Socks and shoes not required, though recommended for your flooring—especially if stained. Linoleum floors can be the highlight of your home, coincidentally, if stains are about, also the lowlight. Cleaning them isn’t a chore but letting a stain fester into something stubborn is a clear shot way to get a head and backache.
How To Get Stains Out of Linoleum Floors? The answer is always easier when you don’t second guess your methods. As mentioned previously in our articles about linoleum floor maintenance, DO NOT under any circumstance, use an ammonia based cleaner to clean your linoleum flooring.
The chemical makeup and nature of such cleaning solutions can damage the integrity of your floor and then you won’t be cleaning stains, rather you’ll be scraping up flooring in order to replace it.
Just as a Disclaimer: Though there are rife similarities between Linoleum and Vinyl flooring, KNOW that cleaning the latter is a bit different. Linoleum is porous, which leaves it susceptible to water damage, while Vinyl is more resistant (And expensive) to water damage.
Vinegar and Baking Soda, the yin-and-yang of household cleaning saves the day again. Saturating a stain with white vinegar should sometimes be enough to put an end to the mess, though sometimes it’s not that simple. Soaking a stained area with warm water then spreading baking soda over the mess—can rid the stain for good.
Using a Steamer, a handheld high powered one (think Hi-life) can not only sever the stain from your flooring, but also leave a shine and polish on the linoleum you haven’t seen since installation. Due to how a Steamer operates, it’s able to cut through most grime and dirt and grease like it’s nothing.
Do Be Warned: Allowing water to rest on your linoleum floor for long periods of time can harden and ruin the flooring.
Clean at your own caution!
Dishwashing Detergent is also a great fit for linoleum flooring, though more physical labor is required.
- Mix warm water and dishwashing detergent (even dish soap gets the job done!)
- Soak a microfiber cloth in the solution, squeeze the cloth.
- Use the cloth to clean the affected area.
- Rinse and repeat methods 2-3 until you are satisfied with the result.
For the grittiest of stains, using a more tried and true method of going to your local hardware store and purchasing floor cleaner can also work (The Pink stuff, even some clorox—though be aware of permanently staining and ruining your floor).
The above methods are the best, they’ve stood the test of time since linoleum flooring’s introduction, though sometimes buying a specific hardware cleaning is enough to get the job done.
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