Oiled & Hardwax

Maintenance of Oiled & Hardwax Oiled Wood Floors

Oil and Hardwax Oil finished floors offer a very special finish ensuring a pleasant and natural living environment. In order to ensure lasting pleasure of your oil finished floor, it is especially necessary to care correctly for the floor right after installation. With the right care, the oiled floor will become increasingly easy to clean and more hard wearing as the ‘Oil soap’ protects the floor with an invisible film making the floor more resistant to soiling.

After-installation-care

We recommend coating of the floor right after installation with natural or colour tinted Maintenance Oil or Hardwax Oil depending on colour so as to add additional protection to the finish, cure scuffing from installation and Seal up of the joints to retard or prevent spillage infiltration.   This is in fact one of the key reasons to consider Hardwax finished floors.

Normal Cleaning

Normal cleaning is with broom or vacuum cleaner. All floors should be washed with a hard-wrung,wet cloth /mop as necessary.  With oiled floors, USE ONLY manufacturer supplied concentrated Floor Soap added to the water in a 2 – 3% solution. ‘Oil Soap‘ has two functions: it cleans the floor and at the same time nourishes the finish making the surface more soil resistant.  Important: always wipe floor with soap on mop in line with board direction.

Basic cleaning – Vacuum thoroughly first

Normally if using micro-fibre mops make sure they are the “cut fibre” type rather than Loops on the face as these are more abrasive. Use several mop heads as they will become soiled and so need replacing as you progress. Soiled mops can be laundered between uses. Spray the mop face and lightly spray areas to be cleaned ahead of the moping. The floor should look wet once mopped but no excess pooled or spots from spraying. Work backwards to avoid walking on wet areas. Allow to dry well before walking or replacing furniture.

Spot Remover

Difficult spots can be removed with Intensive cleaner which is sprayed on the spot and left to dissolve it. Repeat process if necessary. Fluids absorbed deeper inside the surface of the floor can be remove by sanding with very high sanding grit paper. However, this requires application of Maintenance Oil natural or white on the spot. May require re-finishing as well.

Maintaining with Maintenance Oil

After a period of use, the oiled floor will perhaps look slightly dull and dried and should be maintained with a thin layer of Maintenance Oil, applied by “Squeegee” and then buffed in, using a Random Orbital buffing machine.

Before applying Maintenance Oil clean the floor with Intensive cleaner 3%. Leave the floor to dry for several hours. Make sure that the floor is completely dry and dust free before application of Maintenance Oil. Apply a thin coat of Maintenance Oil onto the floor and immediately polish in by hand or with random orbital buffing machine. Repeat the treatment if necessary. The floor should initially look saturated with Oil and dry to have a silky matt surface. Be prepared to use several white pads to buff in the maintenance layer.

Note: in order to prevent a self-ignition of the oil-wetted cloths and pads, soak these in water immediately after use before disposal.After approx. four to five hours (at 18 – 20 degrees Celsius) the floor may be used again. Do not expose floor to water till after 24 hours.