Floors are the most expensive surface in a commercial building and the one most often ruined by the cleaning meant to protect them. A stripped-and-refinished VCT floor can last decades. The same floor cleaned with the wrong pH, the wrong pad or no entrance matting will need replacing years early — and the damage doesn’t show until it’s already done. Commercial floor cleaning is a maintenance programme with a schedule, not a task on a nightly list.
Nightly mopping isn’t floor care. The work that determines how long a floor lasts sits on a cycle measured in months:
“Strip and wax” is the term most buyers use, though modern floor finish isn’t wax. The process is the same in principle: existing finish is chemically softened and removed, the floor is neutralised and rinsed, and fresh finish is applied in multiple thin coats with cure time between each.
Two things go wrong most often. The first is insufficient coats — finish applied thin to save time wears through in months rather than years, and the floor is back in the same state before the next scheduled visit. The second is inadequate cure time before traffic returns, which is why this work needs a genuine window: a Friday evening start with the building closed Saturday, not a Tuesday night squeezed between shifts.
For most commercial VCT, a full strip and refinish runs annually or every two years, with scrubbing and burnishing maintaining it in between. A floor on a good burnish cycle needs stripping far less often — which is where the savings actually come from.
VCT (vinyl composition tile). The most common commercial floor and the most finish-dependent. Needs a finish system, regular burnishing and periodic stripping. Unforgiving of high-pH cleaners used routinely.
Sealed and unsealed concrete. Warehouse and industrial standard. Sealed concrete scrubs cleanly; unsealed absorbs oil and stains permanently. Auto-scrubbers with the correct degreaser, not mops.
Polished concrete. Showrooms and modern offices. Looks low-maintenance and isn’t — it needs pH-neutral cleaning and periodic re-polishing, and it shows swirl marks from the wrong pad immediately.
Terrazzo and natural stone. Frequently found in older lobbies. Acid-sensitive; the wrong product etches it permanently. Identify before touching.
LVT and luxury vinyl plank. Often specified as no-wax, which buyers read as no-maintenance. It still needs correct-pH cleaning and, in high traffic, a protective coating.
Ceramic and porcelain tile. The tile is durable; the grout isn’t. Grout lines need periodic deep cleaning and, ideally, sealing.
No entrance matting. The single biggest factor in Ontario. Most soil arrives on shoes, and grit acts as sandpaper underfoot. Adequate matting runs at every entrance remove the majority of it before it reaches the floor — and between December and March, chloride from road salt does more damage than a year of ordinary traffic.
Wrong chemistry, repeatedly. A high-pH cleaner used nightly on finished floors slowly dissolves the finish it’s meant to protect. The floor looks progressively duller and gets stripped more often, which shortens its life further.
Deferred cycles. Skipping a burnish cycle to save a few hundred dollars is what turns an annual refinish into a full replacement years early. Floor programmes save money over the asset’s life, not month to month.
Floor work is usually quoted separately from routine cleaning, priced per square foot of treated area rather than building area. Scrubbing and burnishing sit at the low end; strip and refinish is materially higher because it’s labour-intensive and requires cure time. Concrete sealing and grout restoration are quoted per job after assessment.
The variable most buyers underestimate is access. A floor that can be closed for a weekend costs less to refinish than one that must be done in sections across several nights. See the 2026 GTA rate report for market figures, or the cost calculator for routine cleaning ranges.
For most commercial VCT, annually or every two years — but that depends heavily on the burnish cycle in between. A floor scrubbed and burnished on schedule needs stripping far less often than one that’s only mopped. High-traffic entrances and corridors may need it yearly while back-office areas go much longer, which is why the schedule should be zone by zone rather than building-wide.
Scrubbing lifts embedded soil the mop leaves behind. Burnishing polishes existing finish back to gloss without removing it. Stripping removes the finish entirely so it can be rebuilt. They’re three different machines, three different frequencies and three different price points — a quote that doesn’t distinguish them isn’t a floor programme.
For strip and refinish, yes — the floor needs to be clear during application and through cure time, which is why this work is usually scheduled for weekends or extended closures. Scrubbing and burnishing can generally be done overnight with the space back in use the next morning.
Yes, and each gets identified before anything is applied. Terrazzo and natural stone are acid-sensitive and permanently damaged by the wrong product. Polished concrete needs pH-neutral cleaning and shows pad marks immediately. Identifying what’s actually on your floor is a site-walk item, not a first-visit guess.
Routine mopping and vacuuming is. Machine floor work — scrubbing cycles, burnishing, stripping and refinishing, sealing — is normally quoted separately and scheduled on its own cycle, then attached to your scope sheet so the frequency and the cost are both visible. See janitorial services for how floor cycles sit within a full building programme.
Floor programmes run across the GTA — Toronto, Mississauga, Vaughan, Brampton, Scarborough, Markham, North York and beyond. Full list on the areas page.
Hot water extraction and encapsulation for high-traffic carpet.
Concrete floor programmes, dock aprons and industrial degreasing.
Full building programmes with floor cycles built in.
First clean and floor sealing after a build or renovation.
Tell us your floor type, area and current condition. Written quote with a line-by-line scope sheet back within one business day.
Or call us directly at (647) 864-5458 — Mon–Fri, 8 AM – 6 PM ET