Strip & Wax Services
There are many types of vinyl flooring that require regular strip & wax services, not only for the sake of their appearance but to protect and maintain them.
What Does a Strip & Wax Entail?
While, in some ways, the name says it all, few people are personally familiar with how a strip and wax actually works. So that you understand exactly what will take place, we’ll outline the process in order here.
- All areas to be stripped will be cleaned thoroughly to remove all grit and prevent any scratches that might otherwise occur on the vinyl flooring.
- A chemical stripper will be applied to the wax that needs to be removed. This dissolves the solid wax into a liquid, as well as liberating any entrapped particles of dirt or detritus.
- The chemical stripper will be sucked up off the floor along with any particles that were embedded in the wax.
Read More
- The stripped vinyl may need to be mopped or wiped down to remove any remaining stripper residue. If any stripper remains, the wax will not set properly.
- The perfectly clean floor is then sealed and waxed in layers. Usually, no fewer than three total layers, but upon request, we can provide several additional layers to enhance the protection of the floor. This can be a good strategy to counter the harsh treatment floors get during a Maine winter.
- After several hours (preferably a full day), the floor will be dry, set, and ready to take on the milling masses once more!
Depending on the size of the area being worked on, this may be done all at once, or we may need to strip and wax some areas or rooms before others. We will consult with you on the best way to implement your strip and wax before we get started.
How Often Do You Need a Strip and Wax?
This is a question we get often, and, unfortunately, how often you need a strip and wax depends entirely upon how much traffic your floors see on a given day. In the highest traffic areas of a large building, it’s conceivable that monthly strip & wax services may be necessary to maintain the floor’s appearance and protection. Conversely, lightly tread areas like storage closets may not need to be stripped and waxed more than once every couple of years to maintain their appearance and protection.
Due to the substantial variability in needs, we like to include this service in contracts on an as-needed basis as an add-on or build a certain number of these services per year into our long-term contracts. This helps give us the flexibility to respond to the real-world situation rather than relying on our best guess ahead of time.
What Happens When Vinyl Floors Don’t Get Regularly Stripped And Waxed?
While there aren’t any issues with pushing back this vital floor maintenance by a week or a month, there are serious consequences to putting it off indefinitely, all of which are far more expensive than proper maintenance. Here are a few of the important consequences of not properly maintaining your vinyl floors, in order from most immediate to most long-term consequences.
- Your floors will look dirty, even when they’re clean
- Scratches will accumulate and make your floor look bad even when it’s totally clean
- The wax protecting your floor will wear away, making the vinyl susceptible to permanent stains, deep scratches, and other damage
- Corners of vinyl tiles will peel up, crack, or break off entirely
- Your subfloor may become vulnerable to water damage and direct damage
To keep these things from happening and maintain your vinyl floor for the long term, make sure to include at least biannual strip and waxing for your floors with Brenda’s Best Cleaning.