Q: We have the same old issue of gyprock dust on new floors. I vacuumed as best I could and of course used a mop after, which I shouldn’t have! We have done our best to clean out the muddy mixture in some of the grooves. I wanted to ask.. seeing as we’ve done all that, do you think a coat of natural oil will improve the result?
We were thinking that if we oil it and create some moisture some of the dust spots will reduce to a degree.
A: Drywall dust is very nasty as you know. I read of one case in the NWFA magazine of a prefinished floor newly installed in a house being built. The floors weren’t protected and a lot of drywall dust got between the boards. They decided to wet mop the floors which re-activated the drywall dust and caused the floor to cup badly so that they had to rip out the floor.
I’m assuming your floor is finished with a top coat such as urethane. In such a case, you don’t want to be applying an oil on top of that. Best bet is to get some proper cleaner for floors like this which leave no residue, do a good job of removing contaminants on the surface and evaporate away quickly. There are quite a number of such cleaners available and your local wood floor distributor should carry one of them. Either the cleaner from Poloplaz, Bona Kemi, Basic Coatings, Boa-Franc etc. Continue to try and remove as much compound from between the boards as you are able, perhaps using a crevice tool to increase and focus the suction. I would think that eventually any dust you can’t remove will eventually vibrate down to the sub floor.