I made a recent discovery of lovely white terrazzo floors under my carpet. I pulled up the carpet in the dining room and one bedroom and its in great shape. My one concern is that the carpet glue left stains on the floor. I used glue remover to get the actual glue up, but where there was alot of glue, there are yellow stains. Any ideas how I could get these stains out? I sanded a small area with some fine grit sandpaper, and it worked great, but will it hurt the floor if I sand the whole thing so its uniform?
Would floor stripper made for terrazzo remove these stains?
I’d caution you against using sandpaper. Terrazzo floors are finished by wet grinding with pumice stones. Those are soft as abrasives go so are less likely to leave scratches as would dry sanding. I’d leave the stains alone until you can refinish the whole floor properly including sealing it against future stains.
ok- so sanding is bad but exactly what do you mean by “re-finish it properly”? Is there something else I could be doing myself, or do I call in some pros to do some work?
(BTW it was a couple of guys at Lowes who suggested the sanding and/or stripping)
A store that specializes in tile/installation should be able to steer you towards products made just for tile that can strip adheseives, mortars, epoxy and resin from tile. Often, tile is stained during installation and some of the adhesives used to set tile can be stripped, so there is hope. In other words, these aren’t just common strippers, but strippers aimed at the tile installer to remedy tile installation problems.
But there is caution too. Terrazo is porous, and will absorb stains into the tile, not just on the surface. It is very possible that many stains are permanent. Terrazo, and numerous other porous tiles, need to be sealed to prevent staining. Now it is possible that it was sealed and the sealant prevented perm stains from the adhesive.
I wouldn’t be shocked to hear a stripper worked fine, and I would be shocked to hear the stains are perm. It really depends on whether the floor was sealed before it was covered.
Terrazo is pretty exotic stuff and I wouldn’t trust guys at Lowes to know how to do it properly. Sanding may be perfectly okay but from my experience you won’t get the same results dry sanding as wet and pumice has very different properties than sandpaper abrasives.
A store that specializes in tile/installation should be able to steer you towards products made just for tile that can strip adheseives, mortars, epoxy and resin from tile.
So yes, stay away from superstore Home Centers. Marble/Stone/Tile specialists will help you.