Elbow grease primarily needed with exposed skirting (5)
I believe the answer is:
nudge
'elbow grease' is the definition.
'nudge' can be an answer for 'elbow' ('nudge' can be a synonym of 'elbow'). I'm not sure about the 'grease' bit.
'primarily needed with exposed skirting' is the wordplay.
'primarily needed' becomes 'nude' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'with' indicates putting letters inside.
'exposed' means to look at the middle letters (outside letters removed).
'skirting' becomes 'hedging' ('hedge' can be a synonym of 'skirt').
The central letter of 'hedging' is 'g'.
'nude' going around 'g' is 'NUDGE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for nudge that I've seen before include "Remind, prompt gently" , "Light touch or push" , "---. ---, wink, wink (Monty Python)" , "Elbow someone gently" , "Push; prompt" .)