Most homeowners always desire vinyl floors where they are easy to clean. Do you know how to remove scratches from vinyl flooring? Read on for a few simple tips that work!
Call it the luxury vinyl tile on your living room, or regular kitchen vinyl surfaces- scratches do take place on them. No matter what.
And once they do, there’s no going back. Meaning, you might be pretty careful about it next time. But for now, you’ve to learn how to remove scratches from vinyl flooring like yours.
Worry not. We’ve put together two separate methods to deal with this trouble. Based on what kind of scratch you’re dealing with, you’ll decide which of these things to go with.
Related Reads: What power tools does a carpenter need!
Got the catch? Let’s dive right in-
- What Causes Scratches on Vinyl Surface?
- Method 1: How to Remove Basic Scratches from A Vinyl Flooring
- Method 2: How to Remove Deep Vinyl Scratches
- Other Ways to Remove Vinyl Scratches from Flooring
- What To Do Even All of These Solutions Fail?
- People Also Ask About How To Remove Scratches From Vinyl Flooring
- Verdict
What Causes Scratches on Vinyl Surface?
Surely, we’ll guide you on how to work on those bad-looking scratches on the vinyl surface. But let’s take some seconds to address the culprits behind.
So, why does your vinyl surface have scratches?
There are three usual reasons. Such as- Furniture Legs/Edges, Dirt from the Entrance Door, and Cleaning/Shining Products.
Here’s how each of these things takes place-
Furniture
Furniture that stays on your vinyl floor is often heavy in weight. Also, they hardly get moved from place to places. Mostly, people don’t even use carpets underneath. Result? Stubborn, worn-out scratches on the vinyl floor. This takes place in dining room, living room etc even with floor protectors placed.
Entrance Door Dirt
This might be surprising. But those tiny-looking dirt particles can actually be pretty abrasive to the vinyl floor and cause scratches. Especially on product, this is more likely to happen.
Cleaning Products
Sometimes, you might get to use pretty aggressive cleaning products like solvent-based ones or ones that add wax to the floor. Also, the usage of soap can lead to scratches on the vinyl floor.
Got it? Let’s have a look at our two way to deal with the scratches anyway-
Method 1: How to Remove Basic Scratches from A Vinyl Flooring
What on earth is basic scratch? You might ask.
But it’s the most common kind of scratch that takes place on vinyl. We’re talking about scratches that take place over a short span of time. And this can happen even on that vinyl which is officially labeled to be ‘scratch free’.
So, how to deal with it? Well, gather the items listed below first-
Product and Tools You’d Need
• Lukewarm water.
• A bar of sponge(household type) or soft cotton paper.
• Dishwasher.
• Sandpaper of different grit numbers.
• Car wax.
• Clean cloth.
Step 1: Give The Vinyl Floor A Gentle Bath
Don’t misunderstand, we’re not asking you to submerge the vinyl floor underwater. It’s just a quick smooching on it in order to take off the lost dirt or dust particles on it. This might not have been possible if it was hardwood floors.
You can mix one-fourth (¼) of a gentle dish washing liquid with warm water solution. Then, take a piece of cotton cloth or a sponge and rinse. Especially, be attentive while you’re cleaning off the scratch itself.
While cleaning, ensure that you’ve been able to take off as much dirt as possible from the inner part of those scratches, in case they’re decently deep.
Step 2: Smoothen Up The Scratches with Sandpaper
Now, we’re making use of the sandpapers that we’ve mentioned. As a matter of fact, sandpapers are off different grit numbers. This eventually indicates how rough or fine their coarse surface is.
At this step, we’ll take mid-grit sandpaper as P-320 to start the sanding.
Take the sandpaper and start sanding gently on the scratched portion of the vinyl flooring. Make sure that while sanding, you’re rubbing towards a specific direction. Otherwise, it’d end up creating more scratches for you.
Step 3: Smoothen Up The Scratches By Another Finer Sandpaper
Now, you’ll notice the big scratches of the vinyl to be gone. But there will be a rough, uneven surface that’d feed unsmooth at the touch.
To level this up, we’d need finer sandpaper. This can be a P-500 or so. Start rubbing on the previous area with the sandpaper. Make it sure you’re going gentle on the surface, as its primary duty is to bring back the former smoothness of the vinyl floors/surface.
Step 4: Start Waxing with A Car Wax
This is the most sensitive part of the problem, where we’ll wax the area to fill up the micro-sized pores on it. This has to be done after you’re done with several smoothening with the sandpaper from a previous couple of steps.
Take a clean, soft cloth and apply a little amount of car wax to it. Now, start to run on the affected surface. If needed, make sure to provide several coats of car wax.
If you’ve done everything correctly so far, you’ll see no scratch marks on the surface.
Still, if it’s there, then the next method might be for you, where we’ll talk about dealing with even tougher kinds of scratches on vinyl floors.
Method 2: How to Remove Deep Vinyl Scratches
We’re sure that you understand what we’re pointing at by the words ‘deep scratches’. Often, they’re the result of an accidental drop or sliding of some heavy objects on your vinyl tiles area. Anyway, we’ve got to figure out how to take care of those sturdy scratches as well.
Let’s start with the item list-
Product and Tools You’d Need
• A liquid joint sealant.
• A liquid joint sealant applicator.
• Semi-soft paper(household type).
• Warm Water.
• Dish soap.
• Soft cloth or cotton(your choice).
Step 1: Wide Open the Windows and Door of The Room
You might raise an eyebrow at this. But the product that we’re going to use has a strong odor with it.
Step 2: Clean The Scratched Area
Just like the previous method, we need to clean up the scratched area first. A cloth can be rinsed in lukewarm water and then applied to the place.
The wet smooching is supposed to take away the oily dirt and dust particles inside.
Step 3: Mark The Scratched Area with Adhesive Tape
Now, use adhesive tape to mark around the area where there is a scratch. Don’t worry, we’ll remove the tape later on.
Step 4: Start Applying the Joint Sealant with The Applicator
In this step, we’ll take the big move. Take out the joint sealer applicator that you’ve got with the sealer itself or bought separately. As a combo, this repairs tough to tougher scratches.
Pour in the joint sealer in the applicator and start applying it on the affected scratch areas. For starters, go with small drops and understand how much you’ve to apply for each of the scratches.
Ensure to fill the scratches up from the affected area with the joint sealant.
Step 5: Let It Dry and Remove The Tape Afterwards
At this point, you’ve to let the adhesive dry and fill up the crack marks. As you had adhesive tapes before, you can be assured that there won’t be any spills or unnecessary drops around.
Let the sealant dry. And once it’s dried up, take off the adhesive plastic tape from the areas.
Other Ways to Remove Vinyl Scratches from Flooring
Apart from the two methods we’ve talked about, there are several other ways you can make it happen. We’ve not prioritized them because we wanted to stick to the most effective ones.
However, we’d like to give those methods an honor of mention-
Method
Primary Tool
Best For
Erasing the scratch method
Eraser or rubber
Tiny, surface-level scratch area that don’t create any dent.
Polishing The Scratch
PU cleaner
For minor scratches that can be polished away
What To Do Even All of These Solutions Fail?
Good question. And once in a while, this might take place as well. Sometimes, floor dents are so deep and bad that they are away from any restoring or repairing processes’ range.
In those cases, the only thing we can suggest is a partial replacement. What a partial replacement is- to change the scratched part of the vinyl floors instead of the entire floor itself.
As you know, vinyl floors come in several geometrical shapes instead of one-piece, as a whole structure. This will provide you with an advantage to replace any part of the floor anytime you want.
Note that, if you are not a professional plumber, we won’t recommend you to go and do the replacement by yourself. It’d require a number of precise calculators in this regard.
Also, if you want, you can move to hardwood floor, laminate floor, or use area rag as alternative solutions to vinyl flooring.
People Also Ask About How To Remove Scratches From Vinyl Flooring
When to understand that my vinyl scratches are impossible to repair?
There is no one worded answer to that. Usually, if the scratch looks deep(a few millimeters) with a number of deep dents on it, you better go with replacing the part of the vinyl.
Is vinyl glues commercially available for sheet vinyl?
Yes, it’s available. You can check up on Amazon and any retail store. It works with sheet vinyl and other vinyl floors as well.
Shall i keep using shining products on vinyl surfaces to prevent scratches?
You can keep using shining products on vinyl products. But you need to be gentle while applying.
Verdict
Well, you’ve made it till the very end of this article on how to remove scratches from the vinyl floor. As you’ve seen, the first method with sandpaper is for light and surface level scratches. On the other hand, the second method was for deep scratches that the first method would fail to deal with. If it’s a luxury vinyl tile you’re dealing with, go with the 2nd one.
All that said, we think this content contains everything you need to know regarding the ‘art of dealing with scratches on vinyl surfaces’.
