Protecting Your Capital Investment by Preventing Floor Failures By Using Right Cleaning Chemistry Buy StoneClean Online with PayPal

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(Free-Press-Release.com) November 16, 2009 -- Protecting Your Capital Investment by Preventing Floor Failures

How can Hotels help ensure they get a longer life from their tile and stone flooring?

Many companies are jumping on the bandwagon of finding out why some flooring installations are failing and costing thousands of dollars to tear out and replace. Flooring ,is no doubt ,one of your biggest capital investments. With increasingly sophistication methods and tools now available for recognizing and addressing vapor emission and moisture problems, there is an ever-growing awareness of these “down-up” problems of moisture in construction and related industries. The result is that owners and contractors increasingly assume that these “must” be the cause of tile, stone, and VCT failures.
There are other widespread causes of hard surface flooring failures that are little understood, therefore often overlooked. These are the “up-down” (moisture flow direction) problems that are fortunately quite easy and relatively inexpensive to solve by proper protection of the surface at the time of installation, and proper maintenance on an ongoing basis.

Addressing the “up-down” moisture problems at any time in the life of a floor can often also prevent premature floor failures! Ignoring this possible cause of floor failures is to close ones eyes and just hope for the best with your investments. Also just hoping to find that right products to use can be a challenge in itself.
Consider that any seamed, grouted or damaged floor is subject to various types of contamination seeping through junctures to the base substrate. Soap and detergent residues, stripping and cleaning agents, oils, salts and acids can all create conditions for lifting and buckling of hard surface floors.

Many common cleaners use a variety of inexpensive compounds that make the cleaners appear to be highly effective but these compounds can cause severe damage to the flooring adhesive or to the base substrate when they seep into junctures. This is especially true for the popular new low-VOC trowel adhesives that all become brittle and are easily broken down by these chemistries.
• Popular citrus – based cleaners contain a product called d-Limonene, a petroleum related product that over time will break down adhesives and concrete. (just soak either in petroleum and it will eventually turn to mush)
• Acidic cleaners that flow through junctures will slowly create an environment that when re-wetted can cause concrete and all cementitious products to powder This powder layer will eventually “lift” as it becomes less and less homogeneous to the substrate.

• High pH strippers(especially those with high amounts of potassium or sodium phosphates) and/or dirty water that seeps in and remain trapped under the flooring material can wreak havoc. Spaces below the flooring (and especially spaces between the rubber backing of small bathroom tiles) are ideal sites for mold growth from these contaminates. As mold take hold and begins to grow, it takes up increasing amounts of space, and starts the process of delamination. While many anti-microbial products are helpful, all have a short effective life, and any interruption in treatments will allow mold growth the re-start.
Preventing penetration of adverse chemistries into junctures along with the use of non-damaging advanced – technology cleaners and strippers can prevent failures of new installations and stop deterioration of existing installations.

The use of cleansers that can actually “float” the contamination “up and out” is important . The vast majority only break ”down” the contamination and down is the wrong direction! The chemistries must also not be harsh to even sensitive substrates like polished marble. The cleaning chemistry with this kind of floating action will make it easier to keep the floor grout looking clean and free of germs. Clean floor grouting can also help the guest feel assured that their floor is really clean.(they may ask management what kind of product they are using so they can clean their floors as well as the hotels’!) Important is that they can clean well without the use of harmful detergents or too high or low pH. Citrus cleaners also leave a sticky residue that can actually hasten re-soiling. Any residue left on the floor after cleaning can and often does provide a slip hazard when the floor becomes wet again. Avoiding residues to prevent slip fall incidents will save the hotel from potential lawsuits from such accidents. This is ever more important when caring for tile around the pool areas. Slippery when wet signs may not help you when they discover that the reason for add slickness was the cleaner being used by the hotel!
The most important place when cleaning chemistry can be helpful in protecting the capital investment is around the pool area and not just as mentioned above in preventing slip fall incidents.

Chlorine is the most popular choice of pool disinfection This can be problematic for a ceramic tile-clad pool assembly and walkway. Chlorine is also known as hypochlorous acid, and acidic chemicals can deteriorate cement based materials used to adhere and grout ceramic tile! Having a neutral based cleanser with a FDA approved anti-microbial like Vantocil IB, and have the ability to also breakdown oils and then float them to the surface will go a long way in keeping the pool area tile free from premature failure. The cleanser should also be salt free so as not to add more salts to the floor that could seep in through the junctures of the tile and grouting. Key to keeping the pool chemistry working is to keep the water clean and by keeping the pool deck free of body oils and other contaminations. This will help make the pool keepers job easier.

There are also pool source water concerns to contend with as well. Portland cement-based materials can be affected from water that is too high in sulfate. Levels above 320 ppm are potentially aggressive to cement based materials. If sodium bisulfate (dry acid) is added for pH correction, pool water sulfate levels are likely to be closer to 500 ppm. Sulfate levels in sodium hypochlorite disinfection systems will be even greater than calcium hypochlorite systems. Again the thought of having a cleaner that is neutral pH and can help float these extra salts up and out of the tile and grouting can be key to preserving the floors. It may sound like a broken record in this report but few cleansers can actually capture the oils and dirt and then float them up so the mop can take them away. It would be adding insult to injury if the cleanser to clean the pool area is one that uses either one of these potentially damaging chemistries!
To learn more about using the proper chemicals to clean with, please go to my web site at the bottom of the page. Click on Marble Shine Services and read about the StoneClean Concentrate line of cleansers!

More information can be found online at http://www.wellnesswaterandsalt.com

floor failures     grout cleaning     hotel investments     tile floor failures     tile replacement