Special Maintenance and cleaning products for floors in vinyl, LVT, and PVC

ABOVE ALL, THE FLOOR HAS TO LOOK NICE

A WELL-INFORMED CLIENT CAN GENERATE EXTRA TURNOVER

As a parquet floor fitter, you might sometimes forget that work doesn’t stop once you’ve fitted a floor in LVT, PVC, and vinyl. On the contrary, parquet specialists must always be ready to give advice about cleaning and maintaining a newly fitted floor. An attractive floor will only stay in top condition with the appropriate maintenance over time. That plays into the hands of floor fitters because their clients will continue to contact them, if only to buy the correct cleaning and maintenance products.

Most manufacturers advise parquet specialists to give consumers extensive maintenance advice after the sale of a floor. That’s why parquet traders often supply bottles of maintenance product when the floor is delivered. This is literally an example of long-term thinking because clients may return later to place more orders once those products are used up. Obviously, what’s also interesting is that this may also yield subsequent fitting work, since the consumer might well want another new floor later.

Cleaning and maintenance in practice

How do you take care of LVT, PVC, or vinyl floors? These days, you can assume that this really can be fairly simple. After all, the latest generations of these floors have generally had a special surface treatment to make them more resistant to scratches or stains. That means they require relatively little regular cleaning and maintenance.

You should certainly tell clients about the various sorts of cleaning. These range from daily sweeping or vacuum cleaning to weekly cleaning with a damp mop and neutral detergent. The latter helps remove dirt and keeps a floor in top condition. Advise clients to use only a minimal amount of water.

Interventions with stains

You should certainly stress the fact that it is best for clients to remove stains immediately. They can do this by cleaning the floor in patches with a nylon sponge and a neutral detergent. Stains should be removed from the outside inwards so that they can then be rinsed with clean water and mopped clean. Consumers must beware of oil, vinegar, or lemon juice because those items can cause discolouration. It’s also best to remove ink, tomato juice and sauce, blood stains, and rust at once. Pen and felt pen marks can be removed with some turpentine on a cloth and then rinsing thoroughly.

Applying a protective coat

There is a huge choice on the market when it comes to cleaning and maintenance products and lots of producers offer a total range. You will notice here that these products are generally water-based. These products are designed specifically for regular cleaning, intensive cleaning, and even for applying a protective coat. The latter is worthwhile if visible scratches have appeared. By applying a protective coat, clients ‘feed’ their floor and prevent premature wear and tear. Finally, one more thing which you really should tell clients is that there are some products on the market which they absolutely must avoid when cleaning a vinyl floor. This ‘black list’ includes scouring powders, brown soap, acetone or solvents, wax or varnish, oil-based products, and steam cleaners! It can also certainly do no harm to point out a number of items which help prevent the need for cleaning and maintenance. These include, for instance, putting a basic door mat by each entrance or applying caps to objects which stand on a vinyl floor.

At the same time, you should certainly advise clients to fit objects such as heating appliances at a certain height above a vinyl floor. This all comes under the motto: Prevention is always better than cure!

What’s on the market ?

Blanchon

Blanchon has various products for cleaning vinyl, LVT, and PVC floors. They offer a full range for glazed, oiled, and polished parquet floors. This range is designed for specialist parquet traders, cleaning companies, and end clients. First of all, there are two metallisers, namely the renovation products Métallisant Satiné (for satin or glossy parquet) and Métallisant Métamat (for matt parquet floors). These metallisers are designed specifically for renovation since they also fill small cracks and freshen up the look of the glazed floors. Furthermore, they also have a detergent, namely Lisabril®. This product is used diluted and complements both metallisers perfectly. Due to its new formula, this product is ideal for large surfaces (e.g. restaurants, public spaces, classrooms, and parquet sports floors). Finally, there is another powerful detergent, namely ‘Décapant Dégraissant’ (new name for the cleaning agent ‘Suractivé’). This product is ideal for preparing the metallisation with no risk of damage to the glazing.

Bona

Bona PREMIUM Spray Mop (renewed Spray Mop) is for tile, laminate, PVC, and other hard floors. The Bona Spray Mop has an ergonomic design and is easy to use, and can be set up quickly and refilled with the specially developed Bona Floor Cleaner Cartridge. Cleaning is easy: Spray and wipe. Forget the bucket with mop. With the Bona Spray Mop, you just spray and wipe.

FEATURES: For laminate, tile floors, PVC floors, and other hard floors – refillable cartridge – cleaning with no streaks – ecological, pH-neutral cleaner – the accompanying cleaning pad can be washed by machine (up to 300 times). Bona Power Scrubber 2.0: compact, powerful scrubbing machine for deep cleaning of all sorts of surfaces, such as also PVC floors, tiles, and other hard floors – removes stubborn dirt with ease in combination with the detergent for the right type of floor. The two cylinder brushes, which rotate in opposite directions, ensure deep and effective cleaning. FEATURES: Effective deep cleaning – easy to fill, empty, clean, and transport – powerful and easy to manoeuvre – absorbs fluid very effectively – wide range of surfaces: also for other types of hard floors as well as wood.

Ciranova

Ciranova has a full range of maintenance products for varnished floors, vinyl, LVT, and PVC floors. Proper maintenance preserves the original look and protects against premature wear and tear. For regular cleaning you should use HARD FLOOR FRESH. Hard Floor Fresh is a universal cleaning product which removes grease and cleans the floor. There’s also UNICARE X-MATT, a unique and universal water-based maintenance product which gives all floors an extra protective coat. UNICARE X-MATT provides an extra protective film and removes micro-scratches to preserve the original look of the floor. Unlike with an oiled parquet floor, this protection doesn’t impregnate the floor. Also unlike an oiled floor, vinyl, LVT, and PVC are closed surfaces, so they don’t have to be fed. You can use the Hard Floor cleaner to remove old polish layers and stubborn stains and streaks. Ciranova has a handy maintenance kit with the three products packed together conveniently. This is ideal for parquet traders and retailers. Chimiver

VELUREX LVT Cleaner is an intensive antistatic cleaner recommended for cleaning vinyl flooring. The antistatic emulsion helps the absorption and prevention of dust build-up. Furthermore VELUREX LVT Cleaner contains special nanoparticles which guarantee to the treated surfaces a deep cleaning and long lasting action. Rinse free, it does not leave halos, assuring a fresh smell/scent in the ambient. Ideal even in the presence of pets. VELUREX Re-Pair is a polyurethane resinbased product suitable for the extraordinary maintenance of particularly damaged ad subject to heavy traffic resin and resilient flooring such as LVT, PVC and linoleum. If applied on UV varnished wooden floors it is recommended to carry out a preliminary test, and checking the adhesion. VELUREX Re-Pair grants the treated surface a new look characterized by the following properties: surface hardness, toughness and transparency.

DecoRad Systems

UV CURING RENOVATION LACQUER FOR LINOLEUM FLOORS

The maintenance of linoleum is a very large market. Working with polymers on linoleum floors means placing three layers of wax on top of each other, this is a process of 10 to 12 hours. Those wax layers are stripped once or twice a year with an alkaline cleaning agent, so that the waste water enters the sewer and you discharge millions of liters of chemicals per year. The alternative: Permanent protection of the floor by applying a water-based UV lacquer, followed by curing with portable UV light. The result is an immediately usable floor with an absolutely "like new" appearance that also lasts much longer: three to five years with only frequent dry cleaning and/or damp (flat) mop. In the current society of sustainability, including solar panels, windmills and electric cars, it is logical that we have to say goodbye to an environmentally harmful and outdated technology such as polymers. Benefit for everyone and the environment.