Richard Aylen looks at how wooden floors are maintained and how to plan maintenance,
as this is something clients sometimes tend to overlook.
AFTER a long winter we’re all feeling a little jaded and in need of a little TLC, and in all probability our floor finishes could also do with some attention. Wooden floors are among the most beautiful natural floor finishes, but the long months of wet feet, grit and dirt will take their toll on the floor’s appearance, and this is probably the right time to bring the floor back to prime condition.
This time I’m going to look at how wooden floors are maintained and how to plan maintenance, as this is something that our clients sometimes tend to overlook.
Solid hardwood floors are very tough and resilient and common signs of wear-and-tear such as scuffs and minor scratches are mostly superficial, so it’s usually a relatively easy task to bring the floor back to life and for it to once again be the main feature of the room.
Before getting the maintenance equipment and bottles of cleaning solution out of the cupboard it’s a good idea to periodically review the way the floor is being cleaned. Look at the main types of wear and tear, and where on the floor they are occurring. If there is severe scratching or scuffs, are they located where items are being dragged across the floor, such as from a storeroom or other adjacent area? Can this be prevented by fitting protective pads to the items? Is it possible to fit wheels or to use trolleys or sack barrows? An easier and less damaging way of moving heavy items may also be appreciated by the staff.
If there is significantly more wear in access areas, there may be a case for replacing barrier mats or increasing their size. A good quality entrance mat system may not be cheap, but the investment will repay itself. Think about removing as much dirt and grit from people’s shoes as possible before they enter the building, and then the indoor barrier mat will have less work to do.
Similarly, if chairs and tables have metal or hard plastic legs with no protection, areas often used for seating may suffer and fitting felt or non-marking rubber pads to the legs will pay dividends. It is worth remembering though, if the floor is used for dining, exams and other similar events, if it is properly maintained there will be no need for the client to purchase temporary protective coverings.
Most clients will be delighted to hear this as it means that not only will they not need to purchase a bulky protective covering but will also be spared the problem of where to store it.
Don’t ignore the basics; ask how often the client cleans the floor. They may be doing all the right things, but just not often enough. If cleaning intervals are too long, grit and abrasive particles will accumulate, and this will cause premature wear of the lacquered or oiled surface.
The cleaning process – what are your options?
For most types of wooden floor regular sweeping and vacuuming will keep it free of grit particles. If it becomes very dirty you can add a cleaning solution into the water, such as Junckers Floor Cleaner. There are also soap-based cleaners specially formulated for oiled floors, such as Junckers Natural Soap. I suggest always following the floor manufacturer’s recommendations when choosing a floor cleaning product or coating. There is a wide choice of general floor cleaning products on the market, but they are not always suitable for a timber floor.
If you get it wrong, you may have a floor that is slippery, or the finish could fail prematurely. At some point the floor will need to be re-sealed or re-oiled, and if the wrong type of cleaner is used re-coating might be impossible because the new finish reacts with cleaning product residues and either peels off or fails to cure properly.
Many multipurpose school and community halls are used for social functions, dining and the like and this can result in non-water-soluble deposits such as oil, fats and grease. A similar thing happens with sports floors where body fats can accumulate. This makes the floor more slippery, and water alone will not clean the floor effectively.
In order to remove oily and greasy deposits an acetic acid-based cleaner such as Junckers Neutralizer will usually be effective. Most floors used for sport and fitness activities will need to be routinely cleaned with a Neutralizer product every few months.
Depending upon the size of the floor you can clean it either by hand or machine.
For smaller areas such as residential accommodation, cleaning the floor by hand with a mop and spray applicator will usually be the best choice. For larger areas such as sports halls and community halls, cleaning by hand is too inefficient and so a cleaning machine of some kind will be needed.
A ‘scrubber-dryer’ machine is the most popular choice and the best models for use on wooden floors will have an interchangeable pad which allows a soft buffing pad to be used. These machines will have a tank which contains cleaning fluid, a means of controlling the amount of water that is applied to the floor, and a vacuum system which recovers all water and dirt.
Short-term floor treatments
A floor may become scratched and scuffed and after some time the appearance can become dull. One way to restore this is to relacquer or reoil the floor, and this will usually be part of the medium-term maintenance plan. There are also some intermediate level treatments that can be used more frequently. Traditionally wooden floors were treated with wax, a relatively soft finish that was easy to renew by buffing more wax onto the floor. This would conceal the usual signs of wear and tear. The downside was that in areas that received little or no foot traffic the wax would build up and discolour. Wax cannot be coated with a lacquer and so the client would have two choices. The first is to strip off the wax and start again, but this is a wet process and there is a risk of water damage. The alternative is to fully sand the floor back to bare wood, reseal it and then begin the waxing routine again, but this may mean the floor is fully refurbished before it really needs to be, and so its life span will be reduced.
Instead of wax polishes we now have products that are similar to polishes, but they can safely be over-coated with lacquer. One example, for use on lacquered floors is Junckers Refresher. This can be applied by hand mop and dries very quickly, so there is very little down time.
With oiled floors, buffing on more oil is both quick and simple, although some oils are not as fast drying as lacquers. Alternatively, the client can use an oiled floor maintainer product such as Junckers Maintenance Oil which can be hand applied and dries very quickly. When using oiled floor maintainers, you need to check with the manufacturer whether or not it will be possible at some later date to apply a conventional oil product on top of them.
Medium-term
At some stage in its life the floor will become worn to the point where it needs to be relacquered or reoiled. Ideally the client will do this before the existing finish wears through to bare wood. Manufacturers of floor coatings usually offer a range of lacquers, usually water-based, to suit different levels of foot traffic.
The most durable lacquers will often be two-pack products with a separate hardener. The hardener makes the product tougher and enables it to strongly adhere to the surface it is applied to. The main ingredient in high traffic lacquers will be polyurethane (PU). Less durable lacquers eg those intended for residential use will often be made from a mixture of acrylic and PU binders. The more PU the product contains, the higher its wear resistance, and the greater the amount of acrylic, the lower the cost.
For oiled floors the medium-term maintenance process will be along the same lines as for the short term, as I mentioned previously.
Long-term
After many years a wooden floor might reach the stage where it is difficult to improve its appearance simply by relacquering or reoiling. This can happen when the finish has worn through to bare wood, or there are larger scratches or other surface damage. When this happens, it is time to fully sand the floor back to bare wood and retreat it. You could call this a full-floor refurbishment, and it can restore the appearance to a nearly new condition.
Clients can sometimes be astonished by the transformation from the grimy floor they have neglected to something of beauty that once again forms the centre piece of their room.
The fact that you can refurbish the floor numerous times during its life means that a wooden floor can have a very long life span, often being refurbished when other types of floor finish may be worn out and ready for replacement. For this reason, hardwood floors, and especially solid wood floors, are often chosen because they are very sustainable.
Wood is in itself a low carbon or carbon neutral material, and most customers and designers will insist on using timber products that are from sustainably managed forests. Engineered wood floors have some good sustainable credentials, but it is usually only possible to sand and refurbish them twice before the top layer becomes too thin, and it can be difficult to establish whether or not all the timber layers in the board come from certified sustainable forests.
A 22 mm thick solid hardwood floorboard can be sanded eight to ten times during its life and so will be in use many times longer than a similar-looking engineered board.
A good maintenance plan and access to the right cleaning and recoating products will ensure that any wooden floor will stay looking its best and the client will benefit from the maximum lifespan the floor can offer.
This also has financial benefits for the client because they will not have to pay for replacing old worn-out finishes, as they would for carpets and synthetic floors for example. Consequently, there will be lower demands upon raw materials.
Many alternatives to wood floors are derived from plastics which has a greater negative effect upon global warming and difficult to dispose of in a sustainable way.
www.junckers.co.uk
Richard Aylen is technical manager, Junckers