How to Care for your coastal home's timber flooring

Opening up your windows and doors is all part of the joy of living by the beach. Salt air, the sun and sea often mean more damage to your home than ones that are nestled in a normal suburbia. But how can you prevent damage to your beautiful timber flooring?

Here are some important tips to prevent damage to your flooring and to prolong the life of your timber floor.
 ​

Use Doormats
We all know that sand gets everywhere when we’re at the beach. Having mats leading into the home, where everyone can dust off sand is a simple and effective way of significantly reducing sand, dirt and grit from entering the house.

Use a Shoe Basket
Keep your shoes, sandals and jandals outside in a bin or basket near your home’s entrances and perhaps this is a good place for children’s toys like shovels and buckets- instead of ending up on your timber floor.
​
Ensure All are Dry
If your beach home has an outdoor shower, ask your guests to rinse off and dry before they enter your home. This will help to keep salt water off your floors.

Prevent Sun Damage
With warmer months, we love to have the beach breeze flow through the home to keep things cool, however, prolonged and direct UV exposure can have a detrimental effect on your floor. This can often result in the tone of your floor softening or accelerating the darkening of wood colours. This is known as ‘aging’ or ‘weathering’.

​Filtering sunlight through curtains, blinds, outdoor awnings or UV treated windows/doors is an effective way to slow down any colour changes, control the gap widths between boards and reduces the direct heat from north facing rooms that are exposed to a lot of sun.

Sweep Regularly
Small particles like sand and grit can act like sandpaper which can scratch and dull your floor’s finish. Regularly vacuuming with a soft broom attachment or sweeping with a slightly damp cloth will remove these particles from your floor and reduce the likelihood of unnecessary scratches.

---

Clean Wisely
Just like most purchases today that have specific cleaning recommendations; timber flooring is no different. It is vital to clean your wood floor with the recommended flooring cleaner.
There are so many different types of flooring finishes that you need to make sure that you are cleaning with the right product. We ensure to send our clients their first cleaner free, so they are familiar with the brand and products that they should be using to care for their floor.
 
These are just a few tips to help prevent damage to your flooring, check out our other blog article about choosing the best flooring for coastal homes to see how your floor choice can make beach side living a little more breezy...
​
Need to repair the timber flooring in your beachside home? Speak to us about your options by emailing us at office @ timberfloor dot nz
​