Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: richy27 on February 15, 2010, 11:58:32 am
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Had a call out the blue today (dont even market hard floors) to clean some terracota flooring what system could i use what chems i expect its needs to be sealed. Not too fussed about doin the job but always like to find an answer when i dont know
Regards
Richard
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rich email me your number mate i'll give you a call ;)
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up date
its a spanish terracota floor
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Richard
not to long ago we did some Mexican 20x20 floor tiles with an efflorescence problem from an under ground old burst pipe and 20 year old Italian terracotta 20x20 floor tiles with good results.
both jobs full strip an re-seal inc efflorescence removal.
Im NO expert in this field at the minute but if you would any info or pics taking through the working processes then send me an e info@ability1975.co.uk
Ricky
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I have cleaned a number of stone and other hard floors successfully.
Terracotta is a clay tile and it is very easy to over sbrub the surface in an effort to clean it. If that happens, it becomes open faced and will aborb water and cleaning solution depending on how well it as sealed at the time of manufacture.
This happened on the last one I was involved with, (where I was hired labour and folowing a specification and under the instruction of an experienced expert), the net result was a new floor circa £12k. I know of two stone floor cleaning companies that generally avoid terracotta.
Sorry if this sounds negative - approach with caution.
Cheers
Mike
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Hi Richard
seems general good advice so far
the key is to test an area first .................. get as much information on the floor such as floor type, sealer used before, current maintenance used, damages, etc
the last guy was quite right to say many large and small companies will avoid this type of flooring.
generally most are okay simply to strip and clean using a soft brush and rotary
with a wet pick up, however if linseed has been used to seal, this cannot all be removed as most of the sealer will be deep in the tile because its so porous
it will have soaked up the sealer to some depth, but that is ok
the tile will be cleaner and all you do is top up with the same ie linseed, the same if it is a wax sealer or primer..
many companies now are going back to wax and primers away from the synthetic modern acrylics etc, as the acrylics have caused problems with the tile surface when being removed, and cause damage to the finish.
also the wax covers a multitude of imperfections of this type of cotto and helps to look uniform.
under no circumstances use very aggressive pads or brushes on smooth terracotta unless you want a large insurance claim, the top of the clay tile has a very fine soft layer that once removed will reveal a courser denser mix of clay that looks horrible as a finish, this tends to look like shadowing which looks ok when wet but aweful when dry and you will get a call back, but basically you will have removed the top layer.
So try a small area use a good alkali cleaner allow dwell time and a thorough rinse, if you get a good result check with custy and charge well, you will need de-humidifier for drying and several days or weeks before sealing, with like sealer that has already been used before.
hope this helps,
Karl
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Thanks lads going to have a look at it on thu on my way home will take a look and make my mind up maybe a case of quoting sky high to hope i dont get it.
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just an update quoted for the job a long time ago and kinda quoted because i didnt want to do it , but she accepted it. did the job this week while they were on holiday and they just called to say they were really happy with it. Phew.
cleaned using citrus concentrate used a brush nd rinsed with the tm and sealed with liberon hard floor clear wax and buffed to a shine.
big thanks to Jim and John kelly and others who gave me a advice.
must admit i was bricking it till they said they were happy.
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On a very similar note I have just had a porch installed. The floor to the porch is red terracotta tiles, these used to be outside so are well weathered but now they are inside I'd like to polish them up a bit and make them look nice.
The surface is rather dull..what should I use to polish/seal them?
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Glad to hear it went OK Rich 8)
It's funny, you do sweat a lot worrying about these jobs. There is an element of permanence... if you do one thing wrong it might not be reversible, unlike if you simply didn't clean a carpet well enough. A lot of risk rides along with you on some stone & tile jobs, although they're not quite as scary as you think after you get a few jobs under your belt :)
Just out of interest how did your £/hr work out compared to carpet cleaning? Remember to take off costs for materials/sealers etc. which can be quite high compared to CC which is a few pence worth of product mostly.
Calmore.. have a little read through similar topics on sealing quarry tiles, the search function should throw up a lot of info. Basically you'll probably be best with a penetrating sealer if they are absorbent and then if you want a shine to use a topical sealer, which will wear off and need maintaining time to time.