A polished concrete, epoxy or terrazzo floor is close to maintenance-free in a home, which is why people forget it needs anything at all. It needs two things: a neutral cleaner, because concrete and the cement in terrazzo etch the way marble does, and nothing left to sit on it — salt, oil, a puddle from the car — because the sealer or coating is what keeps the floor looking finished, and those are what wear it.
Polished concrete is protected by a densifier and a penetrating or topical sealer; terrazzo by a sealer over its cement or epoxy matrix; an epoxy floor is the coating itself. In each case the cleaning question is the same: keep abrasive grit off it, keep acids and solvents off it, and reseal or recoat before it wears through. A cement-based floor with the sealer gone stains from the first spill.
Garages are the special case. Road salt in winter and hot tires in summer are what take an epoxy coating off a slab; a hose, a squeegee and a mat under the parking spot do more than any cleaner. And a coating that lifts in sheets was never bonded — that is a moisture and preparation failure, not a cleaning one.
The sealer is wearing. A deep clean with the neutral cleaner, a dry day, and a reapplied sealer; a polished slab can also be burnished with a high-speed machine and re-densified to bring the shine back without a coating.
A professional hone and polish, then reseal. Terrazzo is cement or epoxy with stone chips, and the cement kind etches and wears the way stone does.
Degrease, rinse, dry, lightly abrade, and apply a fresh urethane or epoxy topcoat. A coating that has worn through to bare concrete in the traffic lane needs the whole floor recoated.
Epoxy and resinous floor warranties are installer warranties, and they cover delamination for a period only when the slab passed a moisture test and the surface was prepared to the stated profile. They exclude hot-tire pickup on residential kits, damage from solvents and dropped tools, and wear from grit. Polished concrete is a process, not a product, and carries whatever the contractor offers on the sealer.
The same routine, deep and never lists the material pages carry, so the guide and the page cannot disagree.
It is a cement surface, and acid etches cement exactly as it etches marble. The dull patch where the vinegar went is permanent short of re-polishing.
Brine sits in the low spots under the car, eats through a residential epoxy coating over a season, and then wicks into the slab. A mat under the parking spot and a hose-and-squeegee on mild days is the whole prevention.
Oil on epoxy wipes off with a mild degreaser and a rinse. A solvent strong enough to strip paint will also soften an epoxy topcoat, and the dull spot it leaves is the coating, damaged.
A topcoat over a sound epoxy floor is an afternoon. A recoat of a floor worn through to concrete in the traffic lanes is a full preparation and two coats. Recoat when the gloss goes, not when the gray shows.
Epoxy that peels in sheets was never bonded — the slab was too wet or too smooth. No cleaner or recoat fixes it; the coating comes off and the slab is tested and ground before anything goes back on.
Dust-mop often, damp-mop weekly with a pH-neutral cleaner, and keep acids, salt and standing water off it. Reseal, or have the floor burnished and re-densified, every few years when water stops beading and the traffic lanes dull. Nothing acidic and nothing abrasive; the surface is cement and etches.
A pH-neutral floor cleaner for routine mopping and a mild degreaser, rinsed, for oil. A hose and a squeegee in mild weather. Not solvents, not strong degreasers, not anything abrasive; they dull or soften the coating. Salt is the enemy in winter, and a mat under the car does more than any cleaner.
A steam mop does no harm to a sound epoxy coating or a sealed polished slab, and it does nothing a damp mop does not. Avoid it on a coating that is already chipped or lifting, where moisture can get underneath.
Either the coating was chemically softened — a solvent, a strong degreaser, brake fluid — or it has worn through its gloss in a traffic lane. The first is a repair; the second is the sign to apply a fresh topcoat before the wear reaches the base coat.
When water stops beading on it — typically every two to five years in a home, sooner at an entry. A penetrating or topical sealer matched to the finish, applied thin to a clean, dry slab. A burnish-and-densify by a contractor restores the shine at the same time.
Like polished stone: a neutral cleaner, a damp mop, nothing acidic, and a sealer renewed when water stops beading. Cement-based terrazzo etches and wears; epoxy-based terrazzo does neither but is cleaned the same way. Dull traffic lanes are a professional hone and polish, not a cleaning problem.