Your Wood Surfaces Need Some Attention
Maintaining a hardwood floor in prime condition doesn’t take much skill or effort, but it requires consistency and good care on a daily basis.Especially for rooms that experience heavy traffic or are exposed to additional “treatment” from kids and pets, it’s essential that you keep an eye for suspicious stains, marks and spilled or sticky substances.
Since floor are generally separated into wax finished and surface finished, the exact hardwood floor cleaning tips often differ depending on what finish you’re dealing with. More than the regular cleaning by way of dust-mopping, sweeping and appropriate vacuuming, you should be well equipped to deal with minor damages that may be caused accidently, for those are likely to happen at some time or the other. So you have to take hardwood floor care seriously.
Starting with the regular cleaning routine itself, never use water to clean the surface. Unless the floor manufacturer (if you have a prefinished floor) or the floor finish manufacturer (for floors finished on site) allows the use of damp mops, you’re only going to cause a lot of grief to the protective coating and in no time, to the wood underneath it. On reacting with water a treated floor may lose its color and shine and get buckled or crowned. Recommended cleaners by the manufacturer should only be used, in stead of using dust and surface cleaners that are often found in most of the homes. In case you are not aware of the instructions of the floor manufacturer, you should use only a generic floor cleaner that is especially made or the kind of floor finish that you have.
When it comes to dealing with stains, like from a pet or ink, the sooner you react the better. You should always keep in stock some fine or very fine steel wool needed to take off the finish (be it wax or polyurethane) for reaching the contaminant.
It’s good idea to use floor polisher besides regular equipment. Use the specified wood floor cleaner along with a bit of mineral spirits to get rid of the stain, give sometime for the area to get dried up and then apply wax before finally buffing it.
