Tuesday 5 August 2014

Keeping Proper Streak Free Laminate Floors

By Paulette Mason


There are many homeowners who prefer cheaper flooring alternatives that physically look just as elegant as natural wood floors. Materials like streak free laminate floors fill these requirements and are quite easy to install. In order to keep these more affordable alternatives from getting damaged, be sure to maintain them as best as you can.

Homeowners appreciate the durability and physical attractiveness of laminate floors, and often prefer them to high quality carpets. However, many are concerned of visible streaks, scratches, lines, bending, warping, and expanding planks on these floors that can often occur without correct maintenance and cleaning. In order to avoid these damages, it's important that you make sure to keep up with the regular maintenance laminate floors require.

Keep the surface of your floors free from sand, dust, dirt, and grit particles to avoid damage. Accumulation of these particles can cause grinding effects on the upper coating of the laminate. If you leave them be, you'll be left with floors that are scratched and lined. Using door mats can also help keep your floors cleaner. As long as you keep these mats clean as well, the amount of particles going into your home will lower quite a bit.

Make sure your furniture isn't being slid around your floors. The weight of these objects will definitely cause scratches and lines across the laminates. One way of preventing this is to place protective pads on the legs or mass of the furniture so it doesn't directly touch the floors.

Pets and liquids have ways of damaging your laminate flooring as well. The nails on your animals can create small and many scratches on the surface of the floors. Make sure to trim the nails often to avoid this damage. Also, liquid left unattended can cause long-term damage, so always mop and clean up any liquid left on your floors.

The laminate flooring is only anti-streak if you properly maintain it. Sweep and vacuum the floor with non-abrasive devices to remove the more obvious particles, then use a drop mop to clean it again to catch any other dust particles. Using a wet mop is obviously ill-advised due to the liquid that can accumulate in the lines of the planks. If you have a larger household, your cleaning schedule should be more frequent.

Before using a store-bought spray or liquid solution to clean your floors, you can wet-clean them with a solvent of 1 cup of distilled vinegar in clean water. You should dry the floor immediately after using a moist rag with this homemade solution in order to avoid future damage or streaks. Afterwards, use the store-bought solution on a dry mop to clean the entire flooring area.

Although your floor manufacturer will provide guidelines for maintenance, cleaning, and repairs for your laminate surfaces; you may want to avoid constantly referring to them. In that case, you should apply a touch upper coating to the floors to add extra protection to the surface. However, make sure to still properly clean the surface to prevent long-term damage.




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