Good advice about proper floor care

Here are some good tips about cleaning and maintaining wooden floors.

Floors are exposed to a lot of wear and tear every day. We constantly walk on them and drag a lot of dirt and grime in. Proper floor care is therefore crucial if you want to keep your floor strong and beautiful-looking, while ensuring that the work process is as fast and hassle-free as possible.

Proper floor care depends on the products you use

Your choice of regular floor care products is rather important. The individual floors and their surface treatments are important factors when choosing the right care products. Trip Trap care products and soaps are specially developed for cleaning and care of vinyl floors, laminate floors and wooden floors treated with soap, oil or lacquer; all to ensure optimal protection, a beautiful appearance and long durability.

Everyday floor cleaning

Our best advice is that you clean your floors with a mop, broom or vacuum cleaner as often as possible. Dirt and grime like grit and sand can easily scratch your floor, which means a lot of extra work getting your floor to look nice again afterwards.

See below for more tips and to find out more about the benefits of using Trip Trap care products and soaps for cleaning and caring for hardwood floors, vinyl flooring and laminate flooring.

 

1. Clean with Wood Cleaner, not an alkaline cleaner!

Always remember to wash your wood floor (regardless of surface treatment), vinyl floor or laminate floor with Trip Trap Wood Cleaner before care treatment. Wood Cleaner easily removes grime, old soap residue and stubborn stains from the surface. Wood Cleaner removes grime, soap residue and stubborn stains from the surface. It opens pores in the wood, giving you a nicer result when subsequently treating with soap or oil.

Please note: Cleaning agents with an excessive PH value can lead to discolouration, particularly when used on oak.

 

2. Regular washing of your soap or oil-treated wooden floor

WOCA Natural Soap is suitable for routine cleaning of soap and oil-treated wooden floors.

Natural soap – which is based on natural substances such as soy and coconut oils – effectively removes dirt while at the same time penetrating deep into the wood where it leaves a microscopic, breathable soap film on the surface, which protects the wood against wear and tear, dirt and stains. Next time the floor is washed with soap, the dirt is removed automatically and a new protective soap film is formed.

Regular washing of wooden floors with WOCA Natural Soap not only prolongs the life of the wood, it also makes a soap or oil-treated wooden floor easier to keep clean.

Recommended: We recommend that you supplement the washing of your oil-treated wooden floor with WOCA Oil Soap approx. every fourth wash (or as needed). The oil soap cleans and at the same time adds extra oil to the surface. This combined maintenance of the wooden floor saturates the pores of the wood and at the same time helps the wood to retains its glow and natural hue.

3. Always use two buckets when washing floors.

Always use one bucket of soapy water and one bucket of clean water. Use the bucket of clean water to rinse the cloth or mop after you have soaked up the soapy water. This helps you to avoid the floor surface getting a grey tinge, which is actually dirty washing water.

Recommended: If the damage is already done, a cleaning with WOCA Interior Wood Cleaner can usually alleviate the problem and remove the dirty surface.

 

4. Are there footprints after you have washed your floor?

This is often associated with using too much soap. WOCA soaps are carefully formulated, so even if you want to be kind to your floor, there is no benefit from overdosing.

Recommended: Wash the wooden floor with clean, lukewarm water without soap and the footprints will disappear again.

5. Lacquer Care

Trip Trap Lacquer Care leaves a protective film and covers many of the small micro-scratches, which cannot be seen right away with the naked eye. These are seen, for example, as matted areas when light shines in from windows. There is often hard wear on the floor under the dining table where chairs are pulled back and forth.

Lacquer Care can reduce some of the wear and leave a fine, matte surface.

6. The best news for oiled floors

WOCA Oil Care for oil-treated wood floors does not require the use of a buffing machine. It is easy to apply with a WOCA Wool Pad or a cotton cloth. Oil Care dries within an hour, after which the floor can then be used again. Oil Care adds protection to the upper pore system of the wood and gives the wooden floor a beautiful, matte surface.

Feel free to combine the daily maintenance of the oil-treated wooden floor with WOCA Oil Soap, which cleans the wooden floor and adds extra oil to the surface. This maintenance will saturate the pores of the wood your floors are made of.

Please note: Please note that WOCA Oil Care can only be used where the oiled surface remains intact. If the floor seems dry or lacks oil, do not use Oil Care. In such cases, it will need to be re-sanded and a new surface treatment (oil priming) applied to the floor.

7. Wood Cleaner balances surface stresses.

If the floor has surface stress points, WOCA Interior Wood Cleaner can solve this problem. Surface stress points are seen when a surface treatment “beads” on the surface and does not penetrate. It is often seen on new and dried-out wood floors. WOCA Interior Wood Cleaner breaks down the surface stress points so that the desired treatment can be carried out.

8. Be very cautious when using soap flakes!

Only use soap flakes very sparingly when cleaning your wooden floor, regardless of surface treatment, Soap flakes are based on fatty acids from animals, which close the pores in the wood. Because wood is a living natural material, soap flake will inhibit the wood’s natural movements and there is a serious risk that it will dry out and split.

9. Never use brown soap on lacquered floors!

Brown soap is strongly alkaline and has a high pH value, so it will slowly break down the lacquer over a longer period. This destroys the protective surface treatment of the floor. Instead, use a pH-neutral cleaner like WOCA Master Cleaner, which effectively removes dirt and stains without affecting the lacquered surface.

 

10. Miracle product for the care and maintenance of wooden floors

Why is WOCA Natural Soap the obvious choice for the care and maintenance of soap and oil-treated wooden floors? Yes, you can compare it to regular skin care. It is important to use a product that both cleans AND protects the surface, so that the wood does not dry out and split. Just as a cleansing lotion cleanses and moisturises the skin, WOCA Natural Soap gently cleanses the wood, leaving a microscopic, breathable soap film on soap and oil-treated wood surfaces, which protects the wood from wear and tear and from dirt.

11. Do not use microfibre cloths to clean your wooden floor

We advise against using microfibre cloths to clean wooden floors. Microfibre cloths have a light abrasive effect which, over time, will break down an oil or soap surface treatment.

Recommended: A sweep mop or cotton floor mop is perfect for cleaning your wooden floors as it gently cleans the surface and keeps the floor surface treatment intact.

12. Wood cleaner: a “must have” when cleaning wood

Just as make-up remover is a regular part of every woman’s cosmetic bag, WOCA Interior Wood Cleaner should be a regular part of every home that has wooden floors and other wooden fixtures. Wood Cleaner can be compared to make-up remover as you first need to remove the old “dirt” from the surface before you can apply something new.

WOCA Interior Wood Cleaner thus removes not only dirt, but also soap residue from the surface, which gives you a nicer-looking result.

 

13. Universal cleaners are not good for your wooden floors

Unfortunately, many people resort to universal cleaners when cleaning and washing their floors, which has a serious effect on oil and soap-treated wooden floors. Here, all-purpose cleaners will degrease the surface and, in the worst case, dissolve some of the oil or soap, making the floor more vulnerable to wear and tear and to dirt.

The use of universal cleaners also has an effect on lacquered wooden floors. Where one of WOCA Master Cleaner’s characteristics is its ability to fill small scratches and holes with soap, a universal cleaner builds up no nurturing layer and is therefore not going to help you to look after a lacquered wooden floor.

14. Cleaning of soap-treated wooden floors

We recommend that the floor is washed/cleaned with Wood Cleaner every now and then. This makes the floor easier to look after and the surface will never be greasy-looking. Remember to wash afterwards with WOCA Natural Soap to reprime.

Soap-treated wooden floors that are washed frequently (approximately weekly) will benefit from being washed occasionally with just clean water.