How to Clean Hardwood Floors Without Damaging Them

How to Clean Hardwood Floors Without Damaging Them

Want your hardwood floors to shine? From vacuuming to mopping, best cleaning tips & guides discover a way to smooth your hardwood flooring & what to apply to with out leaving lasting damage

Properly wiped clean floors aren't hard to obtain, mainly if you live beforehand of the game. Put down tough-bristled mats, park gritty boots and footwear at the door, sweep, dry-mop, or vacuum frequently, and whilst the ground looks dull, get into all of the nooks and corners with a damp mop and a impartial solution.

Hardwood Floor Cleaning and Maintenance Steps

In most households, timber floors ought to be cleaned at the least 4 to six instances a year.

Floor installer Michael Dittmer, who lives out of doors Chicago, dispatches a robot vac daily to keep a watch on his complete first floor. “Then I clean the kitchen ground weekly and in different rooms two times a month.” Of path, he has a yard, dogs, and teenage boys. For many families, this routine need to do the trick.

4 Methods To Clean and Maintain Your Floors

Choose a smooth-bristled broom angled. Take preemptive motion to get into corners and wide enough to rapidly do the job—shifting with the grain, of route.
Vacuum with a soft floor nozzle; carpet beaters and brush rolls can damage the finish. Robot vacs do the give you the results you want; store for one that received’t vacuum itself into a corner and could final as a minimum an hour before preventing to recharge.
Attack sticky debris ASAP with a moist clean material, a mini squirt of timber ground cleanser, and a full of life rub; if you don’t like to crouch, plant one foot on a rag. Lift off dirt and puppy hair with a microfiber mop head, preferably handled with a wonderful electric powered fee so it may seize terrible-ion ephemera. Keep the mop head moving, once more with the grain.

Use a humid-mop with a flat-head mop and microfiber pad or a microfiber string mop that has been thoroughly wrung out when it appears dingy. Move with the grain, and control the amount of cleansing solution via using a spray bottle, aiming for a heavy mist or gentle squirt of about a half teaspoon per 2 rectangular ft. No need to rinse. No want to buff both, however fabric diapers and smooth socks do work nicely right here.

5 Ways to Avoid Major Damage

Don’t ignoring wet or sticky spills. They won’t depart on their very own. Did an ice cube simply shoot beneath the table? Go get it.
Don’t bring about the heavy gadget. You can harm the end by way of attacking with a brush intended for the storage or a ground-cleansing device designed for more difficult flooring.

Avoid applying the wrong cleansing product. Experts say Murphy Oil Soap can leave a residue on polyurethane. Paste wax definitely makes it slippery. As for acrylic polishes that claim to dispose of the glow while placing extra on? They can dull polyurethane—just take away the filth and it's going to shine.
Be aware about flooding the region. Standing water and overly moist mops shoot moisture between boards and via tiny tears within the finish that shape while timber shrinks and expands with the weather. Over time, moisture can damage the timber.
No steam cleansing. Never on wood. Save it for tile, linoleum, and vinyl.

What To Use To Clean Hardwood Floors

For a impartial solution, you need a pH stage of about 7, or matched to cured poly; higher is simply too alkaline, and decrease is ok for an all-purpose purifier, however no longer here. One instance is Bona’s loose & simple Hardwood Floor Cleaner ($18; Bona).

Is it Safe to Use Vinegar to Clean Hardwood Floors?

Don’t use vinegar or baking soda solutions. Old-customary remedies involving vinegar or dish detergent can’t do the identical task as these days’s multi-functioning solutions and may without a doubt damage or dull polyurethane.

Pro2Pro Tip: One way to test for residue is to spray a bit of answer on glass and spot what it leaves behind.

Unfortunately, the treatment is once in a while worse than the dust. “Too a lot water, any amount of steam!” says Brett Miller, a technical professional at the National Wood Flooring Association.

Other no-no’s: robust vinegar or baking soda solutions that could degrade polyurethane, and “glow” enhancers that sound as if they could paintings for your hair.

What Makes Wood Floors Shine?

Here are the key components to search for in prepared-made solutions engineered specifically for wooden flooring:

Solvents: Speed the drying manner, lowering publicity to moisture and making the activity move faster; additionally they reduce streaking and filmy buildup. Method’s Squirt & Mop Wood Floor Cleaner consists of two solvents, one derived from cornstalks ($five).
Surfactants: Loosen grease and dirt and emulsify them which will pass to the mop head; they’re the key aspect in Rejuvenate’s Hardwood Floor Cleaner ($15)
Chelators: Found in Method’s cleaner, fight water recognizing and snow-melt salts.
Citric Acid: Breaks up dirt and combines with alkaline substances to help acquire a impartial pH.
Oxidizers: Release hydrogen peroxide to bust up dirt on lengthy-unnoticed flooring and are in greater-electricity solutions like Bona’s PowerPlus ($21; The Home Depot).
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Broom and Dustpan

Regular gentle sweeping does the activity. Try Casabella’s Wayclean Wide Angled Broom ($thirteen; Casabella); for $2 greater, you can have its Neon Broom and Dustpan set. Or wrangle the ones crumbs skulking underneath the desk with the tony horsehair and waxed-beechwood Room Broom ($58, with handle; Nessentials).

Vacuum Cleaner

Choose one that’s easy to pick out up and maneuver and has a gentle roller head, like Dyson’s V8 Absolute ($six hundred; Dyson).

Microfiber Mop
Look for a swivel head and a fluffy, reusable pad for dry mopping and a denser one for damp mopping. (Wipes must be formulated for wooden floors; Bona’s come as a 12-percent, $nine).

Some spray mops have refillable tanks using on the shaft, such as Libman Freedom Spray Mop ($30). O-Cedar’s Dual-Action Microfiber Flip Mop ($20) has pads for dry and moist mopping—throw them in the wash however keep away from material softener, which could cause streaking.

Or pass for a microfiber string mop that may be wrung out till simply damp, like Casabella’s Spin Cycle Mop ($30; Casabella).