Terrazzo in Adelaide homes: how to clean it, and what not to do

By Adelaide Tile & Grout · Updated 2026-10-31 · Adelaide SA

Why Adelaide has so much terrazzo

From the end of the war through the 1960s, terrazzo was the hard-wearing, affordable floor of choice for wet areas and entries across Australia, and Adelaide got more than its share: Housing Trust homes in Elizabeth, Salisbury and Marion, post-war brick homes in the eastern and north-eastern suburbs, and almost every walk-up unit block of the era have terrazzo in the bathroom, laundry, porch or stairwell. Much of it was poured and finished on site by Italian tradesmen who had grown up with the material, and in suburbs like Campbelltown and Newton it turns up through whole houses.

Sixty years on, most of it is still sound. What it usually suffers from is neglect, decades of the wrong cleaner, and a surface clogged with old polish and dirt.

What terrazzo is, and why that matters

Cement terrazzo is chips of marble set in a Portland-cement binder, ground flat once cured and then polished. Two things follow. First, the cement matrix is porous, like grout, so it absorbs dirty water, oil and whatever is spilt on it. Second, both the marble chips and the cement are attacked by acid. Vinegar, lemon juice, most bathroom sprays, many tile cleaners and anything described as “descaler” etch the surface, leaving a dull, rough patch that no amount of cleaning will shine again. That is the most common kind of damage on old terrazzo, and it is nearly always from cleaning products.

Cleaning terrazzo at home

• Sweep or vacuum first. Grit is what scratches the polish.
• Use a neutral cleaner. A pH-neutral stone or tile cleaner, or a few drops of dishwashing liquid in warm water. Nothing acidic, nothing with bleach as the main ingredient.
• Mop, then rinse. Dirty mop water left to dry is what greys the matrix. Rinse with clean water and dry with a towel if you can.
• Wipe spills promptly. Wine, coffee, oil and rust from metal left on the floor all stain the cement.
• Skip the “shine” products. Supermarket floor polishes build up a yellowing film that holds dirt and eventually has to be stripped.

What a professional clean does

Where the surface has gone grey or the old polish has built up, a professional clean strips the residue with an alkaline (not acidic) stripper, agitates the surface with a rotary machine and the right pads, rinses and extracts the slurry, and leaves the terrazzo as clean as the stone underneath allows. Stains in the matrix lighten; some old ones stay as a shadow. Once dry, a penetrating sealer is worked in to slow future staining. The look stays matt or satin: this is cleaning and protection, not re-polishing.

What we don’t do, and who does

If the terrazzo is etched, scratched through, cracked, or the polish has worn off in the walkways, the fix is mechanical: diamond grinding and re-polishing by a stone restorer, sometimes with crack repair. That is specialist work with its own equipment and prices, and it is not something we offer. We will tell you plainly if that is what your floor needs, and a clean beforehand is usually still worth it because restorers quote on what they can see.

Slate, the other old Adelaide floor

The same cautions apply to the slate floors that went into so many 1970s and 80s Adelaide homes, often local slate from the mid-north. Slate is layered and porous, it hates acid, and it flakes if scrubbed with wire. We clean it with neutral products, strip old topical coatings where they are peeling, and seal it with a penetrating sealer. We don’t apply gloss coatings or “wet look” finishes.