Stain Removal For Your Home Floors
These days, nothing is cooler than hard wood floors. Every new home owner dreams of tearing up the ugly, Reagan era greenish tile in the kitchen and finding underneath it, like a pot of gold suddenly turning up in a sub basement, a gorgeous, aged, still firm hard wood floor.
But the fact is that there is no single tool that’s perfect for every home repair job. And in the same way, there is no single building material that is appropriate for every room in the house. Once popular building materials, now eclipsed in fame by the ubiquitously desired hard wood floor, still have a legitimate place in any home. Tile, linoleum, and the much more expensive and formal but graphically similar material of marble are perfect for high traffic areas of the home, places that are vulnerable to stains, spills and scratches caused by heavy use, and that need to be easily and quickly cleanable. All of that is no simple order. And it’s why you still find linoleum, tile, and marble in use by builders today.
Each building material brings with it, however, its own necessary regime of stain removal. The tactics for stain removal that work on hard wood floors, or on carpet, are not necessarily right for removing stains from linoleum, for example. Linoleum is often thought of as a post industrial building material, a product of high technology, associated with the go-go 1950s and 1960s and the expanding postwar economy and manufacturing innovations that made those decades possible. But in fact it is over a century and a half old, and is a wholly natural material. It is derived from linseed oil. Linoleum is perfect for kitchen floors and other stain attracting areas. But precisely because of its durability and resistance to stain, homeowners tend to treat the parts of the house floored with linoleum with far more roughness than any material could ever sustain. In the event of a stain on linoleum, cleaning is not a terrible problem. Vinegar and water is often good enough for the milder sorts of stains.
Tile, with which linoleum is often conflated, is indeed a non organic, industrial building material, though hardly for that reason a bad one. It’s perfect for surfaces that often come into contact with water, which would rot wood over time. Its recurring, regular patterns create a sense of order that is pleasing to the eye and makes otherwise merely functional rooms, such as the bathroom and kitchen, pleasing to be in. Tile is tough, so stains from soap and shoe leather alike can sometimes be sanded away, carefully and gently, with sandpaper. But if the stain sets in, stain removal is more of a problem. Commercial tile cleaners are the major stain removal possibility in this case.
Marble, though it has a high sheen like tile and linoleum do, is their opposite in terms of vulnerability. Its surface can be scratched or injured fairly easier, and stain removal should be done carefully and gently, without the use of harsh chemicals. What works for cleaning and performing stain removal on marble is a neutral cleaner (a non acidic one). Baking soda, corn starch or hydrogen peroxide make good cleaners for marble.
That advice goes, in fact, for all the flooring materials mentioned in this article, as well as the more popular ones such as hard wood floors and carpet. All natural stain removal cleaners are the best option for the two hardy, and the one not so undamageable, flooring materials under discussion here. In any case, a homeowner who cares enough about his or her floor to use a blend of appropriate flooring materials is also someone who cares enough to keep a bottle or two of all natural, non abrasive stain removal chemicals on hand.
About StainHotline.com
StainHotline.com, operated by The Casite Company, offers safe, environmentally friendly stain removal and upholstery protection products.For stain removal products to help with leather stains, carpet stains, wine stains, ink stains, and for odor removal, please visit http://www.stainhotline.com.
But the fact is that there is no single tool that’s perfect for every home repair job. And in the same way, there is no single building material that is appropriate for every room in the house. Once popular building materials, now eclipsed in fame by the ubiquitously desired hard wood floor, still have a legitimate place in any home. Tile, linoleum, and the much more expensive and formal but graphically similar material of marble are perfect for high traffic areas of the home, places that are vulnerable to stains, spills and scratches caused by heavy use, and that need to be easily and quickly cleanable. All of that is no simple order. And it’s why you still find linoleum, tile, and marble in use by builders today.
Each building material brings with it, however, its own necessary regime of stain removal. The tactics for stain removal that work on hard wood floors, or on carpet, are not necessarily right for removing stains from linoleum, for example. Linoleum is often thought of as a post industrial building material, a product of high technology, associated with the go-go 1950s and 1960s and the expanding postwar economy and manufacturing innovations that made those decades possible. But in fact it is over a century and a half old, and is a wholly natural material. It is derived from linseed oil. Linoleum is perfect for kitchen floors and other stain attracting areas. But precisely because of its durability and resistance to stain, homeowners tend to treat the parts of the house floored with linoleum with far more roughness than any material could ever sustain. In the event of a stain on linoleum, cleaning is not a terrible problem. Vinegar and water is often good enough for the milder sorts of stains.
Tile, with which linoleum is often conflated, is indeed a non organic, industrial building material, though hardly for that reason a bad one. It’s perfect for surfaces that often come into contact with water, which would rot wood over time. Its recurring, regular patterns create a sense of order that is pleasing to the eye and makes otherwise merely functional rooms, such as the bathroom and kitchen, pleasing to be in. Tile is tough, so stains from soap and shoe leather alike can sometimes be sanded away, carefully and gently, with sandpaper. But if the stain sets in, stain removal is more of a problem. Commercial tile cleaners are the major stain removal possibility in this case.
Marble, though it has a high sheen like tile and linoleum do, is their opposite in terms of vulnerability. Its surface can be scratched or injured fairly easier, and stain removal should be done carefully and gently, without the use of harsh chemicals. What works for cleaning and performing stain removal on marble is a neutral cleaner (a non acidic one). Baking soda, corn starch or hydrogen peroxide make good cleaners for marble.
That advice goes, in fact, for all the flooring materials mentioned in this article, as well as the more popular ones such as hard wood floors and carpet. All natural stain removal cleaners are the best option for the two hardy, and the one not so undamageable, flooring materials under discussion here. In any case, a homeowner who cares enough about his or her floor to use a blend of appropriate flooring materials is also someone who cares enough to keep a bottle or two of all natural, non abrasive stain removal chemicals on hand.
About StainHotline.com
StainHotline.com, operated by The Casite Company, offers safe, environmentally friendly stain removal and upholstery protection products.For stain removal products to help with leather stains, carpet stains, wine stains, ink stains, and for odor removal, please visit http://www.stainhotline.com.
