Buford runs on a calendar more than any other market we serve. Retail around the Mall of Georgia has its own rhythm, Lake Lanier Islands hospitality has a different one, and Main Street downtown has a third. The floor stripping process Buford properties need is not seasonal itself, but the window for it certainly is. Every stage in the sequence takes time, and the final stage, cure, takes time during which the floor cannot be loaded. Book that window into your slow weeks and the job is easy. Book it into your peak and something in the middle gets shortened.

Work backwards from your busiest date

Start with the day the floor absolutely has to be open and in good shape. Subtract the cure period the finish requires, then the drying time between coats, then the coating, rinsing, stripping and moving.

That total is your real window. It is usually longer than people assume, which is exactly why it is worth calculating instead of hoping.

The stages in the floor stripping process Buford sites cannot compress

Dwell time, drying between coats and cure are all set by the products in use. Those figures come from the manufacturer and belong in your scope, not in a rule of thumb.

Everything else has some flex. Add crew and the moving, agitation and pickup stages go faster. Nobody can add crew to make a finish dry sooner, though plenty have tried.

Two counties, several very different building types

Buford straddles the Gwinnett and Hall county line, and the building stock reflects it. Big-box retail with vast open VCT, hotel back-of-house near the lake, and small historic spaces around Tannery Row and Main Street.

Each has a different quiet window. Retail slows midweek in some seasons, hospitality slows in others, and downtown moves with events. One schedule across a portfolio rarely fits all three.

Which is the honest argument against buying floors on a square-foot rate. That model prices the surface and ignores the calendar, then the crew arrives when it suits them. We walk each site, learn your season, and put the same crew back on it. ISSA cleaning industry guidance is a decent starting point if you want to read more about disciplined process planning.

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

Confirm the material before the calendar work is wasted

Newer retail fit-outs increasingly use LVT, which generally should not be stripped like VCT. Sorting that out during the survey prevents booking a strip for a floor that never needed one.

Hotel kitchens near the lake are on quarry tile, degreased rather than waxed. Entry terrazzo goes on a polish and seal program. The calendar only helps once the material list is right.

Frequently asked questions