Pine in natural tone wood floors
Hardwood floor care can seem like a daunting task. Fear not, because, with a few simple steps you will soon be mastering the art of maintaining your hardwood flooring throughout your home. Knowledge is power. Being more knowledgable about the nature of hardwood floor care in-home is key to understanding how to keep your floors looking brand new for many years to come.
Hardwood floor dust bunnies on the run
Daily Task – Hardwood Floor Dust/Sweep
You may not realize, however, fine dust and dirt can wear down your beautiful hardwood floor over time. Acting like sandpaper with every step dirt can grind away at the surface of your floors, resulting in a dull and worn out look of your hardwood flooring. We recommend a proper dusting utilizing microfiber mop or cloth as your surefire defensive approach to maintaining and keep your hardwood floor gorgeous for years to come.
In our professional experience, hardwood floor care with homeowners who make dusting their floors to collect micro dirt and debris part of their cleaning routine really reap the rewards. The nature of the microfiber cleaning pad is that it naturally has a buildup of static electricity within in the fibers.
This attraction to static makes dusting he floors a breeze by pulling particulates, hair, and dust bunnies to the fiber and locking on to all the unwanted contaminants lingering on your floors and in crevices. Brooms may be an effective way of collecting dirt and dust into one localized area – however, they do a poor job of trapping dirt. Furthermore, simply sweeping may actually cause microscopic scratches which over time become more and more evident with each time you choose to sweep versus dust properly.
The best way to dust is to have your microfiber pad to the ground surface and avoid erratic swinging or the mop head or lifting the mop until you have fully completed and area. This helps avoid tossing dirt and dust from a freshly cleaned area to another part of your home. In turn, you trap dust where you want it – on the mop head and nowhere else in your home.
Hardwood Floor doggy mop
Weekly Task – Hardwood Floor Vacuum/Mop
A weekly maintenance approach will help you tackle the more difficult areas of the home which daily dusting cannot reach (spaces between wood boards, small crevices, and all the other nooks and crannies). By utilizing your vacuum (with soft brush attachments) and using the appropriate wet cleaning methods you can have your floors spic and span in no time. These tools are most ideal for getting into the deep spaces between floorboards and into all those pesky corners of the rooms.
Be aware that caution should be exercised as to not cause damage to your floors when operating a vacuum on hard surfaces as such. Note, if your vacuum has a beater bar built-in – first ensure that the height setting is optimal for your hardwood floors before you begin. The key here is to set it high enough so as to not to have the beater bar beating on the wood floor as you make your passes during vacuuming. Also, note the condition of the wheels on your vacuum. You may want to consider how this will impact the flooring finish. If you find you have severely rough or hard wheels on your vacuum, consider replacing them or the vacuum for one with more hardwood floor-friendly design in mind.
In regard to mopping your flooring do not forget that water and wood are not allies in any fashion. Bearing this in mind know that you do NOT want to over-wet your flooring. This may cause cupping and even buckling of floorboards over time. The best method is to use A. appropriately designated cleaning product, such as BONA hardwood floor cleaner and B. apply it in the form of a light misting after completing your dusting and vacuuming and it should result in a beautiful clean. Lastly, note that there is no need to be overly aggressive with your mopping technique. As dry soil removal is step one in any and all cleaning processes – mopping should be done gently as the last step to removal of any grime that may be stuck onto the flooring. Easy does it!
Hardwood Floor wood grain
Monthly Task – Hardwood Floor Polishing
Set up a routine where you show your hardwood floors a little extra love once a month – by polishing the hardwood flooring. Polishing floors will help boost the radiance and luster that lives inside your wood floors.
Polishes fill in the microscopic scratches which are highlighted when they are not properly maintained or have been cleaned but not polished. To boast it adds a nice protective finish to your hardwood floors.
Polishing should not be a daunting task; simply after your dusting, vacuuming, mopping and allowing for drying time – mist a fine polish onto your floors and using a clean microfiber pad gently buff the polish onto the floors. Tadaa! Protected and looking beautiful. Look at you, home maintenance superhero!
Advanced Hardwood Floor Tips
- Invest in the proper tools. Every hardwood floor cleaning kit should include the following: A machine-washable Microfiber pad for dusting and cleaning. The electrostatic nature of a microfiber pad will do half the work for you as it attracts loose dirt, dust, and hair to the pad and stays put. This also helps eliminate any pesky allergens that may be lingering on your hardwood floors that we drag in from outdoors.
- Keep away from the old school water and vinegar method of cleaning the hardwood floor! Although it does clean well, it is not good for the long term health of your wood flooring. Vinegar, being acidic in nature, even diluted, will inevitably etch away at the finish of your floors over time. This will result in dull and lackluster looking floors that will take a lot more time, effort, and money to fix once the damage is done. On the other hand, soap and wax leave a residual buildup – residue buildup will not only damage your flooring but will also be a dirt magnet!
- Avoid steaming your flooring at all cost! Steaming cleaning mops/wands put an excessive amount of moisture onto your floor but they also force that steam in-between and under floorboards. This can very quickly result in wavy floors that are no longer uniform – known as buckling or cupping of hardwood flooring. This method of cleaning can also irreversibly damage the stain and finish on your floors! Not to mention the potential for causing mold beneath of your floorboards. Again, avoid this at all costs.
- Dusting is really the secret to the long life of the beauty of hardwood flooring. Dry soil removal will prolong the life and appearance of your hardwood floors as the dry soil is the most culpable culprit to microscopic scratches and damage that can ruin the finish.
- Furniture protection – for a few bucks you can easily protect all the furniture which comes into direct contact with your wood floors. With a wide array of choices ranging from plastics to rubber, to fine felt – protect high use areas so that the legs and feet of couches, sofas, bar stools, chairs, and other furniture do not cause high-pressure abrasion directly to your wood flooring.
- Lastly, consider a professional deep cleaning service every 3~5 years. With all the traffic and family moments our hardwood floors are faced with every day, month, and year, after a while some outside reinforcements can certainly make keeping and maintaining the life of your hardwood floors. Wiz Team, Inc. strictly uses BONA’s Deep Hardwood Floor cleaning system to clean your floors deeply and thoroughly, while helping the longevity of your floors. Prolonging the time between having to refinish your floors with those messy and stinky floor refinishing procedures. In the long term, this saves you thousands of dollars as your floors are impeccably clean and if the above recommendations are followed may extend the life of your hardwood floors by decades!
Call Wiz Team, Inc. or email us for a free in-home consultation for your hardwood floor cleaning and maintenance needs. Or simply call for advice!
Finding the best way to clean hardwood floors can be difficult. But with some time and patience along with the proper tools and proven techniques, you’ll be able to keep your floors looking their best, longer. Remember that the time you spend maintaining your floors pales in comparison to how much time you’ll spend making memories with your floors beneath you, every step of the way.