Wood floors are one of the easiest types of floors to maintain. Unlike carpet they do not trap dust and allergens, nor do they stain nearly as easy. Although they are relatively easy to maintain, a few things should be kept in mind when caring for them.
In this article, I will be discussing issues surrounding the care of your wood and/or laminate floors. I will dispel some common myths and offer solutions to help keep your floors looking great.
To properly clean your wood floors, you first understand what kind of finish your floors have on them. There are three types of finishes that wood floors have: an oil surface, a wax surface, and a polyurethane finish. Unless your floor are very old, I’m guessing that your floors have a polyurethane finish. This article addresses how to clean these floors (which the vast majority of floors are) but you should check to make sure your floor has this type of finish before continuing.
The first thing you need to keep in mind when cleaning a floor, is that preventative maintenance is cheaper and more effective than corrective maintenance. Vacuuming your floors regularly with a either a vacuum that has no beater-bar or one that you can turn off the brush action is a great way to keep your floor free of debris. I prefer a canister vacuum for this task. Alternately, you can use a dust mop. However, the dust mop will not remove tiny debris stuck in the cracks of the boards. Regular vacuuming and/or dust mopping will remove particles like sand and tiny rocks that will end up scratching your floors if not removed.
However, dust mopping and vacuuming will not clean the scuff marks that can be caused by shoes. To clean off these marks, I would recommend simply dampening a cloth and gently scrubbing the floor. If the mark does not come off you could use a solvent such as kerosene or what I recommend: waterless hand cleaner such as Goop. Waterless hand cleaner will break down oil-based stains, plus it does not give off toxic fumes.
Now when you want to mop your floors, there are a few things to keep in mind. 1) You are not cleaning the wood, you are cleaning the polyurethane finish. 2) using an oil soap won’t penetrate the polyurethane but it will leave an oil-based residue on the floor.
The oil soap wood cleaners are meant for older oil treated wood floors. Modern wood floors are sealed by polyurethane so the cleaner will not penetrate them. I recommend damp mopping (do not wet mop as this is too much moisture) them with glass cleaner. Remember you are simply cleaning the polyurethane. I use a Rubbermaid flat mop with a microfiber pad for this purpose. Using a spray bottle with non-ammonia glass cleaner in it, I spray the head of the flat mop until damp and then push it across the floor. With each room or a certain amount of square feet, I will rinse out the microfiber, wring it out, and then re-spray it with cleaner.
If you clean your floors in this manner, I believe you will have cleaner, more residue-free floors. Good luck!
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