Once Again, Cleaning Wood Flooring for Beginners
Even though I am trying to be as explicit as possible when it comes to the cleaning of wood flooring, it seems that most of you still don’t get many things and continue to email me asking basic questions that I already answered several times before on this site. In today’s post I plan to revise the most important ones and the cleaning process can be complicated at the beginning only, when you don’t have what it really takes in terms of knowledge, experience and equipment and this is why it might take a longer time then usual. Cleaning wood flooring for beginners intend to open the eyes of those who still wash their floors using just plain water in a full bucket and don’t properly dry everything afterward and still worry why do they have the change the hard floors so often?
The life and appearance of your floors
Beginners should know that the time your floors are going to exist directly depend on how well you manage to preserve their initial state when they are shiny, look beautiful and have their original color. This is done by taking good care and knowing what maintenance of wood floors is all about. Often, dirt and grit that comes in your house in various forms are the main reasons why scratches and other “insignificant” (at the first sight) damages appear. The daily cleaning of solid wood floors is a must if you want to make them appear beautiful for you and your family, for all your guests and visitors. Dulling of the fine finish layer on most quality wood flooring is the main cause of the scratches that tend to appear after a while. That’s why sweeping using a safe clothing or fabric appears to be such an important factor in this process of getting the best out of wood floors. Water is what beginners should stay away from at least when it comes to their flooring. Avoid using a bunch of water when cleaning everything out because it will find small cracks and ways to deeply penetrate your wooden floor and will soon create wraps which will cause damage. You don’t want something like this to happen. You need to stay away. Instead, specialists and hardwood floor manufacturers recommend certain products that contain a neutral level of pH. These cleansers are highly recommended for all those people that want their floors to look great.
How to select a proper method of cleaning your wood floor
While the methods of cleaning wood floors are well known by most of the people out there, especially the ones who managed to read something here on my blog, beginners might still stumble upon a bunch of difficulties when trying to find good ways of maintain or clean their floors. However, what is really necessary to be taken into consideration is the actual state or condition of your flooring the moment you want to get it cleaned. Sometimes this can be quite a problem because your floors are either chipped in certain areas or scrapped. In such cases the use of water when mopping is highly not recommended. Water should be left alone at least till you fix those cracks and chips because it always finds way to penetrate the surface and will cause even more damage. However, on the other hand, if the finish layer on your wood floors is in good condition, you can use your usual mopping techniques and equipment to get it clean and to make it shine once again. Remember that a half dry mop is sufficient when doing this process. Too much water should be avoided, even if your floors are in perfect state. Wood doesn’t like moisture and when it is exposed to too much water it can even attract a lot of pest like termites in the long run. Waxing is done to give your floor that bleach effect without using any chemicals; having a proper steel wool and soaking it first in water with soap for rubbing the waxed floors can help in getting rid of cigarette burnings.
How to do the cleaning of your hard floors
After you’ve discovered the condition in which your actual house floors are, you need to act, because unless you pay someone to do it for you, you are going to need to do the sweeping, washing and cleaning your own. A good tip when trying to handle and clean your polyurethane type of finished floors is to make sure that you first move your furniture so it won’t make it the whole cleaning process hard. Remove it from the room if possible. Use a simple broom to clean the floor. A half dry mop should be used afterward. Use warm water and soap first, and then use plain water to wash everything. Don’t forget to maintain everything half dry. Rubbing the floor with a dry towel in the end is compulsory if you want to totally get rid of the possible water leakage into small cracks.
What beginners should know and keep in mind when cleaning wood floors is that water should be use extremely attentive, because it is your first issue when you lack experience and are at the beginning of doing this floor home maintenance work.