FAQs - Specialty Antique Brick Floor

Q - Jim,

I have a valuable customer who purchases quite a few services from us each year.

We clean thousands of $$ worth of Orientals each year, and just completed a $2,000 duct job for her.

She has a kitchen floor that is constructed using the bricks of demolished French Cottages. The grout is mortar. The bricks are red. She thinks they were sealed when installed 10 or so years ago.

Your thoughts on cleaning this stuff, please.

Secondly. I have a question regarding successful commercial tile and grout cleaning being done. Is anyone using high speed t&g equipment? (Seems I recall seeing a dual head spinner somewhere).

Thanks
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A - Customers like her make up for the nickle and dime ones who demand champagne service for beer pricing.

Your should be able to clean the brick just like ceramic tile. Here is my only concern: Efflorescence. Do you remember the grout lines in the assembly hall you and I worked on where we needed acid to correct the white haze in the grout?

Some types of brick do that all over the brick, not the grout. No real way to know ahead of time.

So I'd look at trying to first clean it with a milder tile product (Spinergy 7) and a floor scrubber, followed by a clear water rinse with your SX12. If the brick is very uneven, it may need wet vacuumed with a floor attachment with a flexible squeegee head.

If that doesn't clean it, prespray with Spinergy 11, but do not allow more than about 5 minutes of dwell time before rinsing in the same fashion with the SX12, but now you can run Spinergy 7 through the machine.

If there is any efflorescence after it dries, try to remove it dry with a green pad run "dry" on a scrubber. If that doesn't work, try Viper Renew, but pretest to make sure it doesn't etch the brick so badly that it gets a washed out look.

Obviously you want a release.

We have nothing larger for T & G cleaning. If there is, be aware of the need to limit jet size so that you don't get pressure and volume loss on your machine.

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Q - Jim,

The "dry green pad" is totally new to me. Can you elaborate on that. Also, what else are green pads used for. How are they as to aggressiveness compared to other colored pads.

Thanks

A - The green pad is usually used for scrubbing of tile floors without stripping. Both it and the slightly less aggressive blue pad are used for this purpose. The next more aggressive is the brown pad for light stripping. The next less aggressive (after blue) is the red pad.

Using the green pad "dry" simply means you apply no moisture to the surface, but just use the pad to aggressively brush off the mineral residue. By adding no water, you don't get any more efflorescence.