What are the different types of flooring?

Cleaning the floors is one of the household chores that I do not enjoy but have to do since I started to live independently. For me, first portable electric vacuum cleaner inventor James Murray Spangler of Canton, Ohio, United States is a hero.

When I moved to my new condo in Los Angeles, California, USA few years ago, I bought my first vacuum cleaner with the help of Vacuum Judge. I have moved to Santa Monica, California and I am still using the same vacuum cleaner.

While I was looking for tips to make my household chores less cumbersome, I ended up learning many things about different parts of the house. I learned that flooring is made out of a variety of materials such as brick, stone, concrete, composite and wood. While concrete is the most forgiving one, wood is far more prone towards getting scratches and cracks, according to Live About. Here are some of the basic floor cleaning tips that I learned:

1. Always use a broom that is specially made for outdoor. It will get all the debris and dust out of the picture in one go.
2. Whenever cleaning the floors, start with the gentlest method to ensure the least wear and tear possible.
3. Always apply sealants and stains carefully on the required area
4. Do not use power washing on any kind of flooring except it is made of the concrete material.
5. Once the cleaning is done, clear out all the liquid and chemical solution thoroughly.

I found out that to give the floor the care that it deserves, it is important to understand its materials. Here are the different types of flooring and some tips on how to take care of them:

Brick flooring

It is one of the most durable materials that you can use for flooring. Although; cleaning them with the least concentrated solutions and materials is the best way around. It is always suggested to use masonry cleaner with a brush to clean these floorings.

Maintenance of this kind of flooring is rather easy than the others as all you have to save here is the salt residue. So, to make sure that you brick flooring remain in the perfect shape, try to avoid deicers that include calcium chloride. Also, one thing that most of us do wrong with this kind of flooring is that we seal it through its pores which cause them extra damage. If you ever see a plant root growing through this flooring, then you have to act instantly, just cut the root and pull it out. This will save your flooring from getting loose.

As for stains and mosses, the brick flooring can be cleaned with the help of masonry poultice. It dissolves the stains and easily pulls it out through the pores of the bricks.

Wooden flooring

If you are an owner of a household with wooden flooring then you know how much grayish they turn into because of the sunlight. For maintenance, the charm of wooden flooring requires a great amount of effort as they come in large variety materials such as redwood, cedar and southern pine.

To maintain the freshness and elegance of these kinds of floorings, the first thing that you should get in a habit of is to never sand the wood unless extreme necessity. The best material to make the flooring last for years is to apply a water-repellent coating on the flooring. It helps you a great deal as you do not have to do much effort while cleaning the stains later on. Although you should sand as seldom as possible, to give some finishing touches, sanding is the ultimate tool. One more thing that you should remember is that never overdo things which means that you should not coat the flooring more than the recommended limit.

Cleaning wooden flooring for stains is easy as products like wood bleach with warm water work wonders. For deep cleaning, you can use powdered oxygen bleach. But the thing that you should never use is the chlorine bleach.

Stone flooring

There are two types of stone floorings, which are siliceous and calcareous. The former one is the hard and durable ones while the latter one is a bit soft and porous. So, before doing anything on the flooring you should first check for its category. For this, pour just one drop of white vinegar on the floor, if it fizzes then the flooring is of calcareous stone.

To maintain stone flooring you can use a penetrating stone sealer. It will easily offer you the required results. For stains and color, you can use stone poultice for great shine. Also, if you are planning for a deep-cleaning session then pH-neutral solutions will just do the trick for you.

Concrete flooring

Being one of the most durable materials, you can use anything on this flooring. Anything below high-concentrated acid solution will come in handy. To remove stains from these flooring, you can use a household scouring powder. Also, for organic matters use one part of chlorine bleach with 10 parts of water.

Even after being the most durable flooring material, stains are the arch-enemy of concrete. But silicone based repellent sealer will just be perfect for maintaining its shine.

Composite flooring

As these floorings are made of plastic, maintenance of these floorings are quite tricky. Things like deck cleaner with sodium hypochlorite will clean the coloring off of any molds.

Also, if you are planning to do a deep cleaning session on this flooring, wash it with a cleaner that contains any of the following materials: sodium hypochlorite, oxalic, phosphoric or hydrochloric acid.