1. First, clean the area thoroughly. Dirt will have caught in the split itself, making it show up darker than the rest of the floor, so the best way to do this is to scrub it with a little hot water and washing-up liquid.
2. Allow it to dry thoroughly and then examine the damage.
3. If the split is a clean one, then the two halves can be joined back together; to do this you may have to soften the vinyl, and you do this with an ordinary household iron.
4. Heat it to its maximum temperature, cover the area of the split with a tea-towel, and then press the iron onto the tea-towel for about 10 seconds. Be very careful not to touch the floor with the iron directly, as the vinyl may melt.
5. When you lift up the iron, quickly stretch the vinyl until it meets over the split and make sure it cools like that.
6. Once cool, use a flat-bladed knife to lift one side if the split, squirt a little superglue into the aperture, and quickly glue the vinyl down and together wiping any excess glue away carefully.
7. Within 10 minutes this should be good enough to walk on, but I wouldn’t wash it for 24 hours.

If there is vinyl missing from the split, then a small shaving from a hidden area can be used as a patch and glued into place. The skill here is matching the sliver and flattening it completely into the gap, but it is possible with patience.

Vinyl Floor Tear

Generally larger than a cut but should be treated in much the same way as a split.

You can peel back the vinyl in the tear, clean both surfaces and dry thoroughly.

Use the iron trick to flatten the vinyl out, make sure the edges meet and stick it down and together as before.

Fixing a Hole in Your Vinyl

This works best with vinyl that is made to look like tiles, but it possible with other designs. It requires spare vinyl being available, either the off-cuts or somewhere under a kitchen unit for example, where it will not show if you take a square.

1. First clean the area of the damage, as before.
2. Then carefully cut out the square where the damage is (or if the pattern is not square, designate part of the pattern to be removed and replaced).
3. Cut the same sized and coloured square from the spare vinyl, try to be as exact as possible but vinyl is quite a forgiving material and will flex if the gap and patch are a milimetre or so out.
4. Glue the patch into the hole being very careful that the edges are well glued down and not proud of the hole.

Vinyl Floor Bumps and Bulges

This is the easiest problem to fix—no matter how bad it looks, be it from furniture or kitchen appliances.

1. Carefully using a hot iron over a tea-towel on the bulge will restore the vinyl to almost as new.
2. Heat the iron to its hottest setting, lay your tea-towel over the damage and firmly and slowly iron it out.
3. Make sure to put a weight on the bulge as it cools to make sure it stays flat.