Clean Vinyl Flooring
Vinyl flooring is a popular choice kitchens and bathrooms, since it's waterproof and easy to clean. Vinyl is an inexpensive floor covering that looks attractive and has a cushioned core, which makes floors more comfortable to walk on and warmer than tile or wood. With proper care and cleaning, your vinyl floor can look great and keep its original shine for many years.
Contents
Household Solutions
Vinyl flooring is prone to getting dirty and marked up, but you don't have to spend a lot of money on expensive cleaners. You may have everything you need for a shiny floor around your home already:
- If you have vinegar, you can .
- If you have jojoba oil, you can .
- If you have dish soap, you can .
- If you have WD-40, you can .
- If you have baking soda, you can .
- If you have rubbing alcohol, you can .
Steps
Maintaining Your Floor
- Use a doormat to keep the floor clean. The substances you track into your house on your shoes are damaging to vinyl flooring. Dirt, tiny pits of gravel, and chemicals from asphalt are abrasive to the vinyl, and over time will cause it to get scratched and yellowed. The solution is to wipe your shoes on a doormat, or, even better, take them off when you enter the house.
- Using throw rugs in spots that tend to get a lot of foot traffic is also a good idea. In the kitchen, for example, you might want to place a rug in front of the sink, where you might tend to stand when you wash vegetables or do the dishes.
- Sweep every day. Cleaning up dirt and dust as it comes is important, since when it accumulates it can end up getting ground into the floor as people walk through the room. Dirt and dust act as an abrasive and take the sheen off of vinyl flooring. Sweep every day to prevent dirt and dust from building up and becoming a problem.
- If you'd prefer not to use a broom, you could use a dry mop or vacuum to remove everyday dust and debris.
- Be sure to clean under your furniture, along baseboards, and under cabinets.
- Clean up spills right away. Whatever you spill, whether it's orange juice or just a cup of water, clean it up instead of letting it dry on the floor. Sugary drinks are harder to clean once they've dried, and even water can damage the flooring when it's left to sit too long. Cleaning up messes right away will keep your floor looking new and prevent you from doing a lot of work later.
- Use a simple vinegar solution for everyday washing. Vinegar is a totally harmless substance that lightly cleans vinyl floors to keep them looking fresh. As a general rule, you want to use the mild cleanser possible to do the job, since harsher cleanser are tougher on the flooring. To make a vinegar solution, simply mix a cup of apple cider vinegar with a gallon of hot water and use a mop to clean the floor.
- The acid in apple cider vinegar cleans the floor gently without leaving a residue, which is perfect for keeping vinyl in good shape. As the cleanser dries, the smell of vinegar will fade away.
- If you want your floor to look shiny, add a few drops of jojoba oil to the mix.
- Be sure to pick the right commercial cleanser. If vinegar isn't for you, you could instead use a vinyl floor cleanser manufactured for this purpose. Just be sure you choose the right type of cleanser:
- No-wax cleanser is made for modern flooring that doesn't have a waxed surface.
- Cleanser for waxed floors is made for older vinyl flooring, which has a waxed surface that must stay intact.
Doing a Deep Cleaning
- Use dish soap for deeper dirt. Mix up your standard apple cider vinegar solution, but this time add a tablespoon of dish soap. The soap should help lift dirt that's embedded in the floor. Use a mop made with nylon scrub bristles for deeper cleaning.
- Remove scuffs with oil or WD-40. Vinyl flooring is infamous for getting scuffed, but luckily there's an easy way to remove them. Place jojoba oil or WD-40 on a soft cloth, and use it to rub the scuff marks. If the scuffs are simply on the surface of the floor, they'll rub right off.
- Scratches are deeper than scuffs, and they won't just rub away. You can clean the scratches so they're less noticeable, but if you want to get rid of the scratches entirely, you'll just have to replace the individual tiles they're on.
- Use a baking soda paste on stains. Mix baking soda with enough water to make a thick paste, and use a soft cloth to rub it over stains from food, like wine or berry juice. The baking soda is slightly abrasive and should take the stains right up.
- Try rubbing alcohol for makeup or ink stains. Dab a soft cloth in rubbing alcohol and rub it over bathroom stains from makeup and other pigmented items. The alcohol will lift the stains from the vinyl without damaging it.
- To remove fingernail polish, try using acetone-free fingernail polish remover. Don't use polish remover that contains acetone, since this can damage vinyl.
- Scrub with a soft nylon brush. If there's a tricky stain that won't come up with a soft cloth, you can scrub with a soft nylon brush. Make sure you don't use a stiff-bristled brush, since it could leave scratches on your floor.
- Rinse with clean water to remove residue. After you've cleaned all the stains away, rinse the floor so the residue doesn't sit there. Soap and other substances that build up on the surface of the floor will damage it over time.
Knowing What Not to Do
- Don't scrub too hard. Using a stiff-bristled brush and scrubbing too hard will take the shine off of your vinyl flooring. It's important to use the softest possible material needed to remove dirt or stains.
- Never try to pry dried substances off the floor with a knife, since it will leave a permanent scratch. Soak the area in a solution appropriate for the stain and attempt to remove it with a soft cloth once it's saturated.
- Don't use abrasive cleaners. It's important to use the right type of cleaner for vinyl flooring. Using just any old household cleaner is likely to take the shine off the vinyl, since most contain chemicals that are too abrasive. Stick with vinegar or a commercial cleaner formulated for the type of floor you have.
- Avoid getting the floor too wet. Soaking the floor with water will damage the glue that keeps the vinyl adhered to the floor underneath. The water will get into the cracks between the tiles and get trapped under the tiles. Use only as much water as you need to cleanse the floor, and make sure it's dry when your job is done.
- Use felt tips on your chairs and tables. Moving chairs and tables around tends to scuff and scratch floors. Make your cleaning job easier by placing felt tips or pads on the bottoms of your chair and table legs. Avoid using chairs and tables with rollers, since these tend to scuff worse than felt-tipped legs.
Tips
- Use a soft nylon pad or a soft bristle brush to clean your vinyl floor when a cloth or mop is not enough. These tools can help you remove residue left behind by spilled food, lipstick and crayons.
Warnings
- Vinyl is a floor covering; as such, it can pull away from the sub-floor and cause bubbles or creases. Avoid this by taking care when moving furniture or appliances over the flooring.
