How to Clean Linoleum Floors

What is Linoleum?

One of the most popular alternatives to hardwood floors are linoleum floors. Containing a similar look to hardwood floors but not requiring nearly as much maintenance as hardwood floors, linoleum provide just as much value to any given room as any hardwood floor does.
Instead of being made by pure wood, linoleum utilizes rosin, cork dust, calcium carbonate, and a canvas backing to create a type of floor that resembles hardwood but is much easier to maintain.

This is especially true with higher quality linoleum, which is much more flexible than linoleum floors that are not made of such high quality. This high quality linoleum is often used in places where a more rigid kind of floor such as ceramic tile could crack.

While linoleum floors are not as common as they used to be because other kinds of floors have been gaining popularity, they still have a lot to offer.
Linoleum floors are a little more eco-friendly than their hardwood and vinyl plank counterparts, and if you clean them properly, you’ll be able to get a lot out of them.
And even better, it is not very difficult to clean linoleum floors. In fact, cleaning linoleum floors is practically the same as cleaning vinyl floors, only you will need to take a few precautions into consideration.

Linoleum floors aren’t as popular or as common as they used to be. However, they still have their place since they are very cost effective.
If you clean them perfectly, linoleum flooring can often look just like vinyl flooring, which it is often compared to. Yet you will save all kinds of money, since vinyl flooring does cost more to install and maintain than linoleum floors.

This is what you should keep in mind when cleaning linoleum floors: You need to understand that the purpose of cleaning them perfectly is to make sure you do not need to replace them with either another linoleum floor or a vinyl floor.

Why Linoleum? A Brief History of Linoleum Flooring

As briefly mentioned earlier, linoleum floors are slowly being phased out because other options are now available.
Like hardwood flooring, linoleum flooring is one of the oldest concepts of types of flooring, being in existence for centuries. It became very popular after many noticed that linoleum could be a suitable replacement for hardwood flooring for anybody who didn’t have the time to maintain hardwood flooring.
However, linoleum floors became outdated when vinyl floors started to emerge. These vinyl floors had a lot more options in aesthetics and were just as easy to install as linoleum flooring.
These days, there are two industry standards for floors: Vinyl floors and tile floors. Other kinds of floors have their place, but these two are the most popular.
They are also the costliest, and this is where linoleum floors come in.

• Because they are considered outdated, linoleum floors are extremely cost effective when it comes to installation and maintenance. They are also just as easy to clean as any other floor, provided you do everything right.
• If you are not totally concerned with how impressive your floor looks, you’ll get a lot out of a linoleum floor. This guide is for those who prefer linoleum floors, knowing how cost effective they are.
• There are three things to consider when cleaning linoleum floors: The amount of traffic the floor gets, how frequently you clean them, and what you use to clean them.
• The benefits of perfectly cleaning your linoleum floor are plentiful, and you should do all you can to make sure are being as optimized as possible when cleaning them.

This all starts with detecting how much traffic your floor encounters.

How Often Should You Clean Your Linoleum Floor?

Before anything that entails cleaning linoleum floors can be approached, you need to first get an idea of how much traffic your linoleum floor encounters.
In the interest of simplicity, measure how much traffic your linoleum floor encounters per week. Daily measurements can get inconsistent, and detecting how much traffic the floor encounters per month is equally as ineffective.

Seeing how much traffic the floor encounters per week will give you the best idea about how often you will need to clean your floor.
You need to know how much traffic your floor encounters because you could be cleaning too little or too much depending on the traffic.
The basic rule of thumb to follow here is that the more traffic the floor encounters, the more frequently you need to clean said floor.
Traffic will dictate most of your cleaning frequency, but there is more to it than cleaning your floor whenever it encounters traffic. This is especially true with linoleum floors, which have a habit of not being able to resist certain things that are necessary to clean them.

Because of this, you’ll need to micromanage how often you are cleaning your linoleum floors more than with most other floors.
The answer to this question appears obvious, but if you want to clean your linoleum floors in a way that is optimized, you are going to commit yourself to a better answer.
Simply put, you need to follow a system for cleaning your linoleum floor, or else it will not last very long and you will need to do a little more than clean it in order to properly maintain it.
Cleaning your linoleum floor daily will put too much stress on it. Linoleum does not absorb cleaning materials well, and it will put your floor at risk of warping, curling, and other abnormalities.
Even cleaning a linoleum floor once a week is not ideal. You need to understand the nature of linoleum floors in that while they are extremely durable, they are also made of all natural materials that are not as resistant to the same chemicals that any other given floor can absorb without too much penalty.

Being aware of this, plan to clean your linoleum floor every two weeks if it encounters a lot of traffic, and every three weeks if it does not encounter a lot of traffic. This should be frequent enough to keep the floor clean but not too frequent to where you will risk damaging the floor.

What Should You Use to Clean Your Linoleum Floor?

The first and most important thing that you need to understand about linoleum floors is that they are not completely waterproof.
Use too much cleaning solution on a linoleum floor, and you will live to regret it. The floor will curl and warp, and all of a sudden you will find yourself needing to replace the floor.
How can this be prevented while still doing all you can to clean your linoleum floor to perfection?
Recall how linoleum and vinyl planks are similar in what the finished product looks like. While it is possible to use a decent amount of cleaning solution on a vinyl floor, it is not recommended to clean linoleum floors the same way.

Therefore, all you really need to do is just use less cleaning solution on your linoleum floor. Err on the side of using too little cleaning solution than too much.
You should also make sure the floor is completely swept before cleaning it. Leave dust and other particles on your floor before cleaning it, and you will defeat the purpose of cleaning it.
When cleaning your linoleum floor, you need to be very careful of how much cleaning solution and water you are using. If your linoleum floor gets too wet, it will get damaged – permanently.
To prevent this, use very little solution and water when wet cleaning your linoleum floor. When it comes to what kind of solution, you’ll want to use something that has neutral or low pH levels.

This will produce the least amount of moisture after cleaning.

These are the things that you must do to make sure your linoleum floors stay perfect in their presentation as well as be properly maintained.

Conclusion

• Linoleum floors are not difficult to clean.
• They just require a different strategy.

And in many cases, this different strategy is nothing more than altering the strategy you would have followed for vinyl or hardwood flooring, only you do not want to clean them so frequently and you want to use a little less cleaning solution, or in some cases, a lot less.
Many say that linoleum floors are obsolete. However, those types do not understand that linoleum floors still have a place, and anybody who does not have the budget for hardwood floors or vinyl floors can benefit from linoleum floors.
Cleaning linoleum floors does not need to be a complicated task, and it can be just as easy to clean them to perfection like any other floor. You just need to make some minor accommodations.