These photographs are taken from an old Terrazzo floor in the kitchen of a house in the busy market town of Oakham, Rutland. The floor was looking rather grubby and now overdue a deep clean to remove dirt and grease from the floor and being a hard polished stone it would also need to be burnished to restore the appearance of the Terrazzo.

Stripping the Terrazzo Tiled Floor

To resolve we deep cleaned the floor by applying a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which was left to soak in for a good fifteen minutes before being worked in using a rotary machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad. The cleaning solution soon became soiled as the dirt was lifted out of the floor and this was removed with a wet vacuum and the floor then rinsed with water.

The next step was to strip back the surface of the Terrazzo so it could be polished. This is done using a set of diamond encrusted burnishing pads which come in a set of four grades from Coarse to Super Fine. We started with the coarse pad which can remove dirt, sealers and other coatings before moving onto the medium, fine and super fine pads which polish the floor and bring up the surface. The pads use a little water which needs to be rinsed away after each pad followed by a thorough rinse at the end of the process.

At this stage we would normally wait for the floor to dry and then seal it using a product recommended for the particular surface, location and desired appearance however on this occasion the owner was happy to leave the floor the way it was so we were able to complete the job in a single day.