Richard
This is not my area of expertise, but this same question has just cropped up on an Australian forum from Michael Mulquiney
Anyone have any ideas on rejuvenating a wooden floating floor.
Tenants moved out, and left some fairly deep gouges in the timber floor.
Its a relatively cheap laminate, and sanding is out. Looking for some ideas on oiling? the floor to minimise the appearance of the marks (lines).
The agent is also keen on having someone on the books that can look after any floors like this in the future, northern suburbs of Melbourne.
Any ideas? The reply from Gary Bethel is as follows:
Michael, it is a fairly easy job to really improve the look of Laminate floating floor. As long as you keep in mind it is not like a normal wood but is a laminate. So as you mentioned, sanding is defiantly out. But remember that the laminate is a very thin coating on the top.
I have done a large number of these and find it a very satisfying job to do.
The way that worked for me was this:
1-Sweep the floor.
2-Then set up your scrubbing machine with a red pad on it. Michael I believe you have an OP machine, that will do fine. In fact it is excellent, as OP style scrubbers don’t spray anything up the wall like a single disc scrubbers does. Unless the scrubber has a skirt of course.
3-Damp mop an area no larger than about 3mtrs x 3 mtrs at a time with a mild cleaner and then scrub with the machine with a red pad under it. Then immediately pick up the small amount of dirty slurry with another second mop and bucket.
THE important thing here is to remember that we are not slopping down large amounts of solution like you would do if you were to wet scrub vinyl. We are trying to limit the amount and dwell time of the solution and the aftermath slurry. If the moisture were to get down between the Laminate planks it would buckle the floor.
4-Leave the floor dry. Then when it is dry, use your machine to dry buff the floor with a dry tan pad.
5-Sweep the floor.
6-Apply three coats of ordinary polymer floor polish like what is used in the janitorial cleaning industry for polishing vinyl flooring.
The three coats go on real thinly. But the coats do a good job of filling in the scratches and holes. No need to buff after the three coats. The top coating from the floor polish has the added benefit of putting a seal layer over the joins between the planks. So in future it will help keep moisture out if the baby or the dog wet on the floor.
Gary.Obviously you'll need to test your own procedures and products first to make sure it will not damage the flooring.
Safe and happy cleaning
The Ken