Deep-cleaning vinyl kitchen floor

[HappiLeigh]

Ok, I'm a reasonably good house keeper. My regular vacuum/mop routine works for me and I stay on top of it most of the time. However, after several years of living and cooking over my kitchen floor, it just needs more than a regular old mopping. I generally mop with either Simple Green or a vinegar/water solution, so what I'm looking for here is more than that. There is grime actually down in all the little crevices. (I would love to get a nicer kitchen floor, one picked out by me, but that is not an option right now.)

How can I deep-clean these floors and get all that caked in grime out of the linoleum crevices? I admit they got bad like this once before, and I didn't do a very "green" thing--I just bleached the #$%! out of them and scrubbed on my hands and knees. That actually didn't work well for two reasons--one is that I used lots of bleach and felt guilty, and the second is that although the grime seemed to be gone, it also left my floors looking painfully, hideously dull. Like something was wrong with them dull.

Help!

[SAHDS]

What about a steam mop?

[Adsullata]

Is it truly linoleum? It's not a type of vinyl floor? Forgive me, but a lot of times people will refer to their flooring as "linoleum" even when it's vinyl or some other material. This is important because linoleum is made with linseed oil, wood and jute flours, rosins, stuff like that and what you use to clean can potentially mess it up. Like bleach for example, that's kind of a not so good one for linoleum and may be why you're back to square one on the dirt issue.

The steam mop is a great suggestion. Here's a link to the marmoleum website on care and feeding of your linoleum floor forbolinoleum. Even if you have old linoleum, it's made from essentially the same stuff, so their cleaning recommendations are good. I would follow the site's instructions. (I have marmoleum in my home and it's wonderful and the great thing is it's non-toxic, unlike vinyl flooring which can off-gas for long time.)

If your floor is actually vinyl, you should also be careful what you use on it because, unlike linoleum, the color and/or pattern does not go clear thru and if you damage the surface, you cannot repair it like linoleum. The steam mop is a good suggestion here also.

hth

[bigteamug]

The best results I ever got were from a steam-mop type thing the carpet cleaner used. I had done the same thing you did for cleaning, and I think that I may have damaged the finish - there are some floor restorers that may help with the dullness, and these might also fill in some of those wretched divets in vinyl, but I don't know how green/healthy they are.

[HappiLeigh]

I have no idea about the difference, re: vinyl/linoleum. It's whatever came with the house and it isn't fancy--I'm guessing it's actually vinyl but what I grew up calling linoleum.

Do I have to rent the steam thing from a home center?

[rere]

Originally Posted by HappiLeigh

Do I have to rent the steam thing from a home center?

You can usually rent at the grocery store.

Or you can buy one.My brother bought me one and I love having it.It works on carpet and hard floors.

[vm9799]

we have vinyl in our kitchen and the best thing that has worked for me is to get on my hands and knees with a mr. clean magic eraser. it gets into all those little crevices very very well with very little effort on my part. i do this about once a month and then just clean the rest of the time with my swiffer wet jet. the magic eraser shouldn't dull your floors either. it can be a pain in the butt, but thankfully my kitchen is on the small side.

i've never tried a steam mop before, so i will just stick to what i'm doing because i know it works.

[leximom]

Originally Posted by vm9799

we have vinyl in our kitchen and the best thing that has worked for me is to get on my hands and knees with a mr. clean magic eraser. it gets into all those little crevices very very well with very little effort on my part. i do this about once a month and then just clean the rest of the time with my swiffer wet jet. the magic eraser shouldn't dull your floors either. it can be a pain in the butt, but thankfully my kitchen is on the small side.

i've never tried a steam mop before, so i will just stick to what i'm doing because i know it works.

that's exactly what I used to do when we lived in our apartment with this stuff and it worked wonders. Now there are mops with the magic eraser sponge on the end which may be worth a try. http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Clean-Magic.../dp/B000VZOKN2