Looking after the floor

What protects any floor

Most avoidable floor damage is abrasion, and almost all of it arrives on the soles of shoes. Grit behaves like sandpaper underfoot, so the cheapest maintenance decision is stopping it at the door.

• Walk-off matting — At every exterior door, long enough for several steps. This does more for a floor's appearance over ten years than any cleaning routine.
• Felt pads under furniture — On every leg, checked periodically — a pad that has lost its felt and is down to the metal disc is worse than no pad at all.
• Wide, soft castors — Narrow hard castors concentrate load. Chair mats help in offices, where a desk chair covers the same square metre thousands of times.
• Sweep or vacuum before mopping — Mopping grit grinds it across the surface. Use a vacuum setting without a beater bar on hard floors.
• Blinds or curtains on strong sun — Prolonged direct sunlight fades flooring, wood especially. A rug left in one place for years can leave a visible outline.

Waterproof SPC and resilient planks

A rigid mineral core does not swell with moisture, so routine damp mopping is straightforward. Sweep or vacuum first, then use a well-wrung mop — standing water is still worth avoiding, not for the plank but because it finds seams and reaches the subfloor.

The wear layer is a clear coating over a printed design, and it is what cleaning acts on. Avoid abrasive pads, scouring powders and anything described as a polish or restorer unless the manufacturer names it: film-forming products build up unevenly and are difficult to remove later.

Steam mops are the common mistake. Heat and pressurised vapour can affect the wear layer and the locking system, and most resilient manufacturers exclude steam cleaning from their warranty. Check the care sheet before using one.

Engineered hardwood

This is a real wood surface and it is cleaned as wood. Sweep or vacuum, then use a barely damp mop with a cleaner intended for finished wood floors. Wood tolerates far less standing water than a resilient floor, so wring the mop out further than feels necessary and wipe spills promptly.

Do not use vinegar, ammonia, oil soaps or general-purpose cleaners on a finished wood floor. Vinegar is widely repeated as a home remedy and it dulls a urethane finish over time.

Indoor humidity matters more for wood than for anything else in the range. Wood moves with moisture in the air, and a house that swings between very dry winter heating and a humid summer will show more seasonal movement at the joints. Keeping indoor humidity within the manufacturer's stated range is the single most effective thing you can do for a wood floor in this climate.

Rubber flooring

Rubber is homogenous — the same material all the way through — so cleaning is not protecting a printed layer. It is usually specified where floors get cleaned hard and often, and it tolerates that.

Use a neutral-pH cleaner. Strongly alkaline cleaners and solvent-based products can affect rubber over time, and a floor that looks patchy after a deep clean is often a chemical reaction rather than wear.

New rubber flooring may need an initial clean to remove manufacturing residue before it settles into a routine. The manufacturer's sheet sets out whether that applies and what to use.

A note on new floors

A newly laid floor usually has a settling-in period before it should be washed, walked on heavily, or have furniture moved back. With a glue-down floor especially, the adhesive needs time before the floor is loaded or wetted.

How long depends entirely on the product and the adhesive, so it comes from the manufacturer's instructions and your installer — not from a general rule. Ask before the crew leaves, because this is the point at which a good installation is most easily undone.