My laundry room floor changed color after one bad drain cleaner

Honestly, I used some generic foaming drain stuff from the dollar store in Austin last Tuesday and it ate the finish off my vinyl plank flooring near the washer. The before was a warm gray, now it's this blotchy pinkish white patch that looks like a burn scar from a cartoon. Ngl, I thought I rinsed it all up, but the fumes must have pooled for like 3 hours. Has anyone else had a cleaner wreck a floor like this, or am I just cursed with cheap adhesive?

2 comments

2 Comments

ross.felix24d agoTop Commenter

You sure that drain cleaner is what did it, or is the floor just old? Vinyl plank can fade and discolor on its own after a few years, especially near a washer where water and detergent splash constantly. Dollar store foam stuff is mostly sodium hydroxide and surfactants, that's not usually strong enough to eat through a factory finish unless it was already failing. I've seen floors do this exact pinkish thing from just sitting in humidity and heat. Maybe the cleaner was the last straw, but I'd bet the adhesive or topcoat was already loose before you even poured it. Might be worth checking if that section get direct sunlight too, UV does weird stuff to cheap vinyl. But hey, if it's a rental, that's the landlord's problem now.

amy_murphy8524d ago

Hold on, that stuff absolutely can eat through cheap vinyl. I had a buddy spill a similar dollar store gel on his bathroom floor and it left a white cloudy mark within minutes, not even a strong concentration. Sodium hydroxide is no joke, it pulls the plasticizer right out of the PVC, and a lot of that vinyl has like a paper thin topcoat anyway. Plus if the floor was sealed poorly from the factory, that cleaner goes straight down to the backing and does exactly this pinkish discoloration. The sun might help fade things but it doesn't usually bleach out a section in a perfect circle like a chemical spill does.