A guide to regular vinyl flooring maintenance.

You can retain vinyl floor quality through regular cleaning, including daily sweeping and weekly mopping. We give you some guidance on best practice and products to avoid.

Vinyl flooring is less expensive than a lot of flooring options. It is also relatively easy to maintain, and it comes in a huge variety of finishes, designs, styles, and colours. While it is designed to last for years and withstand a high footfall, some general care and maintenance will help you prolong the life the floor, and allow it to retain its great looks.

Daily cleaning

Use a brush or vacuum cleaner to pick up any solid dirt and debris that gathers over the day. If wet cleaning do so manually or with a mono-disc machine with white pad. Although most vinyl floors do not require daily cleaning, doing so will help you maintain its looks and will prevent dirt from becoming ingrained and more difficult to deal with.

Weekly schedule or periodic cleaning

A cleaning regime will partly depend on footfall. Sweep or vacuum the floor first, and then mop it with a damp mop (microfibre mobs are the best) or for mechanical cleaning, a mono-disc machine. Use a neutral or light alkaline detergent, and only use warm water rather than boiling. This will help prevent any unnecessary damage to the material, while the damp mop will help pick up any dirt and mild stains that have gathered over the past week. Manufacturer’s directions should be followed but as a guide, cleaning solution should be dispersed on a surface of 5-10 m2 and should be scrubbed after 10-15 minutes, allowing the cleaning agent time to absorb. This should then be rinse thoroughly with clean water. Do not use fluids or agents containing pine oil.

Some important tips

To assist in regular cleaning and to ensure that your floor continues to look great, use foam pads under the feet and corners of any furniture. This will prevent the sharp corners from potentially scratching and scraping the vinyl. Only use foam, however, as rubber and other materials can leave stains of their own on the floor, especially when moved.

Only use neutral detergents, other options can do more harm than good, eventually leading to damage to floor materials. Do not use abrasive powders, black soap, or oil based products, and don’t try treating the floor with varnish or wax because this will reduce the quality and strength of the material. Use two compartment buckets to avoid mixing clean and dirty water.

Some materials are known to stain vinyl floors (included but not limited to): asphalt, bitumen, wet cardboard, dyes from literature or packaging print, wet hardboard, rubber backed mats, and some chemicals used in cleaning products including pine oil.

Preventative measures are of course the key to good floor maintenance and entrance matting and barrier tiles provide both a safety element and cost saving one. These collect dirt and debris before it is walked into the building and trodden into the floor. This is the single quickest way to reduce the amount of maintenance that your new flooring requires. Being aware of what will stain the floor and avoiding this is also a key consideration when advising employees and maintenance staff on how to keep the vinyl flooring in a commercial building looking its best at all time.

The feature image is from a recent case study and shows just how stunning a luxury vinyl tile looks when first installed. AXIS used here has a 10 year guarantee when properly maintained.

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