The effects of steam cleaners on flooring

There is always someone coming up with new ways to make our lives easier, and they bombard us with adverts about their great new product until we think we'll give it a try, and at first we may think it's a wonderful product, to only be disappointed a year later when we find out it has a side effect that costs us more money in the long run.

Such an invention is the steam cleaner for floors.  Our obsession with dirt and getting our homes as clean as possible was bound to make the steam cleaner a winner for the inventor.  It forces steam onto a floor's surface under high pressure, and the idea planted in our minds by the marketing people, is that the steam shifts the dirt and evaporates quickly afterwards.  Sounds like the perfect way to clean your house doesn't it!

Laminates and vinyl flooring are sealed to try to prevent as much damp getting into them as possible, that is what the shiny top coating does.  It's protecting the natural wood that needs to remain dry.

If you have ever had a solid wood work top in your kitchen, you'll know that you have to sand and oil it on a regular basis to keep water out of the wood so it doesn't rot.  If you have solid wood and engineered wood flooring the same principals apply, you have the wood treated with oil or varnish to seal it against damp and water spillages.

If you use a steam cleaner you are firing steam (water) at high pressure, which means you are forcing moisture into the joints of your flooring and between the layers that make up your floor.  Your floor may look like it's dry shortly afterwards, but constantly dampening your floor could make it swell, curl or de-laminate, eventually making the layers peel apart.  Thus your flooring starts to look horrible, and you blame the quality of the flooring, not the method you used to clean it.

Steam cleaners can damage solid wood, engineered, laminate and vinyl floors.  The effects may differ between materials, such as, discolouration, dulling the finish, warping, cupping or cracking, but one thing you can be sure of, it wasn't the quality of the flooring that is in question, but the method in which it has been cleaned.

Why waste extra money on a steam cleaner when you already have a vacuum and a mop that does the job.  Use the soft head function and vacuum your floor as often as possible.  This pulls the grit up off the floor, which can cause scratches if trodden into the floors surface.  Then once a week give it a quick clean.  Microfiber mops are good enough at cleaning the dirt from your flooring.  You can find specialist cleaners that don't even require water, and leave your flooring sparkling and unharmed, and always clear up spillages as soon as they happen.

Even if your flooring has sun damage or minor scratches, your flooring specialist, such as Wychwood, will be able to recommend and provide you with a product that will make your floor look nearly as good as new.

However, there is nothing we can do about steam or water damage.

The best advice we can give you is to keep your wooden floors as dry as possible, and clean up water spills asap.