Sanitizing laminate floors

[Tara]

Help how does one sanitize (Kill bacteria, germs etc)a laminate floor as chemicals are not allowed. Thanks! Tara

[0tterbot]

you can't. as soon as you walk away, bacteria from the air, your feet, etc will be all over it before it's even dry. you can only "sanitise" small items which can be boiled/steamed/put into a hot oven or autoclave & which can then be closed up to prevent air entering, and even then there are no guarantees. there is NO WAY to "sanitise" large items for longer than about two seconds. kylie

[Michael A. Ball]

The floor care instructions state that you must use only water to clean the floor? That's hard to accept.

Sanitizing it is nearly impossible outside of a laboratory experiment. Would you settle for disinfecting the floor? If so, I recommend blue Lysol. If you have access to professional grade products, dilutions can reach 1:512--with a matching price. :-) I realize that 1:512 is not "zero chemicals", but it is very close.

________________________ Whatever it takes.

[willie]

I WAS TOLD NOT TO USE WATER ON MINE.

[Tommi Hawkk]

Sorry I'm late on this reply, but I'd like to suggest that perhaps Kylie has confused "Sanitized" with "Sterilized." Sanitized means, in laymen's terms, to reduce the number of germs. REDUCE being the key factor. Sterilized means to make devoid of any life.

You can sanitize the floor by wiping it with a disinfectant such as alcohol or a quaternary ammonia product.

To sterilized you must use radiation, or high heat and pressure.

Sometimes the words are incorrectly used interchangeably, but they are not the same. I've heard people in the medical profession say "I'm going to put this alcohol on your skin to sterilize it before you shot." Well, it is not going to happen. You cannot sterilize a living thing or tissue without killing it.

As to the last statement " there is NO WAY to "sanitize" large items for longer than about 2 seconds" there is some truth in this, but remember, there are few absolutes. If you sterilize something, say a medical instrument, once you take it out of it protective packing, it is basically considered sterile for about ( I think) 1 hour or until it touches something. However from a microbiological stand point, organisms are getting on the instrument as soon as it is taken out of the container.

HOWEVER, it is possible to disinfect a large surface using a chemical that has anti microbial/antiviral properties so as to keep the "germ" count down a good while after cleaning. The refrigerator industry is using Silver in the linings of their fridges to do just that. Silver (Ag) has anti microbial properties. Also, "painting" something with Betadine, iodine or bleach would keep the bacteria count way down.

Yeah, a bit overkill of a response, but I spent too much money on my college and I"m not getting much out of it flipping burgers.

BUT, i'm not trying to flame anyone. All of this is in the pursuit of correcting misinformation.

TH