How to Guide

How to Clean and Maintain Floors

Want to know how to clean and maintain floors? There are three basic stages to effectively maintaining wooden and polished hard floors.

Stripping Old Polish

1. Use a dust mop or dust-roll to clean floor of all dry debris, and ensure floor is already clean. Use a scraper to remove any secured debris ie: chewing gum.
2. Mix 1Part Thunder Strip with 4 parts hot water.
3. Slosh on floor with cotton mop or watering can.
   Hot Tip: Do not apply stripper solution with a ride–on floor scrubber. This may create a sludgy mess!
4. Leave 10 minutes to soften old polish.
5. Rub or scrub built-up old polish with Black or Emerald pad under a Floor Machine.
   Hot Tip: Use hand scouring pad or doodle-bug on build-up in comers and edges, or the red “inner-pad” piece.
   Hot Tip: Using a rag on a shoe may also work well also.
6. Pick up loosened dirt and old polish with cotton mop or wet-and-dry vacuum. Using a window cleaning blade is also useful to get polish debris out of corner areas.
   Hot Tip: Using a wet and dry vacuum will significantly decrease labour time to clean up.
7. With clean fresh water and clean cotton mop, rinse off floor.
   Hot Tip: Using hot water assists open the floor surface pores, and adds heat to the floor surface, reducing the dry time prior to adding the first coat of polish.
   Hot Tip: Add vinegar to the hot water (Half a cup (100mls) to 10LTRS) to help ensure the surfaces are pH neutral (pH = 7.0).
8. Visually check surfaces for any missed spots, and return to step (3) if required.
   Hot Tip: Number of coats on the original floor generally equals the number of times needed to strip the old polish off.
9. Leave to dry thoroughly.  Spot check surfaces by wetting slightly and touching with Litmus paper to ensure surfaces are pH neutral (pH = 7.0).
10. Dried floor may be buffed with Red Pad to finish.

Sealing & Polishing

1. Pour 1 litre of undiluted Lightening Polish into very clean bucket
   Hot Tip: Placing a very clean suitably sized plastic bag inside the bucket can significantly reduce clean-up time.
2. Soak a very clean Rayon mop or Golden Glove into polish. Repeat 2 or 3 times to ensure mop is well soaked.
   Hot Tip: Polish can be applied directly to a static mop head with loop pile, rather than from a bucket. Tip sparingly directly onto static mop head using a filled 1LTR bottle for greater control.
3. Spread Lightening Polish thinly and evenly on floor (about same density as wet mopping a floor) in even low-pressure strokes in a backward and forward motion
4. Apply 3-5 THIN coats. Apply each coat at 90 degrees to the last (in opposite directions, allowing floor to dry thoroughly between coats). This should take approximately 15mins per coat, depending on humidity and temperature. Ensure the mop or applicator is kept damp while floor coats are drying. For an extra special finish buff each dried coat with WHITE pad prior to each new coat.
   Hot Tip: Use a polish dampened tea-towel to go under static mop head, between coats to prevent drying.
   Hot Tip: Never lay more than 5 coats in any 24hr period. Polish has too little time to totally cure.
5. When finished, wash all mops (including polish mop) out thoroughly in warm water, and allow to thoroughly dry.
6. Vacuum or static dust mop to remove any final dust from dry floor surface.
7. Surfaces can be lightly buffed with Red or White pad to finish.

Maintaining Polished Floors

Blue Skies Maintainer is the final step in knowing how to clean and maintain floors.

Wet Mopping

1. Use a dust-roll to clean floor of all dry debris, and ensure floor is clean. Use a scraper to remove any secured debris ie: chewing gum.
2. Mop as necessary using a clean mop with 2 plunges of Blues Skies Maintainer (50ml) per 10LTR bucket.
3. Wring mop out thoroughly and mop floor.
4. Change mopping water when dirty.
5. Leave to dry prior to use.

Spray Buffing

1. Use a dust-roll to clean floor of all dry debris, and ensure floor is clean. Use a scraper to remove any secured debris ie: chewing gum.
2. Add 2 plunges (60ml) Blues Skies Maintainer to a clean 1LTR spray bottle, and fill with water.
   Hot Tip: Mop with hot water before spray buffing to slightly soften polish.
3. Spray solution minimally directly onto floor treating and buffing 1 square meter at a time. Do not over-wet the floor.
   Hot Tip: Spray as a fine mist for more even and uniform coverage.
4. Dust mop or vacuum when dry afterward to remove any powder/dust residues.

The Outlook range is made by Chemical Solutions Ltd. Learn more about this Kiwi owned Cleaning Chemical manufacturer by visiting our website