How to care wood flooring

Wood flooring is a good choice for people who want to get the natural atmosphere. As room base, the wood parquet won’t be as strong as the ceramic or marble, but it will bring the cool, natural and green atmosphere at the room. The wood parquet is also has an advantage as it is easy to be uninstall and renewed.  The modern wood parquet industry provides many models and design that can be chosen to be used according to the room theme. The wood parquet technology is already very well developed to make the wood floor product that is strong durable to be function as wood floor. Then we can use the wood floor for our house without any doubt about the strength and durability. But although wood floor has been designed to be function as a floor, but we must keep consider that it is still a wooden material that has different and character of then the “stone” material such as: marble, cement or ceramic.  To keep the wood floor last longer, then we need to treat it properly.  

wood floor bring the natural atmosphere

Here are some tips to care the wood floor.

• Identify the type of finishing of the wood flooring.

There are many models of wood flooring are available, but according to its finish, we can categorize the finish into 2 types, the simple traditional finish and the modern finish.  The simple finishes are the oil, wax or varnish. They are applied simply by brush, dipping or wiping. They can enhance the wood looked, give the natural looked, nice appearance, but they won’t make color. They usually used on the solid wood floor which is made from premium wood. The wood that is hard, strong with beautiful grain and color such as: teakwood, ironwood, rosewood, merbau, maple, walnut, etc. The wood is expensive and has nice and unique appearance; he does not need a thick and “good” finish. The simple finish will maximize his nice looked and natural life as his main value.  This finished will not be as strong as the modern floor finish. It will wear after being used for some time. Usually the oil finish and wax finish are need recoating 1 time or two times a year. Fortunately the recoating is can be done easily, we can recoat the floor with wax or oil finish by brush in the room. We don’t need to reinstall or re sanding the floor.  If the varnish is used, we also can re coat the varnish without reinstall the floor. Because the varnish built a film layer, then we need to sand the film layer and apply the new varnish with brush.

The traditionally finish is not quite strong as the modern finish. The oil and wax even doesn’t not built film for protect the wood underneath.  The varnish will give a film built that could give protection to the wood, but it does not have resistance to the chemical, solvent, alcohol and thinner.

While the modern coating that most used are the UV and PU coating. The UV and PU finish are strong, hard and durable; it has high resistance to the scratch, chemical, solvent. They are used to finish the engineering wood floor such as the veneer, laminated wood or the plywood.  The application of the material needs the facility and equipment that only available at the modern factory. The PU coating is need to be sprayed and it need the finishing room and spraying equipment, which only available in the finishing shop or furniture factory. While the more complicated facility is needed for the UV coating. It needs the UV oven that only available in the flat line finishing line. The finish is available in any color and looked. It can be applied to the “cheap wood” to make it nice and interesting

The PU or UV finish is stronger than the traditional finish such as wax or oil finish. We can use thinner, alcohol or solvent to clean the wood surface. It does not need to be recoated every time. But then the recoating and refinishing for this finish is be a hard and big work.  The good sanding is needed to provide the smooth surface before being layered with the new coating.  We may have to uninstall the floor and do the finishing in the finishing shop.

• Keep the floor to be dry.

Water is one of the biggest enemies for the wood and wood products. The humid condition wood will lead the fungi to grow and ruin the finish. The stagnant water could wet the wood and swell the wood and lead to the construction problems such as: warping, bending or cracking. The water is absorbed for long time even will destroy the wood.  Then it is important to keep the wooden floor is dry.  Avoid the stagnant water at the floor, wipe off and dry the floor soon when there is some water or liquid spilled on.  

• Clean any dirt immediately.

As a floor, it is normal if it is easy to get dirty. There may be some food, flies, lizard feces could fall at the floor. The dirt that is stay too long at the floor could hardly stock on the floor. The chemical at the lizard feces or flies could react and ruin the wood coating. Then clean any dirt as soon as possible. Sweep and swab the floor regularly. 

• Use the proper chemical to clean the floor.

We need a proper cleaning chemical to clean the floor. The improper chemical could damage the floor finish. We can use the water or soap or cleaning chemical to clean the floor. For the oil and wax finish we can use the wax or oil finish to clean the finish and renew the finish. For the varnish we can use the mineral spirit to clean any dirt or stain. Mineral spirit is also recommended to clean the UV coating or PU coating, although some stronger solvent (alcohol, thinner, and acetone) also can be used.