Todays chemicals are intended to be used with luke warm or cold water.

:nono: If you use hot water it will melt the wax and pull up with your mop. I have signs posted at all my locations : Do not use hot water on floors, only cold. I don't even use warm water. Some people I work with at the schools use hot water and it shows. ( what a mess )

:notlistening: I have always used Hot water because if kills germs and It drys faster. I have never ,ever had wax melt. What kind of wax are you useing and how soon are you mopping after you wax? :allalonehere: ???????????????????????????????????

It doesn't just lift it off. it happens over time. It dulls and removes finish faster.Could be why I don't have to burnish much, my wax stays for a very long time.

hellothere :oops: Well sure ,it never fails ,we have hot water radiators in the building I work & over a weekend two of them leaked.One on my nice newly waxed bathroom floor that took forever to strip & wax.Welllll guess what happend to the wax.It melted, a nice long stream down the middle. Now I have to rescrub & re wax. So to sum this up YEAH,WAX MELTS. :crying:

Sorry to here that. Every time you use hot water it takes a little shine(wax) away and eventually you have a bare floor. you just experienced it all at once.

Boy, I'm glad both of you got back on the road and are both headed in the same direction.

Personally, I started off wanting to disagree with your statement. But I had to do some research to make sure myself.

I know this is going to be a long post, but its important that we don't just make blanket statements.

First, a word on the wax melting. If your wax is melting you must be using some pretty dang hot water (or just some old or bad wax). When I talk about hot water I'm not talking about 211 degree water (just below boiling point) but just water that is hot to the touch.

What can happen with using hot water is any grease or oils that may be on the floor can soften and be spread while your moping (since oil and water don't mix well). But Hot water will dry much faster during the times when the hall or area will need to be used soon.

There are cases for both hot and cold water uses. For example I have always heard hot water enhances (speeds up) chemical reactivity in most cases which means using less chemicals to get the job done and shorter time cleaning since the cleaning chemical is reacting better (or doing the job faster because its excited due to the heat). Thats why it was always believed that hot water was better.

But with todays society going green, new chemicals are being created to use cool water as energy savers (again not having to heat the water up).

In other cases cold water is better for cleaning oils, greases etc.... With the added bonus of not having to pay to heat the water.


There is a great article, (well debate) or discussion here:

http://www.ogs.state.ny.us/bldgadmin/envir...terCleaning.rtf

It's a little long but there are a lot of supporting arguements for cold water use.

And here is a link as to why hot water is better for cleaning:

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01759.htm

Basicly it states that hot water has increased dissolving abilities - (due to entropy) even without soap, small amounts of some greases will dissolve in water.

In hot water, the amount that will dissolve can be ten times higher.
* melting - some greases are low-melting waxes, and being melted makes it easier for the soapy water to penetrate, detach, and surround them. Even things that are not quite melted at least get softer.


So it should definitly not be a cold water only when cleaning the floor issue.

And really, if you find that your wax is melting, something else is wrong with that situation. There must be another problem.


For the radiator situation: any water left on a waxed floor surface will disolve the wax. There are many situations when we had leaks, toilet, roof, pipe etc.... where water had ruined the wax and it had all been cold.

Again sorry for being so long winded.

wtflag I thought this was over , but I would like to state I have tried hot ,cold,warm water.Iuse warm water.And will continue to do so no matter what.I don't care who's way is better. I like the way my floors look and smell ( I use Orange h2o ) they shine when I'm done and because the water is warm ,dry quicker with no steaking.If they are dull I high speed buff them with a white pad and a spray buff and they are shiny again.That is what I do.................

Ok, when I say the wax "melts", it's not something you see.Every time you use hot or warm water it takes away some of the wax, micro numbers and after time you have a dull floor.In kitchens where there is grease etc. I would use warm/hot water but not on my wax floors. I use wet floor signs and don't care how long they take to dry. In a school you wash halls at least 4 times a day so who cares if the wet floor gets marked up in between. They don't!!

:help: ok ,like the old saying goes lets agree to disagree.I still say warm water works best and the only reason wax comes off any floor is from wearing it off.It seems to me mopping a floor 4 times a day no matter what the water temp. was ,you would wear it off. I would rather have a dry safe floor that a wet, slippery, accident waiting to happen.Would'nt you?