Maintenance FAQ’s Copy

Our Sensory Paths are made from a waterproof commercial grade floor film with an adhesive backing. If installation and maintenance guidelines are followed correctly, your path will last for several years. We recommend installing on a clean, waxed vinyl composition tile. A clean waxed floor will offer a great surface for adhesion. Bare tiles, or previously stripped tiles that do not have a layer of wax will need at minimum one layer of wax to offer a sealed surface for proper adhesion. We also like to say treat your path like the hood of your car. If you wouldn't drag somethings over the hood of your car then you don't need to drag it over the sensory path. So moving desk or hard objects over the path has the potential to scratch or damage the image. We DO NOT recommend using a mechanical scrubber, polisher, or mopper over the path.

We recommend once the path is installed, to give it time to settle and adhesive to grip the floor surface. Since the adhesive is pressure sensitive, allowing students to use it after a 12 hour settling period will help settle the adhesive. Maintenance can manually mop and sweep during this initial settling period. To get the longest life from your installed sensory path, we recommend using an non-yellowing commercial wax on top of the installed path. Apply a minimum 5-10 layers of wax liberally, thick heavy coats will be your friend! Adding this extra protection is strongly recommended to protect your path from peeling or lifting. We DO NOT recommend using a mechanical scrubber, polisher, or mopper over the path. If you do, it has the potential to completely damage and destroy the decals. Hand moping is the way to go after installation! So longevity really depends on the type of service your maintenance staff can provide. If the surface is waxed, as we strongly recommend, the longevity will be as long as you need or until stripping the floors of all wax. Usually the janitors like to strip the floors once a year which we then recommend to preform a “lite” strip by diluting the stripper, not agitating the floors as much, and leaving the stripper on for less amount of time than usual taking only 1-2 layers of wax off the surface. 

Our paths are designed using a permanent adhesive. We considered a removable adhesive, but upon testing found that any removable adhesive products we tested, did not follow the standards for ensuring a quality and safe path. Removable adhesives degrade over a 6 month period thus resulting in lifting of edges, and potentially causing a safety hazard. Our Sensory Paths use a permanent adhesive designed to stay until your want them off.

The removal is as simple as stripping off the protective wax layers and applying the same stripper to the film. Using a scrapper and lifting the edge slightly of the path piece will allow for the floor stripping solution to release the adhesive from the initial wax layers that were on the floor when the path was applied.

Hardwood floors which have been properly sealed and maintained with a commercial hard wax should offer the adhesive the proper surface to adhere. Do not use on shellac or polyurethane sealers as they degrade more rapidly than commercial wax and our films.

Ceramic floor which have a sealed surface such as a glaze will offer a good surface for adhesion. Breaks between tiles where grout may be, will need to be cleaned and sealed to offer proper performance. We do not recommend using the product on porous surfaces or tiles without a smooth finish. 

Indoor finished concrete surfaces that are sealed with a concrete finishing sealant or stained and sealed should offer a proper adhesive surface. Painted concrete which is prepared properly and sealed and cured, will offer the proper surface for adhesion. Finishing with a commercial wax will help keep the paths from lifting when applied.

Laminate flooring with a textured surface is fine for adhering the pathways. Laminate flooring has a properly finished coating and if properly cleaned before application, will offer a good surface to hold the film. The film we use is very strong but thin and the texture of the floor may be

visible on the surface of the film, but it should not compromise the quality of the product.  

All commercial locations with high traffic flow over the surface of the path should use additional wax as they normally would to offer the proper protection from usage, and any environmental factors such as snow and salts which would typically degrade the normal surface.

Although the manufacturing company of the product we use states that it can be used on carpet, we are product testing currently to see if it meets our stands of durability. We can not recommend the use on carpet until we have had sufficient testing completed.