Natural Stone Maintenance and Restoration: Keeping Your Terrazzo Floors Beautiful

Terrazzo is back again as the subject of this blog, partly because we at Sungloss Marble Restoration truly enjoy taking care of it. We also have seen some abused terrazzo floors and under-educated maintenance staff in the field, so we thought it would be a good idea to revisit some terrazzo basics.

We recently came across a couple excellent white papers on terrazzo maintenance and restoration, one from the University of Florida IFAS Extension, and one from the GSA. Both go into nice detail on excellent methods and practices Sungloss incorporated over 20 years ago when our natural stone maintenance, cleaning, honing, polishing, and sealing company was founded. Both white papers can be found here (U of Florida) and here (GSA).

The basics:

Terrazzo is a floor made up of marble chips mixed with cement (or newer materials like epoxy or urethane), honed flat and usually polished. 70% or more of the surface is made up of exposed marble. It’s relatively durable and stain-resistant which is why many public buildings like high rise condominiums, hospitals, banks, and government buildings use terrazzo flooring; however, it can start to look really grungy if not maintained properly.

Best and worst practices:

Terrazzo is best maintained by cleaning with neutral stone cleaner, grease and dirt-free mops, and frequent dust-mopping. Installations of carpet runners are highly recommended in high traffic lobbies. Occasional re-honing, polishing, and sealing are necessary, based on the amount of foot traffic in specific areas. The worst way to handle terrazzo is to wax it. The wax will eventually eat away at the edges of the floor, and also bleach the colors and make the finish look uneven.

Sungloss Marble Maintenance adds value to our clients by providing high quality terrazzo maintenance at very value-conscious rates to match our clients’ wishes in this recovering economy.