Home: How to clean wood flooring without causing damage

Kya deLongchamps sweeps into action with advice on cleaning wood flooring of all kinds

Expect to pay in the area of €30 to €80 for a quality spray mop with two mop heads and an integrated bottle which can be used with their proprietary sprays or pure water. Picture: iStock

We're not pirates flailing a mop along salty decks. Here’s how to damp-dust an impostor laminate or aristocratic timber floor to a low, lovely lustre without exhausting and potentially damaging swabbing.

Laminate wood flooring is not wood. It’s a synthetic composite of materials (basically high-density fibre-board covered with melamine) with a digital print of wood plank grain and pattern on the top side. An economical, practical floor, the technology used to print the surfacing and the improved definition of the image without tight obvious repeats, delivers a characterful, even lightly-textured pretender.