Foot traffic and spills can leave your floors looking worn and damaged, which can make your whole house seem old and unwelcoming.
Good news: Proper floor care and restoration can help you regain your floor’s lost luster, avoiding the expense of replacement. But unbeknownst to many home owners, floor-care rules have changed—the things we used to do to keep floors looking great can make today’s floors look worse or fail faster.
Example: Many home owners wax their vinyl, linoleum, ceramic tile or wood floors or use one-step clean-and-wax products—but most modern versions of these floors have polyurethane finishes. Applying wax over a polyurethane finish generally is not the best way to restore the floor’s shine. In the case of wood floors, waxing might prevent the floor from ever being effectively recoated with polyurethane again, unless the floor is sanded down first.
Not certain if your floor should be waxed? Thoroughly clean a section with a damp white cloth, apply mineral spirits to a rag, then rub the rag against the floor. If a smudge appears on the rag, the floor has been waxed previously and can be again. If there’s no smudge, the floor likely has a polyurethane finish and waxes should be avoided. Conduct this test in an out-of-the-way corner—it sometimes leaves a slight mark.
Today’s smart strategies to care for and resuscitate floors…
Dirt usually is the culprit when modern “resilient” flooring—including no-wax vinyl, linoleum and plastic laminate—lose their shine. The heels of our shoes grind dirt into the finish of these floors. Sweep and vacuum these floors at least once a week to remove as much dirt as possible—doing just one or the other usually won’t pick up as much. Also, place doormats by each entrance to the home, ideally both inside and outside, to limit the amount of dirt that’s tracked in. For maximum dirt avoidance, impose a no-shoes-in-the-house rule… or purchase high-end dirt-grabbing mats, which are available through janitorial supply stores.
When you mop, use warm (not hot) water only or water with a small amount of white vinegar—one cup of vinegar per gallon of water. Detergents and one-step clean-and-wax products leave behind residues that trap dirt, increasing the odds that it will be ground into the floor’s finish. If the floor still shows dirt, use Ivory Liquid Dish Soap—roughly one tablespoon of soap per gallon of water—which leaves very little residue, and rinse with warm water afterward.
If the steps above fail to restore your resilient floor’s luster, ask a flooring professional to recommend a neutral-pH floor cleaner appropriate for your specific type of floor, such as Armstrong Once ’n Done (www.Armstrong.com).
Helpful: If your resilient floor has black heel marks, spray a little WD-40 on a rag and gently rub. When the marks are gone, be sure to wipe the area with warm soapy water and then dry with a paper towel to completely remove the lubricant.
Water is enemy number one of wood floors, regardless of their finish. Over time, water can find ways past wax or sealant finishes, perhaps through small cracks or gaps in the finish, around the edges of the floor or by seeping into the gaps between floorboards. Eventually this water could expand, degrade or discolor the wood. Wet-mop wood floors only rarely, regardless of their finish, and then with a damp mop, not a saturated mop. Wipe up spills immediately. Remove wet shoes before walking across a wood floor on rainy or snowy days.
Dirt is enemy number two. It can be ground into the wax or polyurethane finish of floors by our heels, dulling the shine. Sweep and vacuum regularly, and deploy doormats liberally, as discussed earlier in the section on resilient floors.
If your floor has a polyurethane finish—as most modern wood floors do—waxes, oil soaps, ammonia and polishes are the third big enemy. Applying a “top coat” of polyurethane finish on top of the existing finish can be a great way to revive the luster of these wood floors—but if oil, wax or polish has ever been applied, that new coat of finish is likely to be rejected unless the floor is first sanded down and refinished, which could cost $6 to $8 per square foot.
On the other hand, if your wood floors originally were waxed or oiled, not sealed with polyurethane… or if waxes or oils already have been applied over your floor’s polyurethane finish, then stripping off the old wax and applying new, high-quality wax might be your best low-cost floor-restoration option. A flooring professional can suggest an appropriate wax for your floor. The alternative is to have the floor sanded down and refinished so that a new polyurethane sealant can be applied. Refinishing also will remove most scratches, dents and gouges.
Warning: Engineered wood floors have only a thin veneer of hardwood, which typically can be refinished only once. If you’re not certain whether your floors are solid wood or engineered wood, see if you can get a look at a cross section by removing a threshold or base molding. Consult a flooring professional if you’re not certain whether refinishing is an option.
Helpful: High-traffic kitchen floors often require refinishing or replacement well before the floors of surrounding rooms. This can create an obvious line where new and old floors meet if both floors are wood. Solution:Have a carpenter create a visual break where the new kitchen floor joins floors in other rooms by adding a threshold of wood significantly different in color from the wood of your floor.
Ceramic or masonry floor tiles are extremely durable—it’s the grout between tiles or bricks that tends to stain or crack. Clean grout with “oxygen bleach,” which is a powerful multipurpose cleaner. Example: Stain Solver (available online at www.StainSolver.com and www.Amazon.com). It should not harm the grout’s color when used according to directions on the package. If only small sections of grout are grungy or damaged, this grout can be replaced fairly easily. Use the pointy end of a bottle/can opener or a grout-removal tool, available at home-improvement stores, to remove the damaged grout. Bring a sample of your grout to a flooring or tile store so that the color can be matched as closely as possible before patching.
If most or all of your floor’s grout is discolored or cracking, it’s probably time to replace the floor. A tile floor specialist could remove and replace an entire ceramic floor’s grout and leave the tile, but this is so labor intensive that it tends to be quite expensive and worthwhile only if the floor is made from high-end tiles.
Use a sponge, mop or cloth to remove spills and stains from tile floors, never brushes or scouring pads, which can abrade the glazing or finish.
Helpful: Reseal a ceramic floor’s grout every four years or so, even if it still looks great. Frequent resealing reduces the odds that grout will stain.
