Strip, scrub, burnish: floor-care words in Spanish

Floor care is the part of janitorial work with the most specialized vocabulary and the least room for guessing. Strip the wrong floor and you have destroyed it. Lay finish on a floor that was not rinsed and it peels in a week. Every one of those is a sentence a supervisor said in English to a crew that works in Spanish.

The word that changes trade

“Strip the floor” is the trap. For a cleaning crew, stripping means removing old finish, and the Spanish is decapar — the chemical is decapante, the night is noche de decapado. A general translation app reaches for despojar, which means to rob someone. A concrete crew uses the same English word for pulling forms, and their Spanish is different again. Your crew may also say quitar la cera or simply stripear; all three land, despojar does not.

The vocabulary

Bold rows are things you say out loud; the rest are the nouns you point at.

English	Español
strip	decapar (quitar la cera, stripear)
stripper	decapante (removedor de cera)
scrub and recoat	tallado y recapado
buff	pulir (abrillantar, bufear)
burnish	abrillantar a alta velocidad
burnisher	abrillantadora
wax / finish	cera (acabado, sellador)
floor sealer	sellador de piso
coat	capa (mano)
auto scrubber	fregadora (la máquina)
floor machine	máquina rotativa (pulidora de piso)
floor pad	pad (disco)
doodlebug	tallador de mano
slurry	el caldo del decapado
wet floor sign	letrero de piso mojado
dry time	tiempo de secado

Note fregadora: on a Mexican crew the auto scrubber is usually just la máquina, and fregar alone will get you a blank look — mopping is trapear.

Pad colors

Pads are color-coded by aggressiveness, and the colors are the same in any language. Black is the stripping pad. Red is a light scrub or spray-buff pad — and the only pad that should touch polished concrete. Burnishing takes a white or natural-hair pad, depending on the finish. Check the pad maker’s chart for the ones between.

English	Español
Put a black pad on for stripping, red is not enough.	Ponle pad negro para decapar, el rojo no es suficiente.
Hair pads on the burnisher for this finish, not the red ones.	Pads de pelo en la abrillantadora para esta cera, no los rojos.
The warehouse floor is polished concrete — the auto scrubber with red pads, nothing else.	El piso de la bodega es concreto pulido — la fregadora con pads rojos, nada más.
Unplug it before flipping it to change the pad — always.	Desconéctala antes de voltearla para cambiar el pad — siempre.

A strip-and-wax night, in order

The sequence matters more than any single word. Signs and PPE come out before the bucket does; the stripper dwells before the machine runs; the slurry comes up before it dries; the floor is rinsed twice before the first coat; and the coats are thin, with fans running between them.

English	Español
Signs out first, then the bucket comes out — every time.	Primero los letreros, luego sale la cubeta — todas las veces.
Non-slip shoes are part of the uniform — no exceptions on strip nights.	Los zapatos antiderrapantes son parte del uniforme — sin excepciones en noches de decapado.
Dust mop the whole gym before the auto scrubber goes out.	Pasa la mopa por todo el gimnasio antes de sacar la fregadora.
Do the baseboard stripping before the floor gets its first coat.	Haz el decapado de zoclos antes de la primera capa del piso.
Let the stripper dwell ten minutes before you run the machine.	Deja que el decapante actúe diez minutos antes de meter la máquina.
Doodlebug the edges while the machine does the field.	Talla las orillas con el tallador de mano mientras la máquina hace el centro.
Pick up the slurry before it dries — re-stripping dried slurry is double work.	Levanta el caldo antes de que seque — volver a decapar caldo seco es doble trabajo.
Rinse twice after the strip — the finish is only as good as the rinse.	Enjuaga dos veces después del decapado — la cera queda tan bien como el enjuague.
Thin coats of wax — thick coats never cure right.	Capas delgadas de cera — las capas gruesas nunca secan bien.
Thirty minutes dry time per coat with the fans running.	Treinta minutos de secado por capa con los ventiladores prendidos.
Burnish the main hall twice a week on this account.	En esta cuenta se abrillanta el pasillo principal dos veces por semana.

Two safety phrases belong in the same breath. Ventilación: stripper needs the doors propped and a fan set. Cable pelado: a frayed cord on the buffer means it is tagged out, not used carefully.

What not to strip

The worst floor damage comes from a crew that did exactly what it was told, on the wrong floor. Say the floor type with the instruction.

English	Español
The hallways are VCT, the lobby is LVT — only the VCT gets stripped.	Los pasillos son loseta vinílica, el lobby es vinilo de lujo — solo la vinílica se decapa.
That’s LVT — stripper will destroy it; neutral cleaner and an autoscrub only.	Eso es vinilo de lujo — el decapante lo destruye; solo limpiador neutro y la fregadora.

The rest of the category

These are the floor-care and equipment entries from the ChambaTalk janitorial glossary, and the translator uses the same terms for whatever the tables do not cover — it knows a cleaning crew is talking, so strip comes out as decapar, not a robbery. The glossary is free, no account needed, at app.chambatalk.com/glossary.