Floor Care Built Around Your Surface
Most floors do not fail because nobody cleaned them. They fail because the wrong product met the wrong surface, or because a finish was never rebuilt after years of scrubbing wore it thin. A daily mop moves soil around on top of the finish. It cannot restore a floor that has lost its protective layer.
That is the gap we fill. Special Touch Commercial Cleaning handles the periodic, machine-driven work that keeps hard floors serviceable: stripping, waxing, burnishing, deep scrubbing, hardwood care, marble polishing, and tile and grout restoration across Toledo, Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan.
Whatever type of floor covering is in your building, we can do the job and exceed your expectations — and we will tell you honestly when a floor needs replacement rather than another coat.
- Family owned
- Insured & bonded
- BBB A+ rated
- W-2 employees only
Our Commercial Floor Cleaning Services
Six services cover almost every hard floor in a commercial building. Most of our customers use two or three of them on different areas of the same site.
Floor Stripping & Waxing
Wax builds up, yellows and dulls. We strip the old finish completely, neutralize the floor, and lay down fresh coats so hard floors shine again instead of hiding under a grey haze.
Deep Scrub & Recoat
When the finish is worn but not failed, a scrub-and-recoat removes the top layers and adds new ones. It costs less than a full strip and buys a floor another cycle.
Hardwood Floor Cleaning
Deep cleaning and care that protects the finish on commercial hardwood — lobbies, conference rooms, gyms and retail floors — without the flooding that warps board edges.
Marble & Stone Polishing
Polishing that restores the natural depth of marble and stone in lobbies and entryways, where etching from spills and traffic shows first and matters most.
Tile & Grout Cleaning
Cleaning that maintains and extends the life of ceramic tile, including the grout lines everyone notices. Grout is porous; once it darkens, mopping will not bring it back.
Concrete Floor Care
Cleaning and maintenance for sealed and polished concrete in warehouses, shops and back-of-house spaces where the floor takes the most abuse in the building.
How a Strip and Wax Actually Works
A proper strip and wax is six distinct steps. Skipping any one of them is why some floors look cloudy or peel within a few months.
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Walkthrough and floor assessment
We walk the building with you, identify each surface, check how much finish is left, and note the areas that take the hardest traffic. You get a written scope and a price before anything starts.
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Prep and protection
Furniture is moved, baseboards and thresholds are protected, and the area is signed off. We schedule around your operation — most floor work happens after hours or over a weekend so nobody loses a business day.
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Strip the old finish
Stripper is applied and given real dwell time, then agitated with a machine and stripping pads until every layer of old wax lifts. Corners and edges are done by hand, because that is where the build-up is worst.
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Rinse and neutralize
The slurry is picked up and the floor is rinsed and neutralized. Any stripper residue left behind will stop new finish from bonding — this is the step that separates a floor that holds up from one that peels.
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Apply the finish
Multiple thin coats go down with dry time between each one. Thin and layered beats thick and fast every time: it levels better, cures harder and resists scuffing longer.
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Burnish and hand back
Once cured, the floor is burnished to bring up the reflection. We walk it with you before we leave, and we tell you how long to wait before heavy carts and mats go back down.
See What a Restored Floor Looks Like
Drag the handle to compare the same commercial floor before and after stripping, waxing and burnishing.
Same floor, same lighting — the difference is the finish underneath.
Our Floor Care Guarantee
We are confident enough in our stripping and waxing of vinyl and tile floors to put it plainly: if you don’t see your reflection in your floor, our service is free. We believe in the work, and we care about how your building represents you.
Commercial Floor Cleaning by Surface Type
Every surface wants something different. Choosing wrong is what ruins floors — here is how we approach the five we see most across Northwest Ohio.
Vinyl composition tile (VCT)
The most common commercial floor in the region, and the one that responds best to a proper strip and wax. VCT has no shine of its own — every bit of gloss you see is finish sitting on top of it, which is why the maintenance cycle matters so much.
Left too long, finish wears through in the traffic lanes and the exposed tile starts to abrade. Once the tile itself is worn, no amount of wax brings it back. We watch for that and tell you when a floor is approaching the point of no return.
Typical cycle: deep scrub and recoat two to three times a year, full strip and wax annually in most buildings.
Commercial hardwood
Wood is unforgiving about water. Standard mopping methods that are fine on tile will swell board edges and cloud the finish on hardwood, and once moisture is in the seams the damage is permanent.
We clean hardwood with controlled moisture and products matched to the existing coating, then buff to even out the sheen. Where the wear layer is still intact, that is usually all a floor needs.
Good candidates: lobbies, conference rooms, retail sales floors, church and school multipurpose rooms.
Marble, terrazzo and natural stone
Stone does not wear the way tile does — it etches. Acidic spills, ice-melt residue and the wrong cleaner leave dull spots that no cleaning will remove because the surface itself has been chemically changed.
Polishing restores clarity and depth by working the stone surface rather than coating it. In entryways and lobbies, where stone is usually installed, it is the single most visible floor in the building.
Watch for: dull traffic paths, cloudy patches near doors, and rings where planters or mats have sat.
Ceramic tile and grout
Tile stays fine and the grout gives up first. Grout is porous, sits below the tile surface, and collects everything a mop pushes into it — which is why a mopped tile floor can still look dirty.
We clean tile and grout with the pressure and dwell time it actually takes to pull soil out of the joints, then extract it rather than leaving it to settle back in. This extends the life of ceramic tile floors considerably.
Common in: restrooms, kitchens, school corridors, medical facilities, entry vestibules.
Sealed and polished concrete
Concrete is treated as maintenance-free until the day it stops looking that way. Sealed concrete has a coating that wears; polished concrete relies on a densified surface that dulls under grit and forklift traffic.
Regular machine cleaning removes the abrasive grit that does the actual damage, and keeps warehouse and shop floors from becoming a dust source for everything else in the building.
Common in: warehouses, distribution space, shops, back-of-house and loading areas.
Our #1 Floor Maintenance Program
A scheduled maintenance program keeps your facility looking its best and extends the life of the floor, which is where the real savings are. Replacing a commercial floor costs many times what maintaining it does.
We provide scheduled maintenance for almost any flooring surface:
- Concrete
- Ceramic and quarry tile
- Vinyl composition tile (VCT)
- Laminated flooring
- Hardwood and engineered wood
- Linoleum sheet goods
- Marble and natural stone
- Terrazzo
How often should a commercial floor be serviced?
There is no single answer — it depends on traffic, entry matting, and whether the building sits on a salted parking lot for four months a year. These are the ranges we work within when we build a plan.
| Facility type | Deep scrub & recoat | Full strip & wax |
|---|---|---|
| Professional office | 1–2× per year | Every 12–18 months |
| Medical & dental | 2–3× per year | Annually |
| School corridors | Mid-year | Each summer break |
| Restaurant & food service | Quarterly | 1–2× per year |
| Retail & dealership showroom | 2–4× per year | Annually |
| Warehouse & industrial | As traffic dictates | By surface and coating |
We will look at your building and tell you where it actually falls. Sometimes the honest answer is that you are already doing enough.
Winter, Salt and Why Ohio Floors Work Harder
Floor care in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan has a season, and it runs from about November through March. Ice melt and rock salt come in on every shoe and cart wheel, and salt is genuinely destructive to a wax finish — it leaves a white haze, holds moisture against the floor, and acts as an abrasive that grinds finish away in the entry zones.
Spring is not much kinder. The clay soil across the Maumee River valley turns to mud during the thaw, and that mud carries grit that behaves like sandpaper underfoot.
Two things make the biggest difference, and neither is complicated: enough entry matting to catch soil before it reaches the finished floor, and a recoat scheduled for late winter or early spring, when the salt damage has been done but the finish underneath can still be saved.
When we build a maintenance calendar for a building in this region, we build it around that cycle rather than splitting the year into even quarters.
Commercial Floor Cleaning FAQs
How long does a strip and wax take?
It depends on square footage, how many coats the floor needs, and how much of the work is edge and corner detail. A typical office suite is an overnight or weekend job. Larger facilities are usually phased area by area so no part of the building is out of service for long. We give you a schedule with the quote so you know exactly what to expect.
Can you work after hours or on weekends?
Yes, and for floor work we usually recommend it. Finish needs undisturbed dry time between coats, which is far easier to get when the building is empty. Nights and weekends are normal scheduling for us, not an exception.
What is the difference between a scrub and recoat and a full strip and wax?
A scrub and recoat removes the top worn layers of finish and adds fresh coats on top of what remains. It is faster, less disruptive and less expensive, and it is the right call when the finish is dulled but still sound.
A full strip removes every layer down to the bare tile and rebuilds from scratch. That is what you need once the finish has yellowed, built up unevenly, or worn through in the traffic lanes. Most buildings alternate: recoats through the year, a full strip annually.
Do I have to sign a long-term contract?
No. Plenty of our floor care work is one-time or seasonal — a single strip and wax before an inspection, a summer project at a school, a restoration before a building changes hands. Many customers do move to a recurring schedule afterwards because it costs less over the life of the floor, but that is your call to make after you have seen the work.
How does the reflection guarantee work?
It applies to our stripping and waxing of vinyl and tile floors. If you do not see your reflection in the finished floor, that service is free. It is a straightforward standard, and it is the one we hold our own crews to.
Do you bring your own equipment and supplies?
Yes. We bring our own machines, pads, finish and chemicals to every job, so you are not buying products or storing equipment. Every technician on your floor is a W-2 employee of Special Touch, screened and trained by us — never a subcontractor.
Complete Your Building’s Cleaning Program
Floor care works best alongside the day-to-day cleaning that keeps soil off the finish in the first place. We handle both, which means nothing falls between two vendors.
Office Cleaning
Nightly and weekly cleaning that keeps your first impression a good one.
View service ↗Janitorial Services
Dependable crews for offices, schools, medical and industrial buildings.
View service ↗Apartment Turnover
Move-out cleans that get units rent-ready on your leasing schedule.
View service ↗Post-Construction Clean-Up
Final-phase dust and debris cleaning after a build or remodel.
View service ↗Where We Provide Commercial Floor Care
Our floor care crews work throughout Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan from three Toledo-area offices. A few of the communities we serve:
Ready for floors that hold their shine?
Tell us about your building and we will walk it, scope the work and put a real price in front of you.