Pamment floor

[Pford75]

I'm in the process of decorating a hall (distemper ceilings over previous distemper, emulsion walls over previous emulsion, oil eggshell for woodwork). The floor is pamments straight on to the earth. We have no previous problems with damp either in the floor or the walls, so I am happy to leave this as is.

However, the pamments are a little grubby ( high traffic area from the barn and paddock) and I would like to clean them. I believe others have used boiled linseed oil (?) on pamments. However, ours appear to have some kind of varnish/paint/coating (see pic)..I wonder if they have in the past been painted with cardinal floor paint? It must have been a long time ago, since the bulk of the pamments look free from this (although dirty) and the paint/coating is confined to the edges where foot traffic hasn't been.

Some basic questions to a pamment-cleaning virgin:

1. Should I attempt to remove this stuff and if so, with what?

2. How to clean them?

3. Do I then treat with boiled linseed, something else or nothing at all?

 

[Moo]

They look very like the state our pamments (and hall flags) were in.
I removed the paint with Nitromors, gave them a good scrub and then a couple of coats of Trafficwax, hoping to achieve a lovely gentle gleam. However, the wax just soaked in and the gleam never happened, so I lost interest and just left them. They look ok to me, but then I'm not the world's best housekeeper and have rather low standards.

 

[Hatster]

This is probably a terrible thing to admit, but I've put Lithofin Power-Clean on mine - I've been ultra cautious because of the dire warnings on the SPAB's Homeowners Weekend, but after 2 months the test patch seems undamaged, so I'm going to do clean the rest of them. However, I have to say that they are only obviously cleaner in the natural daylight. None of them have gone back to the much much noticeably lighter colour which shows where I think they might have had some kind of extra hearth tiles on top of them. At least I know they've been cleaned, though!

 

[Pford75]

I removed the paint with Nitromors

Was it terribly messy?

Any thoughts from anyone on whether klingstrip might work on the floor or does it only work on wood?

 

[AMc]

We have some pamments relaid by the previous owners then painted with red floor paint no more than 15 years ago. The pamments are making a strong bid to show their original surface so I would feel no guilt about applying nitromors to speed the process - were it not for all the other work I'm doing and the fact that I'm confident they're 'grouted' with cement.

1 - nitromors would be my first try
2 - elbow grease with marigolds, a scrubbing brush and Ecover Floor cleaner (linseed based)
3 - nothing or a wax/hard wax oil depending on traffic. I'm finishing my floors as they will be a living room and a kitchen and many of our pamments are a bit porous - given our ability to drop red wine more or less anywhere I'm trying to give them a fighting chance.

 

[inwood]

Best thing to finish them with is Osmo Polyx - I've just finished using it on my pamments/quarry tiles. I've replaced a few tiles during the course of repairs and these were looking very new in comparison with the old but with a coat of Polyx they've come up a treat. Be warned though it's bl**dy expensive. It appears to be very hard wearing. They recommend using two coats but because it's so expensive I cheated and used a base coat of boiled linseed oil and the one coat of polyx.

 

[Moo]

Was it terribly messy?

Not really. I used the version that is neutralised with water and, once I'd scraped most of it into newspaper, just gave it a straightforward going-over with a scrubbing brush and water.

 

[Penners]

I removed the paint with Nitromors

Was it terribly messy?

Any thoughts from anyone on whether klingstrip might work on the floor or does it only work on wood?

Messy is a subjective concept, but I must say that any paint stripping job is inevitably pretty mucky. Moo is obviously steeled to such rigours.

The red stuff does look like the remnants of Cardinal Red to me.

If you have a look at Strippers' "I want to remove..." page, they specifically mention Cardinal Red. And no, their Klingstrip products certainly aren't for wood only, as that page will show you.

But given Moo's success with her method, I'd be inclined to go with that one.