Chemical-free stripping is perhaps one of the most welcomed innovations in hard floor maintenance. After all, who looks forward to the messy, smelly task of floor stripping and refinishing?
Here are five key points that any facility manager should know about chemical-free stripping:
- “Chemical-free stripping” is not a technically correct description. Floor stripping means breaking down the existing floor finish and removing the old finish down to the floor surface so a new finish can be applied. During chemical-free stripping, an abrasive pad physically grinds and pulverizes the finish for removal. It is not chemically breaking the bond or cross-linking of the polymer and metal in the finish chemistry, thus enabling complete removal.
- “Orbital Scrub and Re-coat” is a more accurate description for “chemical-free stripping.” The industry is moving towards calling this process “orbital scrub and re-coating” which better describes the process. Abrasive, rectangular pads are applied to the backing pad on orbital scrubbers or orbital floor machines. The motion, speed, and weight of the device removes the layers of finish through abrasion.
- Since floors are uneven, a flat orbital pad cannot reach low areas. If floors had perfectly smooth surfaces, a flat pad would be more effective. However, floors have low areas where finish can remain when using an orbital floor machine with flat pads.
- Water doesn’t break the surface tension or address finish in low areas. We see better results by using a neutral cleaner at a dilution rate of 1:256 on your orbital scrubber with abrasive pads. The cleaner chemically breaks the surface tension and removes soils and other chemical compounds that cannot be done with water alone.
- Get “double-duty” from your equipment. Using a scrubber with abrasive pads enables use of the machine for orbital scrub and re-coating and everyday scrubbing.
>Read the White Paper on Orbital Scrubbing and Re=Coating by Multi-Clean
> Read more about the Pacific S-28 Orbital Scrubber, which can be used for dry, “chemical-free stripping” or with our recommended “wet” orbital scrub and recoating procedure.
> Watch this video on features of the Pacific S-28 Orbital Scrubber
