From: Oren 
Newsgroups: alt.home.repair misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: Terrazo Floor polishing
Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 13:06:16 -0800
Bytes: 2717

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:06:04 -0800, "Cshenk" 
wrote:

>
>"ralph"  wrote
>
>> I have an Florida house built in the 1940's with Terrazo flooring but
>> has been covered with carpet. I am looking a taking off the carpet and
>> polishing the terrazzo. My question is, Home depot has the following
>
>Lovely stuff when treated right.
>
>> piece of equipment that I can rent. Can it be used to polish the
>> flooring and why type of pads do you recommend to use?
>
>First off, you do not want a sander.  Start instead with a floor buffer with 
>those round brushes of sort of hard hair looking stuff.
>
>Terrazo is very hard to damage the coating of (unless you sand it off) so I 
>think it's likely you can get the glue off then just polish with a buffing 
>pad.
>
>Depending on what you find in the way of 'glue' (if any, might just be dirt) 
>you can use some pretty harsh chemicals on terrazo as long as you dont add 
>anything that will scratch it (like Comet type cleansers).
>
>If it's already been scratched, dont panic.  They can repolish it or put a 
>new layer of whatever the heck the stuff was on ours back in Florida.  You 
>can also just wax it up nice.
>
>I remember once a year, Mom used to bleach ours.  She'd open all the 
>windows, put on her really ratty clothes and rubber boots, then just pour 
>straight bleach on'em .  Then we'd vacate the house and go grocery 
>shopping or something (Mom would swap clothes in the laundry room at the 
>foot of the garage) for a few hours, then come back and mop it all up.
>

Good thing your mom used rubber boots. Bleach and water on terrazzo
became our "skating rink", as kids doing chores. It was fun until I
landed against the wall and knocked a big hole in the sheet rock (LOL)