials
One of the major draws to polished concrete is the ease of regular and long term maintenance. Maintaining polished concrete, while simple, does require regular attention to avoid dulling the shine or wearing down the concrete.
This comes into effect on all floors, but I suggest being especially keen on high traffic areas. Tracking in dust and dirt particles can accumulate in the pores and act as an abrasive to the stain guards, color, and shine of the concrete.
How Different PH Cleaners Affect Polished Concrete
When it comes to maintaining polished concrete, some cleaners implement different properties for different jobs and different floors. Many of these vary in ph levels to achieve the desired results.
When cleaning polished concrete an important factor to remember is using neutral ph cleaners. Acidic cleaners will eat right past the stain guards and into the concrete. This will cause etching that will require grinding in order to repair.
Alkaline cleaners are highly corrosive as well and will also damage polished concrete floors leading to a dull in a shine that will reduce the concrete to a flat look. Using neutral ph cleaner will maintain the look of the concrete while suspending dust and dirt particles and cleaning away grime.
We recommend CreteClean Plus or LS Klean by Prosoco
Tools and Pads for Cleaning, Scrubbing and Maintaining Polished Concrete
When dry mopping it is extremely important to use very soft pads or high-quality microfiber pads. If this choice is neglected it could result in potential scratches showing up in the concrete. Is this occurs, A high speed burnishes may be required.
Dry mopping should be scheduled daily.
Ideally, wet mopping is something that would also happen on a regular basis. This is important when used in an area that may have grease, oils, or acidic material or foods falling on the floor.
Make sure these spills are cleaned immediately or by the end of the day, depending on the location and severity. Unfortunately, depending on the stain guard and density, concrete can be highly sensitive to high or low ph materials. Like with dry mopping, it is important to wet mot with an equally soft, high-quality mop head in order to prevent scratches.
Auto Scrubbing, while not always necessary, can present a faster and more thorough cleaning job over wet mopping. It will help with oil and grease clean up better than hand mopping and can scrub the pores in a more efficient manner.
With the proper knowledge and training, polished concrete is very easy to maintain and is a very good flooring option. Unique to each concrete slab, each floor will have its own aggregate, coloring pattern, and shine.
It is important to take care of your floor to avoid future, potentially costly repairs. If regular, long term, maintenance jobs is something you are interested in sub-contracting out to professionals, Southland Concrete Creations has team members that have specialized training in treatment, repair and preventative maintenance of polished concrete floors.