A guide to polishing wooden flooring

18 Apr 2023

There's nothing quite like the look of a freshly polished wooden floor. Popular in halls and corridors; wooden floors will last for years. We explain how to get the best from your wooden floor, what you will need to do the job and how to go about it.

What will you need to strip polish from your wooden floor?

Windmill Challenger Stripper High Active Polish Stripper
A slow speed rotary machine around 120-200rpm such as the Truvox Orbis 200
A black floor pad to fit the rotary machine
Floor edging kit
Edging tools & pads
Mop & bucket
Wet pick up vacuum or scrubber drier
Wet floor signage
Chemical dosing pump

How to strip the polish from your wooden floor

Make up solution of Windmill Challenger Stripper High Active Polish Stripper in the mop bucket 1:10 with warm water ( 14 x dosing pumps to 5ltr of water )
Mop the solution onto the floor and allow contact time of 10-15mins for Windmill Challenger to take effect.
Scrub floor using the slow speed machine such as the Truvox Orbis 200 with black stripping pad fitted (Do not use fast speed machine).
Use edging tool with stripping pad to strip polish from the edges of the floor.
Take care to get the edges completely free of old polish.
Keep the floor wet with stripper while stripping the floor.
Remove the slurry using the wet pick up vacuum or scrubber drier.
Ensure that all old polish has been removed and if needed repeat from step 2 to remove build up of polish.
Finally when the floor is completely clean rinse the floor with clean water and pick up with the wet pick up machine.

The next stage is reapplication of polish to the newly stripped floor, details of which can be found in our article ‘Applying polish to hard floors’.