Stained stainless elevator cab problems

A. Search this website and you will see many references to staining of stainless steel. How about a wax that is used by the cleaning people in the building? Also search for a single cleaning person who has an unlabeled bottle secreted in their cleaning cart. I have seen several instances of cleaning people, who with the best intentions, have used things like diluted muriatic acid [affil links] or bleach solutions for cleaning because they believed that this had some great advantage over the government issue stuff.

Or it could just be coffee. I don't want to create a witch hunt, so a training session for everyone in the building that may get at your elevator can save a lot of hassle and false accusations. Stress the importance of using the recommended cleaning materials and none other. Encourage, during the training session, the cleaning personnel to talk about what they think about the finish, and how they would maintain the surface, Send one of your engineers around the cleaning rounds to see what issues are being faced with maintenance of the elevator. A dirty looking elevator is probably one of the first things noticed by a guest, and makes a big impression.

A. I suspect urine or coffee.

For urine: Try vinegar [in bulk on eBay or Amazon].

For coffee: Try ammonia [on eBay or Amazon] solution or E.D.T.D or or biological washing powder (wet, of course!) or go to a local store and buy the type of 'Stain Devils' used to remove coffee stains from clothes.

Note:Alcohol will only remove some types of organic stains. Try acetone [on eBay or Amazon] (nail varnish remover - the smelly type!)

Best of luck with the elbow grease!

A. Most stainless finishes like #3 or #4 polish, which can not be repaired when scratches occur, can be buffed without harming the finish. This may augment the most successful chemical method if more is needed. If you tell me more about what the finish is, I'll give more specific advice.

A. This could be either urine or coffee it can be removed with either oxalic acid [affil links] or acetone [on eBay or Amazon]. If the surface is Brush Finish, a fine paper could be rubber in the running direction to remove the marks and restore the finish

A. Hi Dr. Mohan. Sorry but I don't know the ideal gauge for elevator cabins; hopefully a reader familiar with that industry or its codes will help us out.

As for knowing whether it's actually 304 SS, the very easiest way is to find out if a local scrap dealer who has a "portable alloy sorter / scrap sorter [on eBay or Amazon] X-Ray fluorescence" machine would be willing to donate a little of his time for a quick visit. These machines are super fast and quite accurate but very expensive ($40,000+ US).

Regards,