How do I maintain my parquet floor?

You’ve chosen a parquet floor. Now you probably want to know how to maintain it properly, so your floor stays in optimal condition for as long as possible. Our flooring expert will tell you exactly how to do that.

Be careful with water and other liquids

The golden rule when you have a wooden floor, whether it’s  parquet or  strong wood floors (veneer parquet), is that you should never use a lot of water or other liquids. No matter how well your floor is treated against moisture, wood is and remains a natural material that absorbs moisture more easily than other flooring materials.

When cleaning the parquet floor, always make sure your mop or cloth is well wrung out. And if you spill a liquid, clean it up as quickly as possible. Another tip: also keep an eye on the floor under flower and plant pots. Accidents happen quickly there.

First aid for specific liquid stains

• Fruit juice, soft drinks, coffee, tea, milk, blood, urine on parquet
  Remove the liquid with a well-wrung clean cloth or sponge.

• Oil, chocolate, wax, grease on parquet
  Use a damp cloth with a little (mild) cleaning agent.

• Ink, shoe polish, lipstick, tar on parquet
  Use a little methanol (white spirit) or denatured alcohol.

Varnished or oiled parquet?

When choosing your cleaning product, it’s important that it’s not an aggressive agent. Choose a mild cleaner with the right pH value. You wouldn’t want to damage your beautiful floor while cleaning it, right?

You also need to consider the treatment of your parquet floor: with varnish or oil.

• Varnished floor 
  A varnished parquet floor can be cleaned occasionally with a regular, matte or glossy parquet cleaner. A few times a year, you can also use a degreaser to remove residues of cleaning products. After that, apply a protective layer such as the BerryAlloc Protector.

• Oiled floor 
  An oiled parquet floor should be cleaned with natural soap, which nourishes the wood. It’s also recommended to treat the parquet floor once a year with a maintenance oil such as BerryAlloc Maintenance Oil.

Every type of floor requires a different kind of maintenance. Read how to best clean laminate, vinyl, high pressure floors and strong wood floors to enjoy them for years without worry.

Refreshing your parquet floor

Over time, your parquet floor will develop a patina, that’s completely normal. But after, say, ten or fifteen years, do you feel your floor could use a refresh? Then you can sand the wooden floor. This removes a thin layer from your parquet floor, making it look like new again. In that sense, your parquet floor has multiple lives.

After sanding, a treatment with varnish or oil is of course necessary again. This is also your chance to give your parquet floor a different shade, if you’d like.

A parquet floor lasts a lifetime – with a bit of luck, even a century. But you do need to consider the limits of your floor when it comes to sanding. Since you remove a layer of about 1 mm each time, you can’t do this endlessly. In general, a parquet floor can be sanded a maximum of about three times.