Tips on Cleaning Hardwood Floors

Are you a homeowner? Do you have floors that you care about? Are they made from hardwood? Do they require cleaning?! Yes, they do and you need to discover what cleaning wood floors in your house is all about. While we I try to blog about all type of wood flooring, today we’ll talk about hardwood! It seems that a lot of people like and have hardwood on their floors, but only a few of them really know what cleaning them all is about. I’m going to share a few tips that you’ll remember your whole life. Remember, this is for beginners, not advanced home owners. So, please don’t be surprised when you find that cleaning information that you already know.

Often, wood floor cleaning misunderstandings appear because of the initial recommendation of the manufacturer. In my experience with hardwood flooring I had the chance to stumble upon plenty of such situations. People don’t usually get along with what the producers claim to be most effective and that’s when the real problems start. However, it’s a fact that certain products are often pushed (even if they don’t offer great results) through the recommendation of such manufacturers. So be aware to research your floor cleaning ideas before applying them. Nevertheless, another problem that I discover recently is that these suggestions regarding how to properly clean your hardwood floors and flooring in general always change. A major role in the decisional factor that people need to take responsibility of is played by those commercials on TV, radio and internet. The existence of an advertising budget offers them the chance to reach their audience with a series of products that often fail to bring good results. They bought it because there were a few stains of the floor and they ended up partially destroying the finish of the floors. How do you like tips and products like this? I don’t think someone would like to live this kind of experience when trying to find solutions to get rid of the dirt and stains from his or her hardwood floor and to make the house look sparkling and beautiful once again.

Mats and rugs at your entrance

As most of you probably know, before actually passing to those tips on cleaning hardwood floors, it would be really necessary to remind our readers that prevention is the key to maintaining peace on this earth and your floors brightly clean. There are different ways to get rid of dirt on your floors, but if you acted a little bit smarter, nothing would have happened from the very beginning; and in this case, being a little bit wiser means having walk mats or any simple rugs that you can find (old ones can be used to) somewhere in your house placed at the entrance of every door. When people see them, they are used to leave most of the dirt on their footwear out, by rubbing their feet of those mats; however, when those rugs are nonexistent… guess what happens? Every single particle of the dirt from their boots or whatever footwear they have is brought in your beautiful house, directly onto your precious and expensive hardwood floors. So I guess that you already get the idea why these rugs and mats that need to be placed before and after the entrance in your house are so important. They help to collect and absorb everything starting with dust, dirt, grit, particle sized rocks, etc, that will be sooner or later be inevitably brought in your big house and do no good expect doing ugly scratch on the floors. Nevertheless, even when trying to take this type of prevention measure, you have to stay away from rubber type of mats since it has been proven that they leave unwanted marks on wooden floors and should be avoided as far as keeping your flooring safe concerns. When seeking to purchase these rugs somewhere in your hardware store kindly ask them to give you those which are directly made for real wood floors (you can even tell them that you have hardwood flooring installed in your house). Adding these mats is not a “set and forget” thing. You have to regularly clean them by either washing or simply shakenning. So that’s not just a way to contribute to the cleaning if your wooden floors, especially those made of hardwood, it’s a damage, scratch and dirt prevention method for keeping troubles away from your floors.

The broom and the sweeper

I don’t believe that there is a homeowner somewhere in the “civilized world” that lacks a sweeper and broom. In order to maintain your floors clean and good looking, you have to use the above mentioned instruments to sweep your hardwood floor regularly in order to pick up and eliminate all the existing rocky grains and particles that believe it or not present a great danger to your floors when it comes to leaving unwanted scratches and marks. You need to understand that these are one of the best dirt removal and prevention techniques for cleaning your hardwood flooring and need to be properly applied, together with vacuuming, at least once a week. Most of you might already think that this is so primitive. It isn’t. When it’s done regularly, you won’t have any trouble with your floors… and besides this… remember that this information is created for beginners that just installed their flooring and have no clue how to approach it and what to do when it comes to cleaning it.

Avoid chemical cleaning products

If you have wood floors in your house, chemical products should be avoided as much as possible. Instead, think about some natural products and liquids that can be applied. How about vinegar and water? Have you ever heard about this hardwood flooring cleaning option? I have been personally using it for a long time already and the results are pretty good. Nevertheless, one has to be attentive because it is well known that vinegar contains a lot of acid and when used exaggeratedly at can even “contribute” to the removal of the finish shine of your floors, which is not good at all. You want your damage prevention and cleaning techniques to be as safe as possible and this is why we are here to share most of the important tips that exist nowadays. So, try vinegar when possible, but stay away from excessively using it. Know the limits and you’ll be able to protect your floors.

Anyways, I already see that there are plenty of people that are quite skeptical about what have been mentioned above related to avoiding the use of chemical cleaning solutions. Well, you need to have some kind of experience with those before you try them out; otherwise you risk harming your wood floors. I didn’t say that all of them are bad and have no effect whatsoever. There are good ones, but it all depends on your level of understanding. Now, remember that we have mentioned something about trying only those products that are recommended by the hardwood manufacturers? Well, now it’s time to concentrate a little bit on this idea and try to implement only those chemical spraying solutions that the hardwood flooring company that you ordered you wood floors at suggested that you can use. After all, they gave you some kind of guarantee, didn’t they? Spraying these solutions on the surface and then using a special clothing to lightly scrub the surface is going to remove all the existing stains and to give that sparkling and shiny effect to your floor once again.

A little bit more advanced methods for cleaning hard-wood floors

While I mentioned at the beginning of this article that the information is designed for beginners and people who just start out in the world of home improvement, home repair, DIY and cleaning of those great wood floors that they just managed to install, I don’t want to offend those people that already have a special mat in front of their entrance and that properly wash their hardwood floor at least once a week and also weep and vacuum it. In case when dealing with really stubborn stains on your floors, there are some other methods (more advanced) that needs to be applied. I suggest you stop by these when dealing with excessive dirt or really bad stains. The one I’ll mention today is called screening and recoating and it is highly recommended when you are in big trouble with your flooring. It basically represents a process of abrading the finish of the polyurethane floor, after which a few coats of this low density foam called urethane are applied. This process itself will give your hardwood floors a much longer existence than any other cleaning and prevention processes. However, please make sure that you consult with a local specialist before trying them on your own.

What is really necessary to understand is that sooner or later all wood floors change the colors and become a little bit damaged, due to being constantly exposed to various chemical and natural factors + us, the human being itself that walks on them all day long. Sunlight and moisture are one of the two main hardwood affecting factors that we can’t do anything about, besides making sure that we have the necessary window treatments. However, if you really want to make sure that your wood floors last a little bit longer than usual, you can have beautiful Persian rugs on them, at least in those places where you activate the most. The partial beauty of the flooring is going to disappear, however you have the chance to make the live longer. Nevertheless, don’t forget that cleaning wood floors is always possible and there are plenty of ways to do it. In this post we talked about a few tips only.

And when it comes to really quality and expensive hardwood floors, you need to understand that there are scratching and marks that are basically impossible to be removed. That’s why trimming the nails of your pets and telling your wife and daughter not to wear those high heel shoes on the flooring is a must