[colin jones]

Hi
What advice could I get for cleaning a white terazzo floor?
I clean a communal stairwell fortnightly, and the ground floor and first run of stairs take a battering with traffic, and being white terazzo shows up everything. The factor had the floor deep cleaned last year, with the company who did it supposedly sealing the surface.
But the way I see it, as the terazzo is porous, even changing the water several times seems to build up grime. 
Your thoughts appreciated.

Colin

[blacksheep]

hi colin, terrazzo is mainly marble chips and add to polyester or cement resin matrix.it can be damaged by harsh alkaline materials, salt sand, or totaly striped by a bottol of archers lol if you want to clean it use plain water in a scrubber drier, and to deep clean double scrub with blue pads. to get rid of stains you will have to dimond grind the floor,do this over a few days or a speed stripper will remove stains

[David Lauder]

Colin - blacksheep has explained what terrazzo is, and I would simply qualify this by saying I generally treat it as a marble floor. What can happen with a cement terrazzo is the cement wears away over time and dirt fills the holes that remain - the solution is to
1. Thorough deep clean and scrub, but this may involve harsh cleansers that could damage the remaining marble chips
2. Regrind the floor to a honed or polished finish - this will leave the floor smooth once more giving dirt nowhere to hide.

I would go for 2 as it is better in the long term.

As for sealing - well, for a cement terrazzo, if you think the floor will be affected by spills then apply an impregnator. If it is simply a walkway then don't bother - a sealer will not help to keep the floor clean!

Hope this helps

[blacksheep]

  as usual should have explained better

[colin jones]

Cheers, just need to convince factor to spend some dosh!

Colin