The timber flooring market has faced the introduction of laminates, the increased use of engineered flooring and tiles, low prices for carpet and lately the growth of various forms of hybrid flooring. Yet with each turn, traditional timber flooring remains a valuable part of the flooring market, and new opportunities are emerging for contractors.

As floor owners become more aware of different flooring options the industry is experiencing more ‘ebb and flow’. Some flooring contractors report a decline in business including lower value contracts and more ‘quiet’ times than in recent years. However, whilst ‘sand to bare wood’ projects have seen decline in demand, this brings new opportunities for contractors to develop new revenue streams. Now is the perfect time to consider offering 'Deep Cleaning' and on-going maintenance. How many times have you seen a floor that you finished some time ago that looked sensational upon competition but now looks less than pristine because it has simply not been cleaned properly?

The Deep Cleaning Opportunity

Typical everyday cleaning methods such as mop & bucket or robot cleaning machines do not remove dirt efficiently from the floor surface and often leave behind cleaner residue. Similar effects can be seen when using a buffing machine - they just don’t do a very good job.

Even using the best household cleaning methods such as the Bona Spray Mop the Homeowner should change the cleaning pad regularly to prevent the pad becoming full with dirt and cleaner excess. If you want to ascertain how dirty a floor actually is, just take a damp white cloth and wipe a small area of floor. The dirty cloth will tell the story. Over increased time, floors become sticky and take on a hazy look where there has been a slow build-up of dit and grime.

Deep Cleaning offers a commercial grade clean that is unattainable by any normal cleaning method. Using the Bona PowerScrubber machine with its counter rotating brushes gives the floor a deep clean that is unsurpassed, without leaving behind any residues. The PowerScrubber first sprays cleaning fluid onto the floor and then uses nylon brushes of various levels of coarseness to ‘brush’ the floor. The integral vacuum within the PowerScrubber then leaves the floor dry upon completion. Using counter rotating brushes rather than pads means that the cleaning process gets into the structure of the floor, so even coarse surfaces and bevelled edges are left perfectly clean.

The PowerScrubber can also be used on other hard surfaces such as ceramic tiles, vinyl and even external wood and composite decking.

Refreshing

After the floor has been thoroughly deep cleaned with the PowerScrubber, the surface can be further enhanced with the application of Bona Freshen Up. Freshen Up fills in micro-scratches, gives a nice added sheen and provides a sacrificial coat to protect the floor in between cleaning. If the scratches are deeper Freshen Up can be re-applied at intervals. Offering the Refresher option to your customer adds to the Deep Clean and enhances and protects the clean for longer, all with little to no down-time.

Overcoating

If the floor needs even more protection, then an added re-coat with a Bona polyurethane finish such as Traffic HD is an ideal way of giving the floor a fully renewed look and long term durability, still without the cost and down-time of having to sand the floor back to bare timber.

Although overcoating floors without resanding is something that contractors have shied away from in the past, if the floor is first Deep Cleaned with the PowerScrubber and it is not worn to bare timber, the results are extremely impressive and provide big cost savings for the Homeowner. The contractor wins as they are likely to still gain the job that they otherwise may have lost due to the cost and inconvenience of a full re-sand.

Overcoating is also an ideal solution for engineered floors with very thin wear layers (over 60% of all new timber floors are now engineered products, with less than 40% solid timber). With thinner wear layers, overcoating the surface of engineered floors without removing any of the top layer makes sense. Similarly, with solid timber floors, avoiding sanding to bare wood also extends the life of the floor, which is especially important with older floors.

The overcoating process:

• Deep clean the floor with the Bona PowerScrubber to remove dirt and contaminants.
• Use Bona FlexiSand with a fine abrasive to give a physical key for good finish adhesion.
• After removing dust apply a single coat of finish. Bona fast drying finishes the floor can be walked on the next day.

Introducing the offer of Deep Cleaning, Refreshing and Recoating into your business is something to seriously consider as the maintenance of timber floors including the engineered variety is going to be a large part of the flooring future. Now is the time to start taking steps to make that a part of your business, to increase your profit and avoid the 'quiet times'.

For more information contact Bona Australia head office on 03 9543 4399