Should Vinegar Be Used for Cleaning Wood Floors?

There is quite a debate on several DIY (do it yourself) and home repair forums on the internet about using vinegar for cleaning and maintaining your wood floors in a good condition. They are mainly talking about hardwood flooring. However, while a lot of positive arguments exist which prove that there is nothing wrong with using this acidic product on the floors of your household, the majority of the voices claim that risking is not worthy, since there are plenty of secure and good cleaning products on the market that can be purchased without worrying too much. I haven’t even though about this properly because I used several times simple vinegar mixed with a little bit of water on my floors and it worked fine. However, we’ll have to see about the requirements of doing that again in the future. Is it really necessary or should people really stay away from using vinegar when cleaning wood floors?

So, the idea is that no matter what type of wooden floors you’ve got installed in your house, it still costs a lot and I really doubt that there is any homeowner out there who doesn’t care about the price (in time and money) paid for getting his floor done and looking good. There are many enemies to the polyurethane finished hard floors and as it seems to be the acid which vinegar contains is one of them. That’s why I’ve thought about the fact that there are several important aspects related to the cleaning of the wood floors in your home that need to be discussed in order for you guys to understand this whole process better and to be able to see it from different perspectives.

As it seems to be, a very large misunderstanding in the hardwood flooring manufacturing world is that people still believe in the existence of those magic cleaners that could help the absolute restoration of the dull polyurethane finish to the same good and sparkling form that it once had, in the past, when you just purchased it. Unfortunately, something like this is less likely to happen. However, the misconception is fed up by the idea that this is possible if removing a layer from the finish and making it look like new again. While technically this is quite real, I believe that it all depends on the condition of your wood floors. If they are not that new and almost ten years passed since you guys installed them, I doubt that their condition is perfect and that this method is going to provide the expected results.

Nevertheless, don’t think that something like this is not possible just because I’ve said so. Test, experiment, do your research because it all depends on the particular state of your wood floors.You might manage to make your flooring reveal their original shiny finish if you always clean them in time and use waxing and other good maintenance products for keeping them in good shape.  However, if among our readers are some serious homeowners then I suppose you guys realize that quality hardwood floors are quite expensive and pretentious; they aren’t done to leave absolutely residues on the floor.

When it comes to future maintenance of your floor (while excluding the use of vinegar of course), people often use techniques like waxing and oiling them. Even if it makes your floors look great on the day of application, it might lead to serious future problems. What you’ll get is the lack of adhesion of new finishes to your floor. In fact, it might come to a point where you would prefer to run a refinishing to your hardwood floor and this can be quite a difficult problem, especially if waxing or oiling is done on a regular basis. There is a lot of work involved and I’m sure most homeowners that value time think about finding solutions to stay away from this kind of wood floor treatment;

And while vinegar is considered to be pretty dangerous for quality and newly installed flooring, the idea is water is the worst enemy in most of the cases. Let me explain what is really going on here. Due to the fact that nowadays most floors are industrially produced and not manually, the finish begins at one end and then directly stops at the other, while leaving the opportunity for liquids such as water to find their way through and penetrate the wooden layer of the floor. Nature doesn’t care if you have wood floors in your house or not, and when the dry seasons knock at the door your flooring usually gets tighter a little bit. What do you think this leads to? Certain pathways begin to appear between the boards and this is exactly where water can easily get through and begin its damaging process.

This is the main reason why leaving puddles of waters on certain regions of your floor is totally not recommended especially after your wet mopping is done. Water sitting in those cracks can easily cause your floor to discolor and swell in a very short period of time, sometimes sooner then you expect. I’ve mentioned about the good way to do it before and it seems that so far this is the safest way to get close to cleaning wood floors. Uses terry cloth mops by spraying just a bit of cleaner mixed with water and do your work. Don’t exaggerate or you are going to be sorry in the long run.

With that being said, let’s get back to vinegar, as one of those controversial products that should or should not be used on our beloved wood flooring. So, can people apply it when trying to make their flooring spark again? Well, what you guys need to understand that when trying to make your wood floor look beautiful again, you are not directly dealing with the wood itself, but rather with the existing chemical finish layer above them. So what really happens when selecting a floor cleaning product is that you are required to be quite attentive not to choose one which has serious chemical components that by getting into a wrong reaction with your finish could produce a lot of damage. And guess what? Well, the fact is that vinegar is quite acidic and any acidic substance can contribute to the etching of your finish. Did you know that? Now, those people that claim that there is nothing wrong with using vinegar to clean the wood floors have one main argument and this is that wild is very mild in acid while the finish of your floor is extremely hard. That’s why they believe that it would be mostly impossible to harm it with this type of cleaning.

However, I have one question for these people. Did they ever think about future? Daily or weekly use of this “mild acid” product during the next five or ten years will inevitably contribute to the deterioration of your flooring by leaving marks and scratches. So the idea is that if there are better products that can be used which don’t have this type of risk, than why take the chance and end up with discolored or scratched floors in a few years? I really don’t understand!