Special
Who has products for cleaning and maintaining wooden floors?
MAINTENANCE PRODUCTS YIELD CONSIDERABLE PROFIT FLOOR FITTERS ACT AS ADVISERS AND VENDORS Parquet is a gorgeous floor solution and wood is an ecological product with a warm look. Parquet certainly does require some maintenance, but that no longer involves the hard labour of bygone days when all floors were given the classic ‘coat of wax’. The market has realised that clients want convenience when it comes to maintaining parquet. Floor fitters for their part can use this situation to increase their turnover considerably. The range consists of specialist products from suppliers who are associated with parquet.
Products for parquet Parquet and wooden floors are fragile. Depending on the usage and taste preferences, clients opt for a certain finish on the advice of their floor fitter. That finish affects the look, the lifespan, and the resistance of the floor to all sorts of influences. However, it also affects the way in which we will maintain the floor. The most important distinction that we have to explain to clients in this area is the distinction between a film-forming and non-film-forming finish. Only lacquer forms a film. Other finishes are with oil or soap and they impregnate the floor.
Clients are ‘open’ to advice Anyone who opts for a wooden floor from the vast range of floor coverings knows at once that this choice has a number of consequences. In some respects you are bringing ‘living’ material into your home since wood, of all building materials, swells and shrinks the most under the influence of fluctuating climate conditions. That knowledge also means at once that clients are open to advice from parquet floor fitters. The fact that the owner of a wooden floor should best be armed to keep an eye on those climate conditions (by means of a hygrometer) and, if necessary, take action (using an air humidifier) shows that in some respects parquet gives us some concern.
A lacquered floor The standard maintenance of a lacquered floor is limited to daily sweeping with a ‘swiffer’ or vacuum cleaning and mopping lightly with a damp cloth once per week. To do that, you can basically use any cloth which absorbs dirt and any detergent whatsoever. Nevertheless, here, too, makers supply products which are ‘compatible’ with the applied lacquer. Whether or not consumers use such products will depend largely on the floor fitter’s persuasive powers.
Oil, wax, and hard wax Apart from for lacquered floors, little persuasive power is needed to convince clients. This is because maintenance products are usually based on the product used for the finish itself e.g. oil, hard wax oil, wax, or soap. Consumers are bound completely at this point to the producer of the applied finish and therefore they usually have no objections to that. On the contrary, clients who opt for an oiled floor are hesitant to use any products other than those which the floor fitter recommends.
Complete systems Brands which operate in the parquet industry present complete systems for maintaining parquet. Those systems form a wide assortment which is divided up according to the applied finish. Products for daily maintenance constitute the basic range, but the assortment also includes the so called ‘refreshers’ for giving a somewhat depleted floor a new lease of life. Then there are tools e.g. broomsticks, swiffers, mops, cloths, dusters, and such like. What is important here is the branding within all these products and accessories whereby end users are given peace of mind and know that nothing can go wrong with their floor. The assortments appear as a maintenance kit where maintenance products are usually included with the purchase of the accessories.
What’s on the market ? Blanchon Anyone in a hurry will find the right solution at Blanchon in the form of Lagoon®. This product is sprayed onto the floor and the floor is then mopped clean using a micro-fibre cloth. Blanchon offers Lagoon® in a kit: a mop with micro-fibre cloths (washable 500 times) and the spray. Lagoon® can be used on both oiled and lacquered floors, and that’s good for retailers! For lacquered floors Blanchon has two detergents (metallic): the Satin Renovator (‘Rénovateur Satiné’) for semi-gloss or gloss floors and the Matt Renovator (‘Rénovateur Métamat’) for matt floors. Both are suitable for renovation since they can seal small cracks and restore the look to worn out lacquers. For regular cleaning there is Lisabril Cleaner (Nettoyant Lisabril®’), which is used diluted. This product has recently been given a new formula to make it even more suitable for large surfaces (e.g. sports floors). For oiled floors and floors finished with wax oil Blanchon promotes its (universal) Maintenance Oil (‘Huile d’Entretien’). For regular cleaning they recommend Natural Soap (‘Savon Naturel’). Finally, for polished floors there is Blanchon Liquid Wax (‘Cire liquide Blanchon’). Blanchon has developed a presentation display case for the maintenance range. The display case can be filled and divided up according to choice and combined, if necessary, with other products such as varnishes or oils.
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Floor Forum International 108
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