Marmoleum Click 3 flooring.

Basement Marmoleum Linoleum Floor? Read this first.

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So it’s time to finish your basement flooring. With endless options on the market, you want the one that is safe for your family, won’t break the bank, and is environmentally-friendly. Look no further than Marmoleum Click 3 Cinch Loc. While Forbo makes glue down tile and sheet options, their click together product is so versatile and suited to many dry basement projects.

Is Marmoleum Click 3 the best flooring for your basement? Maybe, maybe not. Let’s find out.

The first and most important step is to assess your subfloor conditions. This is a job for the person responsible for the installation and who should be able to guide you. Green Home Floors is one of those suppliers who can offer some advice and help you to purchase the products. Before Marmoleum Click 3 is installed, there are a number of factors to look at, especially for basements. From dampness to whether the floor is level, pitched or lumpy and bumpy, Marmoleum Click 3 should only be installed if it is the right fit for your specific situation.

Forbo, the manufacturer of Marmoleum Click 3 Cinch Loc, suggests checking the relative humidity in the concrete slab or the moisture content percentage as a means to determine suitability for installation. Click product has a wood core and does not perform well in damp environments. Sometimes a vapor barrier can fix that.  That is all explained in their installation guide.

The benefits of Marmoleum Click 3 for basement flooring

  • Installation is a beginner level project. Anyone who can strike a line and manage a handsaw can install it, and replacements are simple.
  • The top wear layer of Marmoleum Cinch Loc is made from natural ingredients like linseed oil, limestone, and rosin. As a green and natural product it is a great to use for children’s play areas and recreation areas. The Mayo Clinic recommends hardwood or linoleum flooring, especially if your child has asthma or allergies. Marmoleum, being a natural linoleum flooring, is also referenced by the Environmental Protection Agency in a study of Emory University’s hospital flooring choices (spoiler: they chose Marmoleum).
  • The core of Marmoleum Click 3 Cinch Loc is a moisture-resistant wood core. While it still requires an inexpensive vapor barrier under it to protect from vapor in the concrete, spills are no problem.
  • The backing of Marmoleum Click 3 Cinch Loc is cork. Renewable, sustainable, and natural, it provides a wonderful cushioned feel to the floor, making it ideal for long periods of standing.
  • It comes in a wide variety of colors and designs. Free samples are available.
  • According to Forbo.com, “Thanks to its natural ingredients Marmoleum Click reaches room temperature quickly, ensuring your house is snug and warm. Our Marmoleum Click floors can even be used with underfloor heating. It is a tactile floor covering and comfortable under feet, ideal to live and play on.

Installation is easy

Watch Forbo’s video showing how simple Marmoleum Click 3 is to install:

Have your basement finished before you even know it. Since Marmoleum Cinch Loc Click 3 is easy install, you can save a lot of money by doing it yourself. This is the Marmoleum product that DOES NOT require an experienced installer.

See different color schemes with the Green Floor-Plan Designer.

Marmoleum maintenance tips

Marmoleum maintenance is easy. Each tile comes with a “Topshield2” finish, which protects your floor from scratches. In addition, the tiles can be regularly vacuumed, but sweeping and spot cleaning is what most people find works best.

Marmoleum can also be wiped down using a damp cloth, cleaned using some Forbo neutral floor cleaner, or buffed as needed. Check out Forbo’s maintenance guide to find out what the best practices are for long-term care of your new basement flooring. Also, Green Home Floors has the products and advice you need to keep your floors looking good for many years.

A useable, comfortable basement

Any type of flooring is just one part of having a basement that you love. Whether you turn the basement into a game room or a home office, Marmoleum can be a great choice. Order a free sample today or give us a call at 844-356-6784 for a consultation or technical support.

Find the lowest prices on Marmoleum at Green Home Floors.

Still have questions? Check out our Marmoleum FAQs.

Marmoleum Click 3 flooring.

Marmoleum flooring comes in a wide variety of designs.

Walk-Off Matting

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If you are new to Green Building, there is a very simple but often overlooked segment of the design program called walk-off, walk off area or walk-off matting. No matter what you call it, a carefully designed foyer or vestibule will accomplish a lot in terms of Indoor Air Quality or IAQ for your building occupants.

Long considered just a means to prevent slip and fall liabilities or a way to reduce cleaning costs after storms or seasonally dusty or dirty conditions, the well-planned and carefully executed walk off area will accomplish that and much more.

Foyer mats or matting is not commonly considered a driver in the formula for clean indoor air by most building designers but consider the following:

      1. What is coming in? Everything that enters the building on your shoes in a wet form, whether it be mud, snow, ice or rain carries with it a whole host of bad things like hydrocarbons from road tires, asphalt residue, organic residue from our fields and forests but also pesticides, herbicides and chemicals from ice melting as well as free silica and ash that is in the air naturally. The drying out process often allows thermal drafts to pick these nasty little particles up and put them into the air in our occupied spaces.

2. What to do about it? It’s not just practical to have negatively pressured and vented air locks for buildings to keep dust and particulate always on the way out, but also to have a good run of abrasive, semi-absorbent and absorbent materials to clean shoes and boots and prevent it from coming in.

3. What’s to gain? When you factor in the cost of putting out and taking up mats, cleaning, sweeping and maintaining floors, premature wear of carpets and resilient flooring, it really does make sense to have a carefully designed walk-off system in a building.

Might we recommend a look at the Coral, Coral Duo and Grip systems from Forbo Entrance Systems as an alternative to throwing time, money and energy away?

How to Clean and Restore a Linoleum Floor

How do you clean and restore a linoleum floor? Restoring a linoleum floor is not that hard and is definitely worth the effort.

Let’s get down to the details. Your old linoleum floor is in rough shape. It has a bunch of fine scratches, a few gouges and has lost its lustre and pizazz.

Although built to take heavy traffic, linoleum will eventually build up with a layer of dirt and grime, making them look dull, flat and, well…dirty. How do you clean and, if necessary, restore a linoleum floor?

First things first should — always verify is that the floor is actually linoleum and that it is not vinyl or laminate flooring. How would you know? A simple test would be to take some sandpaper, the finer the better, find a spot that would be hidden by furniture or appliances and begin a fine spot-sanding of the area. If the color layer on the flooring is not wearing through and has color at least halfway through its thickness, it is likely to be linoleum.

Ideally, if there is a spare or loose piece of the flooring somewhere it would be linoleum if it has a grid of jute as the backing. The flooring is very pliable and has a pleasant natural odor rather than a chemical or plastic petroleum smell. One of the last clues that might help tell what the material is would be to see if it was installed in a width of greater than 79″ — linoleum is so heavy that the rolls can only be two meters wide.

Now that you’re sure it’s linoleum, start with a proper cleaning. Sweep any dry dirt up as thoroughly as you can before moving on to the first mopping. Using the typical linoleum cleaners at full strength rather than the typical one ounce per gallon will do an amazing job of cleaning a floor of all its accumulated dirt and grime. Another method is to mix one cup of white vinegar and several drops of dish liquid per one gallon of hot water. Mop well, scrubbing any stubborn spots with a scrub brush and baking soda. Once you’re done, go over it all again with fresh, clean water.

But what if this isn’t enough? You may need to do a deeper restoration of your linoleum floor.

Once the linoleum floor has been mopped well, we can go about lightly sanding the floor by hand, ideally with a scrub pad or very fine sandpaper, the whole time paying careful attention not to spot-sand too aggressively in any one place. An area that may have been worn under a desk chair may take a bit of elbow grease to get the scratches leveled out, but true linoleum, if carefully and uniformly abraded, will prepare beautifully for refinishing.

The process is actually a form of screening and polishing. Industrial floor machines can also be used on linoleum to remove existing finishes, remove scratches and nicely prepare a floor for refinishing, but extreme care must be used not to burn through the color on the flooring.

One last item that may need attention would be to fix any small gouges. If they are bad enough, the only way to do that well would be to scrape some of the color layer from the flooring and to make a repair paste by mixing that dust with white carpenters glue. Once pasted in, leveled off and left to dry, the patch can be gently sanded prior to refinishing.

Once the floor is leveled out with all the scratches gone and presenting all as the same uniform color, the gloss needs to be restored. The finishing is usually best done with a sponge mop or a spreader bar and spreading and applying thin uniform coats is always the best bet.

Be sure to check our other post on applying TopShield and Top Shield 2 to finish your floors off and protect them for years to come!