Question- Help needed...VCT/tile job

[David A]

Air was more for me than the floor I think.... Building temp will be high.


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Air temp/humidity could be a real problem. Air movers can only be done when directed away from the finish. But that won't solve temp or humidity issues. At 100 degrees, you might have big problem with the setting-up of any product. Your floor job could possibly turn to crap. You really need to consult your supplier.

 

[Cleaning Concierge]

To use air movers to aid in drying a finish...place at a 45 angle to the floor or on a chair. DO NOT PLACE AT FLOOR LEVEL. This will calls waves, runs and ripples in the finish.

High humidity and lack of air circulation will increase the drying time.

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[ANDY2012]

We usually don't clean VCT tiles so pardon the question/s.
We have a customer who want us to strip/ clean/ seal and wax a small 200sq ft section of really old (30 yr old tile) floor. Apparently the contractor who did a remodel sealed a dirty floor before cleaning all thecuff marks he made while working. Here is my plan and let me know if I am missing anything. Also the wax needs to be a commercial non-slip wax... Lastly what is a typical price for doing all those steps? It is an insurance job but want to be fair at the same time. Is there anything that is excessive? Advice appreciated....

1. Apply liquid floor stripper -Dwell time----------- 10 to 15 min.
2. Agitate with 175 and - some type of pad? What color and type (_Black 3m best one ive used is High Productivity Pad 7300
3. Extract with my tile spinner while neutralizing (I would recomend a wet dry vac if you can rent or buy on , much faster.We mop (rinse) the floor twice after we pick up with the wet dry vac to ensure all resedue is removed.

1. Dry out floors apply sealer, dry then wax? Dry with fans air flow hitting the floor ok.
2. Apply _Betco or Diversey as metion before,No need of sealer (fill in the blank) Sealer and wax? Combo? Separate?
3. Buff out? No need of buff if you want you need to wait at least 24 hrs before you buff.
4. collect check and Angie's List testimony ok

Hope this helps

 

[ANDY2012]

To use air movers to aid in drying a finish...place at a 45 angle to the floor or on a chair. DO NOT PLACE AT FLOOR LEVEL. This will calls waves, runs and ripples in the finish.

High humidity and lack of air circulation will increase the drying time.

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Super correct

 

[FastFinish]

Progress.... Other than having to walk in and out while scrubbing leaving foot prints the stripping process went fairly well. The one experiment I tried was using the rotovac 360 with a black pad instead of my 175. I know that most people would never try it but I said why not? It actually did very well do to the small size of the room. Black scuffs came up as did the old sealer and wax.
So in case if anyone wants to know....
Right now we have the first coat if wax on it waiting to apply the second.

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[FastFinish]

Here was the before..., I should mention they use this area for Irish clogging warm ups, so the tile is beat to death and has nicks and dings all over it.

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[FastFinish]

Pull the tape and paper .... Done!
Started at 8:30am... Finished at 2:00
I am thinking not " efficient" but we took it on for the experience and 4 bills..,watching paint dry can get spendy....

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[Joe Kennedy]

Looks good congrats!


TMF Big Belly Crew Founder

 

[Cleaning Concierge]

Nice!

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[FastFinish]

I have a couple questions left over from the job-
1-The black scrub pads loaded up on one side for both the rotovac and the doodle bug... Do people just toss these or can they be cleaned out somehow?
2- when stripping and cleaning are people utilizing two pairs of shoes and walk off mats?or just bounties or ?
3- how do you know if you removed all the prior sealer on the floor? Visual?
4- after wax is completely cured is it recommended to buff out or burnish to finish it


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[Cleaning Concierge]

I have a couple questions left over from the job-
1-The black scrub pads loaded up on one side for both the rotovac and the doodle bug... Do people just toss these or can they be cleaned out somehow?

You can rinse out the black pad during a job especially a 3M pad. Use both sides before tossing.

Clean with hot water and a hose at the janitor's sink

2- when stripping and cleaning are people utilizing two pairs of shoes and walk off mats?or just bounties or ?
1 pair of shoes. You can buy stripping shoes that have black pads under them.

If you have to walk to different areas...place cardboard, drop clothes or walk off mats down

3- how do you know if you removed all the prior sealer on the floor? Visual?

All tile should look dull and whitish in appearance. No shining spots.

4- after wax is completely cured is it recommended to buff out or burnish to finish it
Can buff or burnish after 72 hours...most times not needed.

After you apply your first coat, only walk on the floor with socks only...no shoes.
Give the floor an extra 10-15 minutes between coats even with air movers.

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[ebarnett]

All of the bove info is good stuff, after hundreds of jobs you will learn some tricks of the trade that will really help out. For example, use "shoes for crews" they do well at being slip resistant so you dont break your neck. Always use air movers, you can direct them directly at the waxed floor, just set them back 5 ft from the wax and start them at a low setting, after a few moments turn them up on high. if your wax is rippling because of them, its because your coat is too heavy. More light coats are better and dry faster than less heavy coats.

 

[LarryJones]

I have learned alot from you guys posting here in this thread. After cleaning the carpets in one of my commercial accounts the other night, I was requested to do their VCT. Now after reading your posts here, I feel much better about proceeding with this VCT job. Thank you guys!

 

[Decker]

I have learned alot from you guys posting here in this thread. After cleaning the carpets in one of my commercial accounts the other night, I was requested to do their VCT. Now after reading your posts here, I feel much better about proceeding with this VCT job. Thank you guys!

I think I may have just picked up 2000 sq ft of vct in 7 areas to strip and wax. came here to brush up. thanks!

 

[FastFinish]

Helpful thread this has been.


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[FastFinish]

I waited 1/2 hour between each wax coating.. A lot of forum time and picture taking...


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[davenjai]

I waited 1/2 hour between each wax coating.. A lot of forum time and picture taking...


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2 bucks a foot was a great price. Small wax jobs are the worst. On big ones you can go back and start laying the next coat as it dried by the time you got to the other side. How long the first coat takes determines the whole job. We had one that took 4 hours, it was depressing!lol


On a bigger job, just watch the reflection. You can see it dry. Then wait 10 minutes more and do a walk through to make sure corners and "holes" are dry. Holes are dead end hallways, the back bathroom stall etc. They always dry last. If you start to hear sticking sounds when walking, back out and wait some more. Always wax the holes first and have something to prop the bathroom doors open.

Unless you are doing a one coat seal only, always keep the coats thin. Keep a wet edge just like when painting, but keep the coats as thin as possible. Many floors have dips, dents or low spots and you can end up waiting for a LONG time on them drying.

 

[FastFinish]

I got lucky on my first one.. Got a good price, small job, open area, one room, good ventilation, and no one to watch me screw it up if I had happened to make a mistake. The down side was I spent 4 slow hours doing it, mostly because I wanted to and needed to experience it. Taping off the baseboards took some time and I used my TM tile wand to clean it up rather than a wet dry vac, which I am told would be much faster? Not sure about it being faster? I used 1000 psi and heat to make sure no residue stripper was left on the floor. ( pretty sure I nailed that part)...


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[matt7]

It has painted baseboards, so I am assuming I need to tape them off while scrubbing? And since I don't normally do this type of floors I was just going to use product from HD. Zep stripper, sealer, lastly the high gloss floor finish with a no slip coat of wax afterwards.. ( because she requested non- slip coat?


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Don't listen to people telling you those Zep products are no good, they are very good in fact and I have used them in extremely high traffic buildings with better success then wax's costing twice the price. I used the High Traffic Zep stuff not the more expensive High Gloss one. That cheaper high traffic stuff is still some of the most shiny wax I have used, it burnishes up really good but looks decent even off the mop. I hate sealer and agree with those saying it is not needed. Whenever sealer was requested and I was unable to talk the customer out of it I just bought a wax/sealer combo to speed things up. Also most commercial wax is anti-slip, a lot of custy's don't know what they want or need but pretend they do.

Beware of using tape on painted base boards! I have done that and when the sealer hits the tape it is like it super glues to the paint and then it will lift the paint when you peel it (depending on type of paint and surface it is over)

The last couple years we went away from stripper completely...... A cup of that Zep All purpose degreaser (the green stuff) per 2 gals of room temp water scrubbed with a green pad works far better then stripper and doesn't cause all the edge issues and other secondary damage that conventional strippers do.

 

[FastFinish]

Wow on the zep. I know someone who works for them and I still used the local janitor supply for this first job. I had 4 gallons of stripper already on hand I got at a close out from interlink for $20 a year ago. You can utilize stripper on certain concrete stains if it has SH in it and we mostly do concrete. The zep degreaser has SH in it so it is basically the same think. I also carry SH, SB, and Ox in raw powdered form so I can make any strength of pre- spray, needed for just about any circumstance.
I have been developing my own personal cookbook of recipes for cleaning surfaces. There are base chemicals that are used in everything sold commercially...


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