How To Clean a Composite Door
When you purchase your dream composite door for your home you want to know how to best maintain it. When it comes to replacement external doors a composite door is an excellent choice. A composite door offers durability, strength, not forgetting style and sophistication.
Composite doors are not like traditional timber doors that require lots of maintenance. A composite door will require very little maintenance if any at all.
At Peterborough Doors we offer robust composite doors that have tough and hard-wearing paint. This means that the colour should never fade or discolour. However, if your door does look like it needs a clean, all it requires is an occasional wipe down with a damp clean cloth to get it looking new again.
Throughout this blog we will explain the general maintenance procedure for a composite door.
Composite Door Maintenance
As previously mentioned here at Peterborough doors our composite doors are manufactured with low maintenance in mind. There is no requirement to get a door expert in to clean or maintain your composite door.
Painted Door Surfaces
The door paint used on our composite doors is extremely robust and should not wear. However, if your door is left dirty and never cleaned, the build-up of dirt can increase the amount of toxins which could lead to degrading the paint work. This in all will reduce the over-all life span of your door. This is why we recommend keeping your door clean and free from dust build-up.
Door Keys
When your door keys are kept in your pocket attached to many other keys this can lead to key damage. Secondly, if the keys are attached to a bunch of keys when your door key is inserted, the other keys can scratch and damage the paint work.
This is why we would always recommend that your door key is separate to the other keys to prevent these scratches occurring.
Handles, Letterbox, Door Knockers & Door Hardware
When it comes to cleaning the hardware on your composite door, we recommend wiping down the hardware with a damp cloth using warm water. Any mechanical parts should be oiled using a silicon spray twice per year. Do not use any solvents or detergents on the door paint.
Cleaning precautions
Whenever cleaning or maintaining your composite door always follow the manufacturers guidelines. When ever using warm soapy water always wipe over a small area beforehand. If for off chance you have any chemicals on the cloth that you were not aware of, this will be shown on this small area first.
Always avoid using solvent-based products this includes abrasive cleaning products too. Anything with any form of bleach will bleach and discolour your door. This will be very obvious to the manufacturers and will void any door warranty.
How To Clean a Composite Door
Firstly, a composite door should be cleaned down on a regular basis if your home is next to a busy road or there is lots of dust in the area. To keep your composite door looking brand new we recommend regularly cleaning with warm soapy water. We recommend using a microfibre cloth for best practice. The cleaning process should be done each month. Do not use a sponge with a rough side or even a Brillo pad. Both of these will cause scratching and damage to the door.
Gently clean down the door until all of the dust is removed. Make sure all of the edges are cleaned to. If you find your door excessively dirty, then we recommend refilling your basin and cleaning for the second time, ensuring the water is washed off with clean water.
If your door has glazing then we recommend removing all streaks with an additional clean cloth.
Once the door has been cleaned on both sides then leave your door open for a short time whilst the door is drying. Natural air will help reduce any marks on your door.
Door Lubrication
We recommend cleaning and lubricating your locking mechanism twice per year. This will allow smooth operation whilst opening and closing the door. Grease should be applied to the keeps, deadbolts, latch and rollers.
Any roller slots should be oiled with silicon lubricant. We recommend using a silicon spray or graphite-based lubricant. NEVER USE GREASE or OIL in the cylinder. This will only gather dust and cause damage to the cylinder.
Tea Staining the Door Furniture
When there is a build up of oxidation over the surface of a stainless-steel object such as a letterbox or door handle, then this is the cause of tea staining. Tea staining is often confused with corrosion. Although tea staining does not affect the life span of the door furniture, it does not look very nice.
Tea staining can be the build up of salt (especially living near the coast), sand, dust, debris or even standard pollution such as from trees moss etc. Heavy winds and poor weather conditions can also play a major part too. So regular cleaning of your door furniture will significantly help to prevent tea staining.
Composite Door Maintenance Summary
We would always recommend regular cleaning of your door to help increase the overall life expectancy of your door and furniture. Cleaning your door will not take much time and does not require any expensive materials.
If you have any additional questions in regards to any of our external doors or windows or would like to take a look at our range of composite doors, then get in touch today.
