Ask most vendors how they strip a floor and they start describing equipment. That is the wrong end of the story. The floor stripping process Buckhead properties should be buying begins with somebody kneeling down on your floor with a light, working out what is actually underneath. Old finish, or old finish over a sealer? Vinyl composition tile, or something that only looks like it? A tower off Peachtree Road can have four different flooring materials between the loading dock and the elevator lobby. Get that survey wrong and every stage after it goes wrong too, only louder and more expensively.

A light held low tells you more than a walk-through at eye level

Hold a flashlight almost flat against the surface. Scratches, swirl marks and old finish edges jump out. Ridges of build-up along baseboards show how many coats have gone on over the years without ever coming off.

That reading decides everything else: how aggressive the stripper needs to be, whether the edges need hand work, and whether the floor is even a candidate for stripping at all.

Why the floor stripping process Buckhead scopes skip should always start with a test patch

A test patch is a small, out-of-the-way square. The crew applies the product, lets it dwell, agitates and picks up, and then everyone looks at the result before a single main area gets wet.

It answers the questions nobody can answer by guessing. Does this finish release? Does the tile discolor? How much hand work will the edges take? Twenty minutes of testing saves a very long night.

Class A access rules shape the schedule as much as the floor does

Buildings around Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza run overnight-only windows, freight elevator bookings and a certificate of insurance on file before anybody touches a lobby. Garden Hills and Peachtree Park mid-rises are similar.

That means the work has to be sequenced into sections that can start and fully finish inside one window. Nobody wants a half-stripped corridor greeting the 7am crowd.

Here is the part worth saying out loud. Most floor work gets sold on a rate per square foot, then staffed by whoever came in lowest that week. We survey your floors on your actual access hours, write the stages down, and send back the crew that did the survey. Following IICRC industry standards on assessment before treatment is not a slogan; it is just how you avoid ruining a floor.

Most commercial cleaning gets sold on price per square foot, then quietly handed to whoever was cheapest and free that night. That’s why quality slides after month two — the scope was never real to begin with. We build yours from an actual walkthrough of your actual building, on your actual hours. Then we send the same crew who learned it. Boring? Completely. It’s also the only thing that makes month five look like month one.

DBS Cleaning Services Group

Plenty of Buckhead floors should never be stripped at all

Luxury vinyl tile usually is not built for a strip-and-wax cycle. Most manufacturers want it cleaned and, at most, treated with a product they name. Aggressive stripper on LVT can dull the wear layer permanently.

Terrazzo and stone lobbies, which Buckhead has in abundance, belong on a polish and seal program rather than a wax program. Quarry tile in back-of-house kitchens is not waxed either. Knowing which floor is which is the whole job.

Frequently asked questions