Walk into an original post-war home in Broward and odds are you are standing on terrazzo: marble chips set in cement, poured in place and polished. Whole neighborhoods were built on it: the veterans' blocks of Poinsettia Heights and North Andrews Gardens in Oakland Park, the renovated 1960s ranches of Imperial Point, the mixed-era streets of Tarpon River. Those floors are seventy years old and can easily do seventy more, but only under the right routine.
The rule that saves terrazzo: it is stone in cement, so clean it like stone, never like tile.
What hurts terrazzo?
Acid and harsh chemistry. Vinegar, lemon-based products and aggressive tile cleaners etch the marble chips and dull the polish; bleach can discolor the cement between them. The other quiet enemy is grit: sand tracked in acts like sandpaper underfoot, which is why homes near the water, and the renovated cottages around East Wilton Manors, do best with mats at the doors and frequent dust-mopping.
How do you know the floor is terrazzo?
Look for three things. The surface shows chips of stone in a matrix, not a printed pattern, so the flecks are irregular and never repeat. The floor is poured, not laid, which means no grout lines anywhere. And at doorways or where the color changes there is usually a thin metal divider strip, brass or zinc, set flush into the floor.
That strip is the giveaway. It exists because poured floors need a break to control cracking, and no tile installation has one. If you can see stone flecks, no grout, and a metal line at the threshold, you are on terrazzo, and the product under your sink matters more than you thought.
Is a steam mop safe on it?
No, and this is the single most common way a good floor gets damaged by someone trying to take care of it. Steam forces moisture and heat into the cement matrix between the chips, and it softens or clouds whatever sealer is on top. The floor looks fine the first few times, which is exactly why the habit sticks before the damage shows.
Sealer is the other half of the answer. Most terrazzo in these houses has been sealed at some point, and the sealer is the layer doing the daily work: it takes the spills and the foot traffic so the stone does not. Neutral-pH cleaning preserves it. Acid strips it, and once it is gone the cement is exposed and starts absorbing what lands on it.
If you are not sure whether yours is sealed, water tells you: a drop that beads is sealed, a drop that darkens the surface and slowly disappears is not.
What does the right routine look like?
Dry dust-mop first, then a damp mop with a neutral-pH cleaner, and dry the floor rather than letting water sit in the cement. That is exactly the cadence a recurring plan is built for: little and often beats occasional and aggressive, on terrazzo more than on any other surface in the house.
And when the floor is already dull?
A floor dulled by years of wax buildup or the wrong products usually needs one honest reset: the kind of top-to-bottom visit described in deep cleaning vs. regular cleaning. A one-time deep cleaning strips the buildup so the stone can be maintained properly afterward; actual re-polishing is a stone specialist's job, and an honest cleaning company tells you which one you need.
If your home in Oakland Park or anywhere in Broward still has its original floors, request a free estimate and mention the terrazzo: it changes the product list we bring.