How to Clean an Epoxy Floor Without Dulling the Finish

An epoxy floor is one of the easiest floors in the house to keep clean. It is also surprisingly easy to dull, stain or weaken with the wrong cleaner, and most of the damage people do to a coated floor happens with a mop in their hand rather than a car on top of it. So this guide is mostly about restraint: what to use, how often, and the handful of products that should never touch the finish.

Everything below is drawn from McKinnon Materials' own floor care recommendations and the technical data sheets for our coatings. If you are still choosing or installing a floor, start with our guide to choosing and installing a garage floor coating. This one picks up where that one ends: the floor is down, and now you want it to stay looking the way it did on the first day.

The short answer

Sweep or vacuum the grit off regularly. Mop with warm water for the first week, then with a non-chlorine cleaner diluted in water. Wipe up spills as soon as you see them and rinse the spot. Never use a sanitizing cleaner that contains chlorine or hypochlorite. And test any new cleaner on a small, out-of-the-way patch before you use it on the whole floor.

That is the entire routine for most homes. The rest of this article explains why each step matters, what to do when routine cleaning is no longer enough, and how the care changes if your floor is not actually epoxy.

The first week: warm water only

A coating that feels hard underfoot is not necessarily finished curing. McKinnon's floor care recommendations are specific here: only warm water should be used to clean an epoxy or urethane floor within the first week. No detergent, no degreaser, no "just a little" of anything stronger.

The data sheets for our topcoats add a second rule for the same period. Restrict the floor to light traffic and non-harsh chemicals until the coating has reached full cure, and let the floor stay dry through the full cure cycle if you can. Full cure varies by product and by temperature. The Industrial Clear Epoxy sheet, for example, gives 12 to 18 hours at normal room temperature for light traffic but four to five days for heavy traffic, and cold weather stretches every one of those numbers. The sheet for the exact product on your floor is the one that governs, and all of them are on the technical data sheets page.

In practice that means the first week is for sweeping and, if something gets spilled, a cloth and warm water. The deep clean can wait.

How to clean an epoxy floor, step by step

McKinnon recommends this routine weekly, or more often if the floor sees heavy use.

1. Get the grit off first. Sweep or vacuum loose dirt and debris before any water goes down. A soft dust mop does this well on a smooth coated floor.
2. Mix a mild cleaning solution. After the first week, use a non-chlorine cleaner diluted in water. Diluted is the operative word: more cleaner does not mean a cleaner floor, it means more residue left behind to dry into a film.
3. Mop in sections. Work an area you can finish before the solution dries on the surface.
4. Rinse. Go over the floor again with clean water so nothing is left to dry into haze.
5. Let it dry. Keep traffic off the floor until it has dried.

Step one is the one people skip, and it is the one that matters most for how the floor looks in two years. Fine grit is an abrasive. Every time it is ground underfoot or dragged under a wet mop, it takes a little of the gloss with it. McKinnon's installation guidance for its metallic floors puts it plainly: a high-gloss floor will show wear patterns if it is not routinely maintained, because abrasion dulls the gloss. Getting the grit up before you wet the floor is most of the maintenance.

What to clean an epoxy floor with

Search for "epoxy floor cleaner" and you will find a shelf full of specialty products. You do not need one. McKinnon's recommendation for epoxy and urethane floors is simply a non-chlorine cleaner diluted in water, applied as part of the routine above.

There is one rule that applies to every cleaner, and it comes from the data sheets for our polyaspartic topcoat, our high-performance urethane and our Aurora metallic pigment alike: some cleaners may affect the colour of the floor. Before you use a new product across the whole floor, test it in a small area using the same technique you plan to use everywhere else. If there are no ill effects, carry on with that product and that process. If there are, you have lost a patch in a corner rather than the whole floor.

That test is worth doing even with a cleaner you have used on other floors. A cleaner that is fine on tile or sealed wood has never been tested on your particular coating, colour and topcoat.

What never to use on an epoxy floor

• Chlorine and hypochlorite. McKinnon's floor care recommendations say sanitizing detergents that contain chlorine or hypochlorite should never be used on an epoxy or urethane floor. That rules out bleach and bleach-based sprays and wipes. Check the label on anything sold as a disinfecting floor cleaner.
• Anything strong in the first week. Warm water only, as above.
• An untested cleaner across the whole floor. Test first, every time you change products.
• Letting spills sit. Spills should be removed and rinsed at the first opportunity. This matters most in a garage, where oil, brake fluid and road salt all arrive on the car, but it applies to every coated floor.

If your floor is a decorative concrete overlay rather than an epoxy coating, McKinnon's care sheet for its overlay systems adds three more: no muriatic acid, no solvent-based or ammonia-based cleaners, and keep grease from a grill or stove off the surface by putting a mat under the grill.

Spills, tire marks and the garage floor

A garage floor gets a different kind of dirt from the rest of the house. Most of it arrives on tires, and it is worth separating two problems that look similar.

Road grime, salt and the occasional drip are a cleaning problem. Sweep the grit, then clean the spot with your diluted non-chlorine solution and rinse it, sooner rather than later.

A patch of coating that has lifted where the car parks is not a cleaning problem at all. That is hot tire pickup: a warm tire softens a weak or poorly bonded film and pulls it up as it cools. No cleaner fixes it and no cleaner caused it. It is a preparation and product question, and we cover it in the garage floor coating guide. If you are seeing it, cleaning more carefully will not help.

Keeping the gloss

A high-gloss floor is the most striking finish you can put down and the most demanding to keep. McKinnon's guidance for its Aurora metallic floors, where the gloss is the whole point, describes two ways to live with that.

Maintain it. For the best long-term look, a high-grade polymer floor finish can be applied over the coating and then burnished. McKinnon's guidance also mentions a water-based, high-solids acrylic floor finish for this purpose. The guidance describes it as giving good visual clarity and protection. The catch is that it is a program, not a one-off: periodic recoating of the finish and buffing are what keep it working. This is common in showrooms and commercial spaces, and your local janitorial supply house can recommend a finish and a schedule.

Or choose a finish that forgives you. If you are not going to keep up a maintenance program, McKinnon's guidance is to consider a lower-gloss topcoat instead. A floor that already has a lower sheen does not show wear patterns the way a high-gloss one does, because there is no mirror finish to lose. Our 2-Part Water-Based Urethane comes in both gloss and matte for exactly this choice, and the decision is much easier to make before the floor goes down than after.

When cleaning is not enough: refreshing a worn topcoat

After years of traffic, a floor can be clean and still look tired, usually in the lanes people and cars actually use. At that point cleaning is not the answer; a fresh topcoat is.

The principle, from McKinnon's urethane data sheets, is that a new coat needs something to hold on to. The old coat should be deglossed (lightly sanded until the shine is gone) so the new coat bonds to it, and any film or contamination on the surface should be removed with a standard detergent cleaner before recoating. A new coat rolled over a glossy, dirty surface is a new coat waiting to peel.

Two further points apply to any recoat. First, the new product has to be compatible with what is already on the floor; a coating bonds to what it touches, so over an incompatible film it inherits that film's problems. Second, follow the recoat window and cure times on the data sheet for the product you are applying, and remember that colder temperatures need longer before a recoat can start. If you are unsure what is on your floor now, or whether it is sound enough to recoat rather than strip, call us at 888-849-0588 before you buy anything.

For the full sequence on a metallic floor, including the topcoat step, see our metallic epoxy floor kit install walkthrough.

Different floor, different care

Not every glossy floor is an epoxy coating, and the care is not interchangeable.

Resin-bound stone. A Stone Bond resin-bound surface is permeable, with open voids between the stones, and it is cared for differently from a solid coating. When it needs refreshing, it gets a fresh coat of Stone Bond resin itself, never a paver sealer or concrete sealer, because a sealer film defeats a surface that is meant to drain. We cover this in the care section of our liquid stone flooring guide.

Sealed concrete. A penetrating concrete sealer is not a coating at all; it soaks into the slab and protects it from the inside. Its care is mostly about knowing when to reseal, and the free water test for that is in our concrete sealer guide.

A simple care routine

• First week: sweep, and clean only with warm water. Keep traffic light until full cure.
• Every week, or more for busy floors: sweep or vacuum, then mop with a non-chlorine cleaner diluted in water, and rinse.
• Whenever something spills: remove it and rinse the spot at the first opportunity.
• Before any new cleaner: test it on a small area first.
• Never: chlorine or hypochlorite sanitizing cleaners.
• When the gloss wears: a maintenance floor finish and burnishing, or a deglossed, cleaned surface and a fresh topcoat.

Everything you need to build or top-coat a floor is in the industrial floor epoxy system collection, and the metallic pigments and binders are in the metallic floor epoxy collection. If you have a question about your floor, call McKinnon Materials at 888-849-0588 or email info@mckinnonmaterials.com.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best way to clean an epoxy floor?

Sweep or vacuum the loose grit first, then mop with a non-chlorine cleaner diluted in water and rinse with clean water. McKinnon recommends doing this weekly, or more often for floors that see heavy use. For the first week after installation, use warm water only.

Can I use bleach on an epoxy floor?

No. McKinnon's floor care recommendations say sanitizing detergents that contain chlorine or hypochlorite should never be used on an epoxy or urethane floor. Use a non-chlorine cleaner diluted in water instead.

How soon can I mop a new epoxy floor?

You can clean it with warm water during the first week, but nothing stronger. Keep the floor to light traffic and away from harsh chemicals until the coating reaches full cure, which depends on the product and the temperature. Check the technical data sheet for the exact product on your floor.

Will a cleaner change the colour of my floor?

It can. McKinnon's topcoat data sheets warn that some cleaners may affect the colour of the floor. Test any new cleaner in a small area using the same technique you plan to use on the whole floor, and only carry on if there are no ill effects.

How often should I clean an epoxy floor?

Weekly is a good baseline, or more often as needed. Sweeping more often than you mop is worthwhile, because grit is what wears the gloss down over time.

How do I bring the shine back to a dull epoxy floor?

If the floor is simply dirty, a proper clean and rinse will restore most of it. If the gloss itself has worn, the options are a maintenance floor finish that is burnished and periodically renewed, or deglossing the old coat, cleaning it and applying a fresh topcoat according to that product's data sheet.

Does an epoxy floor need to be waxed?

No, but it is an option. McKinnon's guidance for high-gloss metallic floors describes applying a polymer floor finish and burnishing it for the best long-term look. If you would rather not keep up that kind of program, a lower-gloss topcoat shows wear patterns much less than a high-gloss one.