Its important to understand the maintenance, cleaning, and repair of hardwood parquet floors. Learn how to touch up individual floor tiles with a touch-up stick, or sand, re-stain, and refinish it.
The Charms of a Hardwood Floor
A hardwood floor adds charm and beauty to your home, but like all kinds of floor covering, such as carpet and floating laminate floors, they demand maintenance regularly to keep up their appearance. If youre looking to perk up the parquet floor in your home, but you thought youd 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. Its thin, light, and resistant to abuse. The configuration of the wooden pieces on the individual tiles make it tricky to refinish. The first step before beginning to refinish, maintain, or repair is to identify the flooring finish.
Is it Finished with Polyurethane?
Parquet floors in older homes generally have a lacquer, varnish, or shellac finish. In newer homes the floors will usually have a polyurethane finish.
Heres 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? If these conditions are met, then your finish is lacquer, varnish, or shellac. Otherwise its polyurethane.
Polyurethane-Finished Wood Floor Maintenance
For general maintenance on any type of floor, timely mopping and sweeping is needed. But since water and wood dont 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 an 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 thats 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 a Floor With a Varnish, Shellac, or Lacquer Finish
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, youll never notice any blemishes. Here are a several hints on repairing marks on parquet floors:
A color coded 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 sell products that look like Magic Markers which contain wood stain. Use these markers to touch up your scratch, but remember that wood is made up of various shades of color. You dont have to match the woods color exactly. Look for Mohawk Background Markers.
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.
Follow these tips for parquet hardwood floor maintenance and you can enjoy your floor for years to come.
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About the Author:
Kelly R. Smith was a commercial carpenter for 20 years before returning to night school at the University of Houston where he earned a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science. After working at NASA for a few years, he went on to develop software for the transportation and financial and energy trading industries. He has been writing, in one capacity or another, since he could hold a pencil. As a freelance writer now, he specializes in producing articles and blog content for a variety of clients. His personal blog is at I Can Fix Up My Home Blog where he muses on many different topics.