Those that have had a hardwood floor fitted in their home might be forgiven for fretting about scratches to the surface of this cherished investment.

However, there is no need to worry as it is true to say that they are nearly always unavoidable – unless you vow to never set foot on the floor again, you can expect them to appear from time to time.

The trick, though, is learning to fix them and prevent them from spoiling the look and feel of the floor. To maintain the appeal of hardwood flooring takes care and attention in any case, so you should be prepared to carry out maintenance whenever required.

If the floor is being used quite a lot and the footfall is fairly high, you can expect these scratches to develop. In addition to this, pets can cause marks in wooden flooring and so you will need to provide them with alternatives to paw on instead. Be very careful when moving furniture too as this activity often leads to the surface of the floor being damaged in some way, so make sure you have pads on the bottom of the legs.

Minor scratches shouldn’t be too much of a problem to remedy, but excessive surface damage may need re-sanding. In the next article we will be concentrating on minor scratches and what to consider when going about repairing them.