Caring for your new flooring

This is the ninth in a series of 12 articles featuring the great information usually shared at Kahala Pacific Floors’ monthly Great Flooring 101 seminars. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced them to cancel the wonderful sessions, but company president Shirley Pai Hilton (pictured at top right) developed a new hourlong webinar version of Great Flooring 101 and is sharing some of the information right here.

Thus far, we have talked about solid and engineered wood flooring and its particular characteristics. We have also talked about bamboo, laminate and luxury vinyl flooring. We have also covered some basic installation information and learned about moldings — both transitional moldings and perimeter moldings, such as quarter rounds and baseboards. And, most recently, we have discussed how wonderful wood and vinyl is on a staircase.

After you have a great wood or vinyl floor put in, the most important question is how do we keep it looking great? The good news is that it is extremely simple to do so and should not take up a lot of your time. One of the most important things to do is to install felt pads on the bottom or feet of all furniture. This will prevent unnecessary scratches and make it very easy to move your furniture around for cleaning. If you have heavy pieces of furniture, be sure to distribute the weight of your furniture to avoid in dentations and gouges by using melamine and other hard cups.

Another very important thing to remember is that using the right cleaning product is very important. We recommend the Bona Kemi line of cleaning and maintenance products for your wood and laminate floors and most folks totally abide by this. However, with the newer vinyl floors, a lot of homeowners think that since it is waterproof, it is bulletproof and any household cleaner and a wet mop will be fine. This is definitely not the case and most manufacturers do specify cleaners, which should be used to maintain your product warranty. Most vinyl calls for a pH-neutral cleaner to avoid drying out the surface, which can lead to delamination and cloudiness. We highly recommend Prevail and Odo-Ban pH-neutral cleaners.

Want to learn more and get a special discount on your flooring? Please register for one of our upcoming Saturday or evening sessions of Great Flooring 101. Upcoming webinars are at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21, or 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 13. Registration is required so please sign up by calling 847-7711 or emailing sales@piiwood.com. See you online!

KAHALA PACIFIC FLOORS
CONTACT 847-7711