Laminate Floor Care

EN 13329, the product standard for laminate floor coverings, classifies abrasion resistance in classes AC1 to AC6, and the twelve laminate boards in the range are all AC4. Abrasion is wear by rubbing: grit carried in on shoes, a chair pushed back from a table along the same line each day, a dog's claws on the route to the door. An AC4 surface resists that for a long time before the decor beneath shows through, and the AC rating guide explains the scale. What the rating does not describe is impact, a dropped pan or a dragged appliance, and it does not describe water. Both are different loads from the one the abrasion test applies.

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EN 13329 does not cover areas subject to frequent wetting, and it names bathrooms, laundry rooms and saunas as examples. The reason is the core: the wood-fibre board under the surface takes on water at the joints and swells, and a swollen joint does not go back down. That is why laminate care is written around moisture, and why the same floor that shrugs off years of foot traffic can be marked by one unnoticed leak under a washing machine or a plant pot without a saucer.

The association for multilayer modular floor coverings, the MMFA, requires low-moisture cleaning methods and states that pooling of liquid on the floor must be avoided under all circumstances. In practice that means three things. Dry cleaning first: a soft brush, a dry microfibre mop or a vacuum with a hard-floor head, as often as the room needs it, because the grit that is removed dry is grit that would otherwise be ground into the surface. Damp, not wet, for the rest: a mop wrung out until it leaves no film, with a cleaner made for laminate if one is used at all, and no bucket of water sloshed across the floor. And spills wiped up when they happen, not at the end of the day.

What to leave out: steam cleaners, which push moisture into the joints under pressure; polishes and waxes, which the resin surface does not absorb and which leave a film that dulls it and makes it slippery; and abrasive pads or powders, which do to the surface what the abrasion test does, only faster.

A laminate floor floats: the EPLF describes floating installation as the method laminate is designed for, and recommends an edge gap of 8 mm to 12 mm on all sides so that the floor can expand and contract without lifting. That gap has to stay open for the life of the floor. Things that close it, without anyone meaning to: a heavy fitted unit installed on top of the boards after the floor was laid, a skirting nailed down through the floor, sealant run along the edge in a kitchen to keep water out. Each fixes the floor at one point and sends the movement elsewhere, where it shows as a joint that lifts or a board that peaks. If the floor starts to lift in the middle of a room, the first thing to check is whether something is pinning it at the edge.

Felt pads under chair and table legs are the single change that does most for a laminate surface, because the chair that is moved a hundred times a day is the abrasion test made real. Mats at external doors keep the grit outside. Direct sunlight through a large window fades a decor unevenly over years, and a rug that is moved from time to time evens that out. The room's climate matters less once the floor is down than before, but a house left cold and shut up for months, or a room where a humidifier runs constantly, is asking a wood-fibre core to move; the MMFA's storage conditions of roughly 15 to 25 °C and 35 to 65 per cent relative humidity are a reasonable description of the air a laminate floor is designed for.

Because the floor is not glued down, a damaged board can be replaced without lifting the whole floor: the boards are taken back from the nearest wall to the damaged one, the damaged board exchanged, and the run relaid. That is a job for the fitter or a competent hand, and it depends on there being a spare box. The practical advice at the time of ordering is to keep one unopened box from the same batch, because a decor bought later may not match the one on the floor. Small chips in the surface can be filled with a colour-matched laminate repair compound; a swollen joint from water cannot be repaired, and the board is replaced.

None of this makes laminate a floor for a bathroom. For the rooms that get wet the range's answer is rigid vinyl listed as waterproof, whose care is covered in the rigid vinyl cleaning guide, and for a wood floor the wood floor care guide covers oil and lacquer. For laminate in the rooms it is made for, the rule is short: keep grit off it, keep water off it, keep the edges free.

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How much grit a floor sees depends on what is outside the front door, and that differs between a town-centre terrace and a house on an estate. Browse by town and region.

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