Well either someone installed the vct upside down or you guys scrubbed the hell out of the vct resulting in dust from the tile suface. Is this new vct flooring or old?
Cleaning of new VCT
Hello all,
My company is cleaning a school which has a lot of VCT tile installed. My problem is getting it cleaned. We have mopped it, Vaccuumed it, and scrubbed it with a low speed scrubber. It looks clean but if you wipe your hand accross it you will have a white dust on it. How can I get this cleaned? Someone had told me to rent a walk behind floor scrubber and another person told me to use a dust mop after doing the scrubbing. Any help would be great. Thanks,
Johnnie
My company is cleaning a school which has a lot of VCT tile installed. My problem is getting it cleaned. We have mopped it, Vaccuumed it, and scrubbed it with a low speed scrubber. It looks clean but if you wipe your hand accross it you will have a white dust on it. How can I get this cleaned? Someone had told me to rent a walk behind floor scrubber and another person told me to use a dust mop after doing the scrubbing. Any help would be great. Thanks,
Johnnie
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I've installed a lot of VCT and have never had to clean extensively. Installed, sweep, done. I have to agree with slowforthecones, sounds to me like it may have been installed upside down. A lot of VCT looks the same on both sides, but one side has a "glaze". Looks like installer error.
Its new VCT. I have had the same result on more then one job. Today I got down to really look at it and it looks like dirt in "pors" of the tile. Someone told me to use a high speeed buffer with a white pad and water. He think I scrubbed the dirt out but also the surface of the tile. Thanks for the help
************************************Its new VCT. I have had the same result on more then one job. Today I got down to really look at it and it looks like dirt in "pors" of the tile. Someone told me to use a high speeed buffer with a white pad and water. He think I scrubbed the dirt out but also the surface of the tile. Thanks for the help
New VCT in a school should have 3-5 coats of wax at a minimum before being subjected to normal school activities (or even minor construction traffic). If you're just washing and buffing the factory coat that sucker is a goner and now you're just making dust of the VCT as that person advised. The dirt in the pores now needs to be scrubbed out, the factory finish needs to be stripped off and an entire new finish applied. That's going to be an expensive proposition.
RUN AWAY!!!!!
I agree, sounds like it was installed upside down. If so, no way to clean or seal.
there may be a way to fix your situation.
nyone heard of glosstex or a epoxy type sealant. If your vct stil has a pattern but is damaged, you can coat this type of sealant over it...then on top finish it with a wax or floor sealant.
nyone heard of glosstex or a epoxy type sealant. If your vct stil has a pattern but is damaged, you can coat this type of sealant over it...then on top finish it with a wax or floor sealant.
VCT is not expensive unless this is non-stocked special order tiles..you can buy vct at 39 cents a square ft and install new vct. Hope you did not use too much glue on the floor otherwise your removal of the bad vct is going to be very labor intensive. Even with a powered floor scrapper.
It sounds as though you are installing vct upside down, you can easily tell one side of vct is glossy and the other is not.....
It sounds as though you are installing vct upside down, you can easily tell one side of vct is glossy and the other is not.....
************************************VCT is not expensive unless this is non-stocked special order tiles..you can buy vct at 39 cents a square ft and install new vct. Hope you did not use too much glue on the floor otherwise your removal of the bad vct is going to be very labor intensive. Even with a powered floor scrapper.
It sounds as though you are installing vct upside down, you can easily tell one side of vct is glossy and the other is not.....
I've spent my whole life handling this stuff. When tiles go in upside-down you can sometimes only notice the mistake by standing back 8-10 feet and looking at it from a low angle. Where they've put substantial finish on the product you FEEL the wax on your fingers and see it as well as the tiles slip through your hands. Guess what? Tiles with wax on them slip in MUCH faster than the tiles where the manufacturer is SKIMPING on the old family recipe by cutting down on the spray. They stick together out of the box and slow down your production significantly.
With a premium quality VCT like Armstrong, clean and respectable site conditions and proper lighting your comments are correct. You won't mistake the top from the bottom of a tile because there's a clear shine to the factory finish applied only to the top of the VCT. However under the poor lighting conditions that are the norm in construction today it's not so simple as you presume. I'll give you a piece of low end garbage VCT in a filthy, dark, cold room to install and see how quickly you can determine the top from the bottom. Now try that with 25K square feet with a deadline to meet. Some tiles go in upside down. My experience is that 3-5 coats of wax will hide the error 99% of the time.
In conclusion, you may have installed some tiles upside-down but were that the case you would see that clearly from a distance. I can't even imagine how you might lay a whole jobsite upside-down so let's just rule that out.
Issue resolved
Hello everyone that responded. I found the issue. Just mopping the new VCT wasnt good enough. I used a low speed scrubber with a red pad and it scrubbed the crap out of it which is why i had a white dust and not a grey duct anymore. I purchesed a walk behind high speeed scrubber and it cleaned it perfectly. I went ahead and waxed the floors and they look nice. Thanks for all the help everyone. You guys gave me some real good info for the future.
Hello everyone that responded. I found the issue. Just mopping the new VCT wasnt good enough. I used a low speed scrubber with a red pad and it scrubbed the crap out of it which is why i had a white dust and not a grey duct anymore. I purchesed a walk behind high speeed scrubber and it cleaned it perfectly. I went ahead and waxed the floors and they look nice. Thanks for all the help everyone. You guys gave me some real good info for the future.
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