Flooring Care
Caring for your Floor is just as important as selecting it. Luckily, HardWood Planet has you covered on the best way to care for your beautiful floor.
Humidity Control
One of the most common issues to affect hardwood flooring in our Canadian climate is humidity. All wood flooring products will expand and contract in relation to environmental humidity levels they are exposed to. This can cause the planks to shrink leading to gaps as well as cracking in extreme cases. Maintaining proper relative humidity levels between 35% – 55% is the the ideal range to keep your wood flooring in a healthy state and free from the above mentioned issue. Use a hygrometer (relative humidity indicator) to check moisture content in the air to ensure that relative humidity is within the recommended range year round to protect your investment.
Light
Avoid exposing your floor to sunlight and intense artificial light, which can cause wood to change color. This is a completely normal and natural phenomenon. The lighter the wood, the more pronounced the change will be. Move your carpets and furniture occasionally and use a minimum number of light sources to keep color changes uniform.
Maintaining Hardwood Floors
Only use Hardwood Flooring specific cleaners on your flooring. This will ensure the UV cured finishes, that protect your wood floor are not damaged by harsh chemicals that some cleaners can contain. Never use steam mops, floor wax, oil-based detergent, or any other household cleaner on your floor. These products can damage the finish. Occasional dry dust mopping or vacuuming with a hard surface soft bristle head along with cleaning with wood floor specific cleaner with a damp microfibre mop is all that is need to keep your floor clean and protected. Using excessive moisture from wet mopping can case water damage to your floor over time.
Radiant in Floor Heating
Do not raise or lower the temperature of a radiant in floor heating system by more than 2.8°C (5°F) per day raising or lowering the temperature. Doing this can cause floor damage such as crack and splits. It is also important not to allow the flooring surface temperature to exceed 80 degrees Fahrenheit at any time as this can cause numerous negative issues to your engineered flooring. Solid plank flooring is never to be used on this type of heating system.