Maintenance, cleaning, and repair of hardwood parquet floors. Touch up individual floor tiles with a touch-up stick or sand, re-stain, and refinish.
Parquet Floor Maintenance
A hardwood floor adds charm and beauty to your home, but like all kinds of floors, such as carpet, they demand maintenance regularly to keep up their appearance. If you're in need of perking up the parquet floor in your home, but you thought you'd need to hire a pro, think again. Read on; these parquet floor maintenance tips are all you need.
Parquet floor tiles are a very popular flooring material. This kind of flooring came of age roughly 30 years ago unlike laminate flooring which is taking market share. It's thin, light, and resistant to abuse. The configuration of the wooden pieces on the individual tile make it difficult to refinish.
Is it Finished with Polyurethane?
The basic thing to discover before doing maintenance on a parquet floor is what kind of finish it has. Parquet floors in old homes generally have a lacquer, varnish, or shellac finish. In newer homes the floors will usually have a polyurethane finish.
Here's a quick way to discover what kind of finish is on yours; get a cotton ball and immerse it in acetone. Rub the ball in a inconspicuous spot. Is the floor tacky to the touch? Does the cotton have a stain? Then your finish is lacquer, varnish, or shellac. Otherwise it's polyurethane.
Wood Floor Maintenance
For general maintenance on any type of floor, timely mopping and sweeping is needed. But since water and wood don't play well together, minimize the moisture when mopping. For added protection, keep rugs at entryways as well as heavily trafficked areas. Also remember that high heel shoes, like boots, are hard on parquet wood floors. Wood is a organic product that can be damaged if subjected to much pressure.
When spills occur on a polyurethane floor, use a soft cloth with a liquid cleaner that's non-abrasive. For shoe marks such as scuffs buff it very lightly using a very fine pad of # 0000 steel wool with a liquid cleaner. Then apply a non-wax finish that the parquet manufacturer recommends.
Cleaning floors with a finish other than polyurethane is different. This requires a special paste wax. Rub the scuff with the paste wax and let it dry. Then buff the spot with a soft cloth. Apply a new coat of wax every 3 to 5 months, depending on the traffic.
How to Touch Up Parquet Flooring
Scratches are part of life when you have parquet floors. However, if you take care of them, you’ll never notice any blemishes. Here are a several hints on repairing marks on parquet floors:
- A touch-up stick made from wax can be used to match color in damaged areas . Color a scratch using the stick. Return with your handy putty knife to gently scrape off any excess. Then just buff the spot.
- Home improvement centers have products like these markers that contain wood stain. Use these markers to touch up your scratch but remember that wood is made up of various shades of color. You don't have to match the wood's color exactly.
- If your parquet floor is damaged badly, put a bit of masking tape around the area. Sand off the finish following the grain. Then re-stain it and put on a new finish.
