There’s something grand about hardwood floors. There’s an elegance to this that many homeowners will agree with. Even though they look great brand new, over time, they can end up building up dust, grime, and grow dull. Without proper cleaning you may find that even the most wonderful of floors, end up looking weathered. There are a few ways that you can clean hardwood floors and each option will give you a different finish. The following are just a few of the basics of cleaning hardwood floors so that you can maintain the look and feel of great flooring.
Do Not Mop
Before getting into anything, do not mop. Moping a hardwood floor is the wrong way to go about this. You need to know what type of flooring you have. You need to know what the wood finish is and not the type. The finish of your floor will determine what cleaning solution you should use and which one will work best. With that in mind, the following tips will make a little more sense when trying to clean properly.
Sealed Floors
The first option is for those that have sealed flooring. Surface sealed solutions have a coating on the wood that is made of urethane or a composite mix. These are going to be resistant to water, scuffing, and staining. If you have these, then you can in fact sweep first, then use a mop. You don’t want to “soak” your flooring, mind you, but rather mop and dry with relative ease. Keep in mind, this only works for sealed flooring.
Oil Treated
The next type of flooring can be a matter of sealed oil finished flooring. This is done so that hard wood can be cleaned with relative ease and left looking great. If you have a sealed oil floor you’ll want to use floor wax. This can come in a paste or a liquid, to clean the flooring. Do not mop this type of floor. You’ll need to have a surface protection down, and then lightly sweep the top of it after the fact. Do not soak and do not mop.
Untreated Flooring
Hardwood floors that are untreated could work with a lot of different solutions. You’ll want to finish your floor however, and that’s where a urethane finish can come into play. If you don’t want to go that far into this then you can easily just use liquid or paste wax options to give a seal of protection over the top of the wood.
For those that aren’t sure what type of floor you may have the best bet is to look at the flooring closely. Get on one knee and rub the flooring and see if there is a stain or smudge at all. If nothing appears, then you do not have a seal. If you see a stain however, then your flooring has been sealed and finished.
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