Your beautiful terrazzo flooring may begin to lose its appeal due to unsightly cracks, sticky-dull marks, and holes. It may also become discolored due to UV light or acid stains from spills.
All this diminishes the beauty of your terrazzo floor and causes it to look worn, dirty, and old. This article will tell you how to refinish terrazzo floors and restore it’s beauty and glow.
Read: How to refinish pine floor
How To Refinish Terrazzo Floors
Table of Contents
Refinishing terrazzo floors is very easy and costs less if you were to replace the entire floor. If your terrazzo floor is discolored, chipped, or cracked terrazzo flooring, here’s the step by step procedure on how to refinish it;
Clean the Floor
Before you start the refinishing process, you need to prep the area, start by removing any furniture or coverings from the terrazzo surface.
Also, remove any adhesive residue and clean the floor with a neutral tile and stone cleaner solution. Cleaning the floor will help remove any old sealant or wax coating on the terrazzo surface.
Grinding
After cleaning the floor thoroughly, you need to grind it in order to achieve that high gloss shiny terrazzo floor; grinding the floor also helps to lighten any existing stains.
It is advised not to skip this step, many people tend to do so, but a proper mechanical diamond grind is highly required if you want to achieve great color clarity and a high gloss finish. Use a 400-pound planetary grinder to flatten your terrazzo surface; this will expose any minute floor damage areas that weren’t visible.
After grinding the entire terrazzo floor to make it visibly more detailed, switch to a grinder with a finer grit and continue grinding until you’ve achieved the level of detail and shine that you want.
If the stains remain on the surface after the diamond grinding process, apply a poultice on the floor to see if it’ll remove the stains out.
Fix Cracks and Holes On the Floor
If your terrazzo has some cracks and holes on your terrazzo flooring, you need to patch them up before polishing the surface. Use a color-tinted epoxy that matches the color of the marble chips on your terrazzo and cover up any damaged spot on your floor.
Apply a Sealant
After grinding your terrazzo floor and covering up any holes or cracks, you need to apply a sealant to protect against oil-based stains and moisture damage.
Applying a sealer will help to close off the pores within the terrazzo. This prevents anything from seeping into the floor and discoloring it. These sealers also help to enhance the color clarity of your terrazzo flooring.
Polish the Floor Surface
This is the last and final step in terrazzo floor refinishing. You can polish your terrazzo floor in three ways; either by use of polishing powder, recrystallization, or diamond polishing.
Diamond-polishing is usually the most effective and most commonly used. It can be used to achieve a high gloss finish without having to get the floor surface slippery.
But it is quite expensive; polishing power can be used to achieve similar results, and it’s more affordable for those working on a budget.
Simply apply some of the polishing powder to the terrazzo floor and work it into the floor surface by buffing. Repeat the process at least twice, making sure to switch to a higher-grit polishing powder each time.
However, terrazzo floors finished with polishing powder or via recrystallization need rebuffing every couple of years, unlike diamond-polished terrazzo floors, which maintain their shine and appearance for years before requiring a rebuffing.
Importance of Refinishing Your Terrazzo Floor
Refinishing your terrazzo floor will help restore its appealing high gloss shine damaged by UV lighting or long-term wear. Restoration is also recommended if the surface of your terrazzo has holes and cracks. These reasons, however, are not the only benefits of refinishing your terrazzo floor.
Refinishing your terrazzo flooring has lots of benefits. Here are some of the guaranteed benefits of restoring your terrazzo floor;
Elimination of Mold or Mildew
If your terrazzo surface was properly resealed during refinishing, it would prevent moisture from penetrating the cement parts of the terrazzo, which can cause the growth of mold or other fungal organisms.
Increases Your Home Resale Value
A terrazzo floor restoration will help enhance the beauty of the floor and thereby increase the property’s value. If you plan to put your home up for sale, a properly restored terrazzo floor will help to enhance the functionality and aesthetic of the home.
Eliminates Constant Maintenance
When your terrazzo floor is properly refinished and appropriately sealed. The maintenance cost reduces, and you won’t need to clean the floor ever so often to maintain its appearance.
How Much Does Refinishing a Terrazzo Floor Cost
The cost of restoring your terrazzo floor depends on if you’ll be contracting out the job to your terrazzo floor repair experts or doing it yourself. It also depends on the size of the floor area, as well as the methods of polishing you intend to use.
On average, you may pay anywhere between 3-5 dollars per square meter for finishing with polishing powder or via recrystallization. Refinishing with diamond polishing, however, can cost even up to 20-dollars per square meter.
Conclusion
This article discusses ways on how to refinish terrazzo floors. Refinishing your terrazzo floor is very important as it will help restore the floor’s beauty and shine. It will also help prevent extra damage to the floor, especially if it has cracks and holes that can allow moisture to penetrate the floor.
