Moving In? Use these Tips to Protect Your New Tile

You’ve bought your dream home, and it has gorgeous tile floors to boot. You can’t wait to get your new furniture inside, sit on your couch, kick your feet up, and survey your new castle with its beautiful tile floors. But after all the moving and unpacking is done, you sit on your couch, kick your feet up, and see nothing by scratches and scuffs across your once gleaming tile. You might even see a crack or a broken tile.

How do you prevent this nightmare from becoming your reality? Here are a few things you can do to protect your new tile:

Thoroughly Clean the Floor

It might seem counterintuitive, but you should thoroughly clean your tile floor before you move anything inside. Any dirt particles or debris on the floor can be moved around and pushed into the floor, either causing scratching or staining. In Arizona, the sand and gravel that come in from outside are especially problematic. But even if you don’t damage the floors, you will be setting down furniture that will cover up dirty spots that will be allowed to settle and become stains.

For the best results, hire a tile floor cleaning company near Phoenix to perform a professional tile and grout cleaning. The pros will get up dirt you may not even realize is there, and they will ensure that you have a clean surface on which to put your furniture and get the right start in the home.

Put Down Protection

There is no getting around the fact that you will have a lot of people coming and going in your house during the move. All that foot traffic is bound to bring in dirt and potentially damage your tile floor. One of the best things you can do is put down protection for your tile floors.

Use old rugs, towels, and other fabric to cover your tile floor. The thicker the material, the better, since it will prevent scratches from heavy furniture being moved over the floor. Think beyond simple protection against dirt.

Cover Furniture Legs

Heavy tables, bookcases, sofas, and other furniture can easily scratch or even chip your tile floor. You may think the tile is sturdy enough that you can slide a couch across the floor and into place without problem, but you may be surprised when you look down and find that there is a long scratch on your new tile now.

Better to be safe than sorry, even if you think the furniture is not that heavy or that the tile is strong enough to resist such damage. Just put pads on the bottom of the furniture legs or edges. If you can’t put such protection on the furniture, either use moving blankets for dragging or get the muscle power to lift the item instead of dragging it.

Designate Inside and Outside Helpers

You can keep dirt to a minimum by making sure that people who are unloading the truck outside don’t bring that furniture – and the dirt on their shoes – inside. Create a hand-off line. Designated outside helpers will carry items to the door and hand them off to the designated inside helpers, who will then take them to their final resting place. You will keep all that dirt outside and keep your tile floors safe.

Hand Out Shoe Coverings

Maybe you don’t have enough helpers to dedicate some people to outside help and some to inside help. Or maybe your friends don’t want to end up being the designated outside help in the Arizona heat. You can still keep that dirt and debris off your tile floors by giving your helpers shoe coverings. That just means that they will have to slip the coverings on when they come inside and take them off when they go outside. It’s an extra step that they may not like, but it’s a step that will save your floors.

Finally, you can also create a dedicated pathway through your home that is covered with plastic sheeting or paper to protect your floors. Use whichever of these tips – or whatever combination of them – that make the most sense for your home’s layout and the circumstances of your move. Taking these steps may seem extraneous, but you’ll be happy when you’re able to rest in your new home and see nothing but beautiful, unblemished tile floor before you.

If you do have a moving mishap, or if your tile floors weren’t in the best shape before you moved in, call Arizona Stone Care for professional tile and grout cleaning. We are a top-rated tile floor cleaning company in Phoenix, and we specialize in stone cleaning, stone polishing, and natural stone restoration and repair. We can remove years of dirt and renew your tile so that it looks as good as new. Call us for a quick tile and grout cleaning before you move in or for a more thorough cleaning and restoration for older or damaged floors.

Published By:
Arizona Stone Care

Phone: (559) 660-6002