4 Easy Tips for  Maintaining Your Epoxy Floor Coating

Epoxy floors offer a polished, durable foundation for both commercial buildings and private dwellings. There are multitudes of epoxy floor coating benefits for industrial purposes. While epoxy is tough, it isn’t indestructible.

Investing time to keep your epoxy floors clean can save you the trouble of getting a new coat and will allow you to enjoy its neat gloss for a longer time. To keep your floors looking and functioning their best, here are four easy tips for maintaining your epoxy floor coating.

1. Sweep and Vacuum Often

Dust, scratches, and buildup are enemies of epoxy floors. Fortunately, you can easily combat these if you sweep your floors daily. Professional epoxy coaters generally advise giving an epoxy floor a good sweep every day to keep the dirt under control. Vacuum cleaning or hoovering is also suitable and recommended for maintaining epoxy floors.

If your epoxy floor is in a high-traffic area or industrial site, you may need to sweep more often to prevent damage to your building’s flooring. Alternatively, consider placing mats or some other surface coverage over such areas.

2. Jump on Stains

Although the epoxy coating is resistant to water, it is crucial to clean up various spills without delay. Concrete is porous, so it stains easily, but the epoxy coating seals pores, making concrete resistant to staining. Still, it does not make your floors impervious to damage.

If you spill anything on your epoxy floor coating, be sure you clean the stain immediately. Then, check to see if the substance has damaged the coating. If it has, work with a professional coater to reseal the tarnished area.

What are the possible stain “threats” for epoxy?

• Grease
  If your epoxy coating has grease stains, you can clean them using trisodium phosphate. Be careful with applying all-purpose cleaners, though, some of them might be harmful to epoxy.
  
• Rust
  In case you find rust stains on your epoxy floor, it is safe to apply CLR rust remover for 1 minute and gently remove it. As long as you don’t scrub the floors intensively, the stain will come off easily, and you won’t leave scratches. Nonetheless, do not use harsh chemicals to remove rust on epoxy floors.
  
• Chemical spills or paint
  When chemicals are spilled on epoxy coating, applying a neutralizing agent as a first step is an optimal solution. Make sure not to approach chemical spills with water before using the neutralizing agent, as you can face an unwanted chemical reaction. Remove the liquid that remains with a rubber or foam cloth.
  
• Vehicle liquids
  There are common cases when various fluids from cars or other vehicles leak on epoxy floors. These could be break liquid, car oil, gasoline, antifreeze, or other chemicals. Do your best to remove such stains as quickly as you can. You can use something as simple as paper towels. Once again, a neutralizing agent can come in handy.
  
• Tire marks
  Tire marks can look bad on epoxy floors. So, to remove them, you can soak concrete degreaser and then wipe them off.
  

3. Mop Regularly

It isn’t difficult to clean epoxy-coated floors. With a mild water and ammonia solution, you can likely remove everyday grime from your flooring and increase the lifespan of the coating. Before you mop epoxy floors, however, be sure you test a small area to see how it will react to the cleaning agent you choose to use. Choose in favor of soft mops, preferably of microfiber.

Note that floor cleaners that are soap-based aren’t the best choice for epoxy. If you do opt for using soap, make sure that it is soft. Otherwise, you can end up damaging the surface.

4. Use Protective Items

Finally, to keep your epoxy floor in great shape, be careful about any items you place on it. If you have heavy machinery or furniture, you may choose to use a protective mat. Likewise, if your flooring is susceptible to high heat, flames, or chemicals, be sure you place a protective layer between the source and the floor.

By following these four simple tips, you should be able to keep your epoxy floors looking great and functioning optimally. PPD Painting has the expertise to install and service epoxy-coated floors. Contact us today to learn more about this attractive, versatile, and durable flooring option.

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