Look after your Kährs nature oiled floor

For you to derive as much pleasure as possible from your Kährs Nature oiled floor, it is important that you look after it and maintain it.

Download Natural Oiled Floors Maintenance (PDF)

More beautiful with every new coat of oil

Floors treated with Nature oil are easy to maintain and keep clean, but they need a little more care and need to be oiled at regular intervals. An advantage is that your floor becomes more and more beautiful, with a deeper tone, every time you oil it.

Looking after a Kährs floor in a home environment is easy and treatment with polish is not necessary. But it is important to look after your floor, otherwise it will start to bear the mark of people walking on it, or start to look greyish. Kährs Nature oiled floors are ready-treated for use in domestic environments.

Cleaning nature oiled flooring

Note: Before starting any of the maintenance and repair work that follows, you must check that your floor is a nature oiled floor and not a UV-oiled floor, which is also common in domestic environments.

Your nature oiled wood floor will benefit from daily cleaning using dry methods such as vacuuming. If necessary, you can wipe your floor clean with lightly damp (well-wrung) cloth.

Stain removal — cleaning up on the spot

Make sure you clean up stains as quickly as possible using water and Kährs Cleaner or some other neutral detergent. If this does not help, the stain can be ground off using a green nylon cloth such as Scotch-Brite. After removing the stain, the cleaned surface may need to be touched up with a little extra Touch-Up oil before you apply Oil Refresher.

Maintenance and repair of floors treated with nature oil

The need for maintenance varies depending on a wide range of factors. Maintenance needs to be carried out more frequently if the floor is cleaned regularly with a damp cloth, because this has an abrasive effect on the protective coating. Floors subject to greater wear, such as surfaces on which people often walk while wearing outdoor shoes, also require more frequent maintenance. Soft, pale, porous wood species such as beech and ash require more frequent maintenance than other wood species.

You will easily know when it is time to maintain your oiled wood floor as you will start to find it harder and harder to clean.

In most cases, the floor will require maintenance twice in the first year and then once a year. Ideally, your first floor maintenance can take place directly following installation of the floor. The first time you maintain the floor, you have to maintain the entire surface of the floor. If you do this right after installing the floor, you will not need to move any furniture. This will also give you additional protection against moisture from penetrating down into the joints between the boards.

Small scratches on nature oiled wood flooring

If a small part of the floor area has been scratched under a chair or suchlike, you can treat the floor with Kährs Oil Refresher. This oil refresher conceals microscopic scratches.

Partial repair of Kährs multilayer floors

Worn or damaged surfaces can be sanded or planed down to bare wood. Finish off with sandpaper, grain size 220, and then apply a thick layer of Kährs Touch-Up oil. After about 30 minutes, wipe off all the oil that the wood has not absorbed. Leave the renovated surface to dry overnight. Then apply a layer of Kährs Oil Refresher to the damaged surface.

If a small area has been damaged or worn through or has to be repaired for any other reason, you have to replace the board or boards in question. Kährs Woodloc® joints make this an easy task.

Total renovation and polishing of oiled wood flooring

Please refer to the Natural Oiled Floors Maintenance (PDF) for complete instructions.

• Things to bear in mind with floors treated with nature oil

• • Ideally, use doormats both inside and outside your external door to prevent people from bringing in dirt and gravel which can cause considerable wear on your floor.

• • Place protective pads under your furniture (but not metal feet which may leave marks and blemishes on a wood floor) to prevent unnecessary marks and scratches on your floor.

• • Wood flooring expands and contracts depending on the ambient climate. To prevent movement and hence damage to the floor, the surface temperature should not exceed 81°F. The relative humidity should be kept between 30% and 60%.