Cleaning a period home: what not to use on Victorian floors

Most of our work is in period homes. Clapham and Battersea are full of Victorian and Edwardian terraces, and they have their own rules. A 19th-century floorboard is not a 21st-century floorboard. Treating them the same is how you end up with a sad client and a stained floor.

Here's what we've learned, and what we'd quietly tell any cleaner who's about to step into a period home for the first time.

Original wooden floorboards are usually softwood — pine or fir. They've been there for a hundred years. The finish is sometimes wax, sometimes oil, sometimes a layer of varnish so old no one remembers applying it. Whatever it is, it's fragile. Hot water and any kind of detergent will lift it. We use a barely-damp microfibre mop with cold water and nothing else. If the floor needs more than that, it needs a specialist, not a cleaner.

Original tiled hallways — the black-and-red Minton patterns you see in every Edwardian terrace — are clay, not ceramic. They're porous. Bleach will discolour the grout and any acidic cleaner will eat the tiles themselves. Hot water, a soft brush, and patience. If they need restoring, that's a specialist job too.

A 19th-century floorboard is not a 21st-century floorboard.

Stone hearths and fire surrounds (limestone is most common in London terraces) follow the same rules as marble worktops. No acid. No bleach. Soft cloth, warm water, stone-specific cleaner if you want to polish.

Sash window beadings are the bit nobody thinks about until they're damaged. The thin wooden strips that hold the panes in place have often been painted over fifteen times. A scraper or a stiff brush will take a chunk off them. We dust them with a soft brush and a hoover attachment, nothing else.

Plaster cornices and ceiling roses collect dust like nothing else in the house and are usually too high to reach with a normal duster. A telescopic head with a soft microfibre attachment, used gently, is the answer. Not a feather duster — the original plaster underneath is often crumbly, and feather dusters bash it.

If you've inherited a period home and you're not sure which features are original and which are reproduction, the rule is: assume original until proven otherwise. The cost of being wrong is much higher than the cost of being careful.