Whether it's revamping an old space
or bringing a classic floor back to life,
watch as three professionals tackle age, neglect,
and misuse that have produced
some of the dirtiest and stickiest floors.
Kate Dear, the CEO of Fêtewell, walks us through
how she deep cleans a bank floor made in 1908.
It hasn't been touched in seven years,
and she's revamping the space into a wedding venue.
She found the tile under the carpet
during an asbestos inspection
and decided to deep clean it
so it could be part of the new space.
The carpet is very thick and therefore heavy,
so the first thing she does
is get the carpet off and let the tile breathe.
The carpet glue was the thickest she'd ever encountered
and completely covered the tile underneath.
The moisture and heat from the steam
are some of the only things
that would seep through the glue to loosen it.
After she hits it with the steamer,
she scrapes it up and starts sanding the top layer,
where the glue stained the tile with a yellow haze.
She adds Zep floor stripper, which liquefies the glue
so she's able to scrape it up with a blade.
When areas of the carpet glue
become really tough to remove,
she puts down a marble polish
to help buff out those sections.
The floor is old and uneven, so her team needs to use
a bristle-brush attachment to get the steam in.
Then the team seals the tile to protect it for the future.
Kosta Ebanoidze, the owner of
Pinnacle Stone Restoration, walks us through
how his team deep cleans terrazzo floors
that are over 100 years old.
Parts of the terrazzo floors were hidden under carpet
and discovered as the room was being renovated.
The most difficult part of this clean
is carpet and glue removal.
He removes the carpets with electric scraping machines
and the carpet glue with handheld scrapers.
Kosta removes the glue by hand
because it keeps the temperature low,
which helps the glue come out more easily
from the terrazzo.
Grinding the terrazzo floors helps to flatten
and even out the surface.
Then he moves on to the honing process,
which cleans and polishes off
the scratches left behind by the grinding process.
He starts polishing using a 1,500-grit diamond pad,
followed by 3,000 grit.
After that, he uses another system
that has much finer pads,
which make the terrazzo harder and more durable.
Then it's time to seal.
Kosta uses a sealer that seeps into the terrazzo
and protects it from stains.
Burnishing the floors helps the sealer
bring the terrazzo to its highest sheen.
Courtney Lee and his team
at Truman's Hardwood Floor Refinishing
tackle dark, muddy-looking floors.
They're covered with thick wax layers
resulting from DIY attempts at revitalizing wood floors.
The acrylic waxes from products
that are meant for short-term solutions
are extremely soft and don't harden up or cure.
They sit on top of the floors
instead of soaking in, allowing dirt, soil,
and any airborne contaminants to bond to them.
Courtney's team of floor technicians
specializes in wax removal from hardwood floors.
Floor refinishing requires sanding off existing coatings,
but it's difficult to do
with these layers of wax sitting on top
because the wax will likely clog up the sanders.
The team comes in to emulsify the wax,
which takes it back to a liquid form
and allows them to extract it from the floors.
Buildup like this usually happens
over the course of five to 20 years.
They spray the floors with an emulsifier
and let it sit for some time,
depending on the severity and amount of wax.
They do this section by section.
They follow up with extraction tools,
which remove the wax from the floors into the machine.
Depending on how much wax there is,
they repeat this two to three times.
The buffer runs as a low speed during this process.
There is a soft pad and a mesh screen on the bottom,
which comes in different grits.
The screen scratches off the old polyurethane
so the team can apply new polyurethane.
This is what seals and protects the hardwood floors
and is typically the final layer before the wax.
A splash guard is usually attached
to the buffer to keep the wax
from slinging onto the walls and baseboards.
In some cases, like here,
Courtney will scrape off the wax by hand.
He does this when there is too much buildup on the floor.
He'll scrape up as much as possible
to prevent the wax from clogging up
the vacuums in their machines
and then remove the residual as normal.
Once Courtney removes the wax,
the floor is back to its bare, original state.
In some cases, depending on what the homeowners want to do,
he'll apply a new layer of polyurethane to finish the job.