I run a flooring store in Abbotsford, BC. I sell a fair bit of hardwood. With darker, cleaner hardwood floors, I find that a common complaint is keeping the clean. For example a Mirage Maple stained to a dark stain like their Sierra stain, is one that shows marks, milky streaks as people walk on them. I have a customer that finds that within a day of cleaning their floor, these marks start to show excessively. The floor is Mannington Hampton Hickory in the colour English Leather.

I have installed this floor in other homes along with the Blue Ridge Hickory in differing colours and never had an issue. People often comment on the challenges of keeping the floor clean but never to this extent.

I filed a claim with Mannington, the checked the board and confirmed that it is fine. Intuitively, I know that it is just a matter of the challenges of keeping a smooth wide plank floor with dark stain clean especially whent the client changed from a rough textured tile to this hardwood.

However, I cannot seem to convince them of that. They are convinced Mannington is garbage and of course one of my fellow competiitors in the area told them that they have had many problems with this floor even though I know they sell little of it. I sell lots of other suppliers so have no loylaty to Mannington. Certainly have seen this challenge with other floors to.

What I am asking for is some unbiased help sites. I have checked out your site, the WFCA site and our local site for some forum postings on the challenges of keeping these types of floors clean. Dark hardwood is all the rage now here on the west coast but convincing consumers of the challenges of cleaning them is a challenge in itself.

Do you have any suggestions?

Dark floors are hard to keep clean.
Higher gloos floors show more scratches/and dirt/resedue


Prefinished floors are often dark, and super high gloss...

From what your describing, the floor has been cleaned with oil soap. Smudges and streaking!!!