Cleaning Hardwood Floors

Inside this Article:

Dos and Don'ts in Hardwood Floor Care
Cleaning Hardwood Floors
Hardwood Floor Protection 101
Using Vinegar to Clean Hardwood Floors
Dealing with Hardwood Floor Scratches

Cleaning your hardwood floors is definitely not an easy job, because they’re rather demanding and you can’t be very abusive, or you’ll end up with your floor swelling up, expanding inside the wall and creating cracks and all sorts of other similar nasty effects. In this article, we’ll teach you how to clean hardwood floors efficiently and easily.

Cleaning Hardwood Floors

There are two types of cleaning when it comes to finished hardwood floors: the initial cleaning just after you installed it and the ongoing process of keeping your floors shiny.

Although in the long run you’ll be cleaning your floors several times a week, you might not damage it as much during this time as you would when performing the initial clean-up.

During the initial clean-up, just after you finished sanding, staining, buffing and coating your floor, a lot of mess will be created, with dust particles roaming freely in the air, pieces of wood going under the panels and in the join gaps and so forth.

This is when the broom and the vacuum are needed most, but remember, the floor is still fragile during this period. Think of it as a patient that just underwent surgery.

Here are a few short tips well worth taking into account when cleaning hardwood floors:

When using your mop to wash out the stains in your floor, always wipe up the remaining water with a sponge or soft cloth. Water is your floor’s biggest enemy and although you will be able to use enough water to wash it, don’t let it stand around in pools on your floor and let it get in the wood.

When using your broom and vacuum cleaner, make sure the ends of neither can scratch the floor.

Try not to use oil-based soaps and solutions, because they will build up over time and create problems in the long run.

You can place plastic-pads at the feet of your furniture, so that you can easily clean under and around it, without risking causing a scratch.

Each floor has its own manufacturer cleaning recommendations and these are not printed there for the sake of it. They’re actually quite useful and you should go by them as much as possible.

The amount of time you clean your hardwood floors really vary from person to person and brand to brand, but a couple of times per week should do great in low-traffic areas.

If you own a commercial space with a lot of people coming and going, you could try increasing this number. This, in turn, increasing the risk your floor will get degraded, so it’s really a matter of balancing out the amount of cleaning you should do and the means to do it.

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