Floor Cleaning 101: The Best Way to Clean Hardwood Floors

Personalized home interior with timeless additions: These are some of the highlights of 2022’s home improvement trends. One of the best ways to follow the trend while increasing your home’s value is to install or refinish your hardwood floors. While these are some reasons for hardwood’s rising popularity, homeowners love them because they need little to no maintenance. Although a regular cleaning routine is essential to keep your floorings in peak condition, an occasional deep cleaning creates wonders for their overall look and feel. Know the difference between routine and hardwood deep cleaning and the best ways to do them.

Cleaning Hardwood Floors

Hardwood floors deal with wear and tear daily, especially in high-trafficked areas in your home. Moreover, your wooden floorings are also vulnerable to spills, scuffs, and other mishaps from pets and children. Hardwood floorings are one of the more durable and long-lasting options, and while they’re easier to maintain, leaving them covered in dirt, water, and grime can affect their performance and look.

The smartest and most convenient way of protecting your hardwood floors is by lessening or controlling the dirt build-up. Using floor mats and setting up shoe removal sections are great techniques for dirt control in your home. Most of all, cleaning your floors regularly ensures floor quality and longevity. While many homeowners follow regular floor cleaning and dirt control, not all know the difference between deep cleaning hardwood from routine cleaning.

Routine Cleaning Vs. Deep Cleaning

A routine hardwood cleaning is a surface-level polish and cleanup to keep your floors tidy and shiny. This includes vacuuming dusty or dirty spots and corners weekly or bi-weekly and sweeping them regularly. Homeowners can add other methods or processes to their daily or weekly hardwood cleaning routine. Here are some of them.

• Mopping
• Swiping
• Wiping floor cleaners for stain removal

When mopping your hardwood floors, it’s ideal to use a microfiber-headed mop. Unlike a regular mop, they can trap more dust and grime off your flooring. Moreover, dusting sprays or wood floor polish usage in mopping or wiping helps remove more dirt.

Are you looking for a more affordable cleaning agent? Your stock of vinegar in the kitchen can help you with that. Mix half a cup of white vinegar with a gallon of lukewarm water, and you have a safe and inexpensive material to mop away the dirt on your hardwood floors. The vinegar mixture can dull some hardwood finishes, so try your solution on a tiny part of the flooring beforehand.

Deep Cleaning

Hardwood deep cleaning removes heavy dirt and grime buildup that vacuums can’t reach. Unlike routine cleaning, deep cleaning is like a reset for your hardwood floors. Your floorboards go back into peak condition to look like newly-installed flooring.

When hardwood floors get long exposure to dirt and grime, the planks’ textures or grain patterns become less visible. Over time, this can affect the overall look of your flooring despite the cleanliness of the area. Hardwood deep cleaning brings back the visibility of hardwood patterns and textures.

Although regular cleaning helps, deep cleaning your floors are a more proactive maintenance approach to ensure your floorboards last. Moreover, a deep cleaning service includes sanding and refinishing the flooring if needed.

How to Deep Clean Your Hardwood Floors

Restoring your hardwood floors to their former glory can only happen with deep cleaning. Although homeowners can hire professional hardwood floor deep cleaning services, they can do it themselves. To ensure success, prepare and use the appropriate cleaning tools and agents. Moreover, you must follow the proper procedure of deep cleaning your floors.

Before you start the deep cleaning, remember the following things.

• Never steam clean your hardwood floors.
• Use gentle cleaning pads and eco-friendly cleaning products.
• Research which hardwood floor cleaner best suits your flooring and finish.
• Always apply water or cleaning solutions using sponges or wipes to avoid soaking your floors.

Steam cleaning can put your hardwood flooring at risk and damage your floorboards without even knowing. In addition, some cleaning products have chemicals or other ingredients that are too hard or abrasive for certain hardwood species.

Once you have everything ready, you can begin deep cleaning your hardwood floors by doing your routine cleaning procedure. Getting rid of surface-level dirt beforehand allows you to remove the heavy grime and dust underneath and between your floorboards. For vacuum users, use the floor-brush attachment to avoid scratches and follow the graining of your flooring.

Next, wet mop your floor with a cleaning pad and vinegar solution. Soft cleaning pads massage your floorboards while trapping dirt and grime. Remember not to soak your pads into your solution or agent to keep your floors absorbing too much liquid.

After your hardwood floors dry out, inspect every part for stains or buildup. Use a putty knife when you scrape out grime and spot clean areas that require more attention. You can also use a suitable antibacterial wood floor cleaner to disinfect the area. Don’t rush the process. Focus on one area at a time.

Check if your floors need sanding or refinishing and do them as needed. After everything dries out, you can enjoy your clean hardwood floors with their visible grains, rich color, and quality planks.

Hardwood Floors Cleaning How-To’s

Hardwood floorings are expensive but special investments in any home or property. Apart from giving your house interior a timeless and elegant look, they can also increase its value tenfold. In addition, they need little to no maintenance, are sturdy, and are long-lasting. However, keeping them in tip-top shape means putting in the time and effort of routine and deep cleaning hardwood floors.

While regular surface clean-ups help, a hardwood floor deep cleaning procedure is essential to make your flooring look new and healthy. Understanding what to do and not do is crucial to the planks’ longevity. Get yourself a hardwood floor deep cleaning service in Austin by contacting Kelly Hardwood Flooring today!