Cleaning your Hardwood Floors properly
Dec 9, 2014
There’s nothing more beautiful than clean and polished hardwood floors. Many people are hesitant to put hardwood floors in their homes because of the added cost and maintenance involved (compared to other flooring choices).
Cleaning your floors properly is the single most important thing you can do to protect your investment. In order to clean your floors, you will need to:
- Use a vacuum cleaner or sweep the floors to minimize abrasive grit and dirt.Note: Do not use vacuum with beater bars.
- Use a mild, low pH cleanser (sufficient to clean the surface of the wood and less costly). Always WIPE DRY IMMEDIATELY until there is no moisture visible on the floor.
- Avoid using wax, polish, oil soap, abrasive cleaners, steel wool, scouring powder, or ANY appreciable amount of water.
- Put Chair Pads on any piece of furniture that sits directly on the hardwood.
- Don’t use “ball” rollers or “wheeled” chairs of any kind on your hardwood floor. They accelerate wear on your floors that is usually not covered by the manufacturers warranty.
- Avoid gouges or cuts in your floor from sharp objects.
- Do not walk on your floor with “stiletto-style” heels as they will cause indentations
- Keep pet’s nails trimmed and filed in order to minimize indentations and scratches. Any pet’s nails can damage wood floors.
In addition, you will want to rearrange rugs and furniture periodically so the floor ages evenly. UV sunlight will change the color of different species to varying degrees.
Hardwood floors are not much harder to clean than other flooring choices, and they do require a little more extra care and precaution, but Hardwood floors will add warmth and beauty to your home for years to come if they are properly cleaned and maintained!!