As beautiful as your wood floor is, you may be wondering if it could ever get damaged. It’s been through the kids, the heavy furniture, and years of constant walking. But if you’ve had your wood floor long enough, you might be noticing stains and discoloration starting to reduce its shine. Thankfully, there are a few methods to clean your hardwood floor and ensure that it stays in tip-top shape for as long as you’d like it to.
Cleaning Your Hardwood Floor
Cleaning wood floors is a must, and many homeowners fail to keep up with the requirements of their hardwood floors and are left with cleaning solutions that can’t quite get the job done. Learning how to clean your hardwood floors is easy, and it only takes a few tips and tricks to help you restore their beauty and shine.
Touching Up Small Scratches or Marks
Even if you follow some of the maintenance tips below, getting a few scratches on your hardwood floor is expected. Clean those up with a stain marker, or consider placing a rug down in areas where you know people or pets constantly travel.
Mopping Your Floor
Water will ruin your floors, so when mopping, remember to use a relatively dry mop and clean up any standing water spots that may sit on the floor. Use a neutral floor cleaner and your microfiber mop or cloth to clean sections of your hardwood floor.
Deep Cleaning
Part of your cleaning routine should involve an occasional deep cleaning. Prep your floor by sweeping it up and following your cleaning routine for mopping. After this, grab a wood floor cleaner and target tough stains and spots that your regular mopping won’t pick up. Deep cleans are especially great for high-traffic areas.
Pro tip: A deep clean won’t just require the use of one mop pad or cloth. Make sure you’re changing or cleaning off your mop so that the dirt you pick up isn’t going back on your floor.
Maintaining Your Hardwood Floor
Hardwood floor maintenance can help your floor last for as long as possible and keep it looking fresh and in style. Cleaning is a great maintenance tool, so it’s good to follow the cleaning processes above, but it’s also essential to follow a few maintenance tips to perfect the look of your flooring.
Clean Spills Immediately
Wood floors absorb moisture that can create a shrinking or widening effect. This can warp your wood floors and ruin the floorboards and their design. You never want to allow wood floors to absorb moisture, so cleaning spills is a necessity. In addition, you want to keep moisture from fluctuating in the air around your floors, as high and low humidity can create the same effect.
Use Furniture Pads
Inevitably the more you sit on your couches and chairs, they will begin to move and scrape the floors under you. It’s important to use furniture pads to keep furniture from scratching and scraping against your floor.
Sweep Daily
You never want to allow dust to accumulate on your floor and settle in between floorboards, so dusting and sweeping daily will help keep your floors compact. If you have pets, it’s a great idea to get rid of their shedding hair and pet odors that can create havoc on your flooring.
Trim Your Pet’s Nails
Your pet is your best friend, but their nails aren’t as kind to your hardwood floors. Sweeping their hair up daily makes no difference if your pets are too busy scratching the floor with their paws. Trimming their nails keeps the scratches to a minimum and eases the burden on your floor.
Refinish Your Floor
The best maintenance tip to keep your floor looking fresh is to refinish your floor every three to five years. Refinishing adds a crisp look, but keep in mind that constant floor finishes could damage certain thinner hardwoods. If your floor is only ¼ inches thick, consider refinishing every seven to ten years.
The Don’ts of Hardwood Flooring
If you follow the tips above, your hardwood floors will stay clean and luxurious for as long as possible. Keep in mind a few additional tips to help you avoid common homeowners’ mistakes when cleaning or maintaining hardwood floors.
- Don’t use oils, furniture sprays, or any other unapproved hardwood floor cleaner on your floor.
- Before mopping, don’t soak your mop in water or pour water on your floor.
- Don’t leave damp carpets and rugs on your floor.
- Don’t use vinegar or ammonia on your floor.
- Don’t use hot water on your floor.
Clean Hardwood Floors Are Made Easy With Carolina Green Steam
Cleaning and maintaining your hardwood floors is an excellent way to keep them in tip-top shape, but sometimes life intervenes anyway. That’s why Carolina Green Steam exists, so we can use our professional expertise to keep your floors, carpets, and upholstery clean and looking as good as new, no matter what life throws your way.
Our certified cleaning solutions work wonders and will add a whole lot more to your floors. Get in touch with us today if you’re looking for a floor so clean you won’t even want to walk on it!
