Your home's floors contribute to a big part of your home's interior appearance. They also receive a large amount of wear and tear day after day. Here are some important keys to keeping your home hardwood and vinyl flooring a great addition to your home's value.
Consider the Flooring Type
There are a number of flooring types you might have installed through your home, and each one has its own specific care instructions. It is essential that you follow these cleaning and care instructions to keep your flooring looking its best. Otherwise, your laminate flooring, for example, can begin to lose its glossy coating and can start to look dull and dirty.
Be sure to find out from your flooring installer professional what the manufacturer's recommended care and cleaning routine is. These instructions will be specific to provide details about the type of cleaning appliance and solution to use on them. For example, with a hardwood flooring, you don't want to use a soaking wet mop and allow any water to remain on the surface for a few minutes. Hardwood flooring is not generally water-resistant, and water left on the surface will cause staining and lightening of the protective layers. Hardwood flooring will benefit from a dry dust mop and spot cleaning with a spray cleaner and a rag to wipe up the cleaner immediately.
Look at Household Wear
To take care of the type of flooring in your home, look at the amount of traffic that comes into your home and the entryway by which it comes. For example, if you have several family members who go in and out a side doorway and track in dirt onto your vinyl or hardwood flooring, use a prevention strategy to keep your floors clean. Place a welcome mat on the outside of the doorway and a carpet rug on the inside of the doorway. Each rug will help pull debris off feet before they enter the home. This, along with your vacuuming or sweeping each day, will keep the floors protected.
Pets can also add extra wear to your flooring as their claws scratch and gouge the surface of your hardwood or vinyl floors. Rugs are a great way to protect the floors, especially in strategic places throughout the house, such as around corners and at the ends of long hallways. This will enable your pets to get a better grip on the floors without doing damage.
Use Specific Cleaning Routines
To clean a solid surface flooring, keep it swept clean of dirt and debris each day. When dirt accumulates on the surface of a smoothly finished floor, tiny scratches can appear in the coating, making it appear dull. The same situation applies to your carpeting: vacuum it regularly to remove dirt from its fibers. Dirt acts as tiny pieces of glass and causes scratches to the fibers of your carpeting, leaving them with a dull appearance. Over time, this makes your carpeting look dirty even though it is not and its fibers are only scratched.
To learn more, contact a company like East Penn Hardwood Flooring Corp.