Some Of The Ways To Clean Hardwood Floors
When you have hardwood floors in your home you want them to remain looking as good as the day that they were installed. But rather than using specialist-cleaning products, which are extremely expensive to, purchase and can contain chemicals that are in fact harmful to your wooden floors. In this article we look at some ways of how to clean hardwood floors so that they remain in the nearly the same condition as the day they were installed.
When it comes to the best way of caring for the wooden floors you have in your home you first need to determine what finish has been applied to them. Many of the newer kinds of wooden floors that one can have installed will have been finished using a polyurethane sealant and all you need to do with these is sweep and then wipe with a damp mop. However, those wooden floors that have been treated using oils or a penetrating seal will need to be cleaned using a paste or liquid wax. This is also the same for floors, which are left untreated or have a shellacked, lacquered or varnished finish to them.
One of the best ways of actually cleaning hardwood floors today is through using vinegar. However, if you want to get the best results possible you should be using is white vinegar, which not only helps to remove the build up of grease on it, but also can help to remove any unwanted odours as well. Also people who have used vinegar to clean their wooden floors have found it helps to remove mildew, a large number of stains as well as wax which has been able to accumulate on the floors surface.
Although vinegar is extremely effective for cleaning all kinds of hardwood floors sometimes people who have oak floors or bamboo floors prefer to use other cleaning methods. Of all the kinds of hardwood floors that one can have installed in your home oak ones when properly finished are the easiest of all to care for.
If you do have an oak floor and would like it to retain the same look as when it was first installed then it should be cleaned on a regular basis. Each week you should vacuum and then wipe over the surface of the floor with a damp mop using a very mild soap solution. But if your floor has been waxed then in order to help bring back the shine and remove scuff marks from the surface you will need to have it either buffed, by hand or arranging to hire a machine to do it.
However, if you happen to have had bamboo floors installed in your home then this needs to be cared for in a different way to other types of hardwood floors. Just as with oak ones, bamboo need to be regularly vacuumed and then wiped over with a damp mop. However, with this kind of floor you should not use any kind of cleaning products that contain either acids, caustic ingredients or oil in them, so it is advisable not to use a vinegar solution.
As mentioned, there are cleaning products, which you can purchase to care for your hardwood floors, and one of these is Murphy’s oil soap. Of all the cleaning products available for such floors, this one will not only help to care for your floor properly, but is effective at bringing back the shine on its surface.
In this article, we have looked at various ways in which you can clean hardwood floors. The method that you actually decide to use will really depend on the type of hardwood flooring that you have installed in your home as well as the kind of finish to its surface. So it is crucial that you take your time and carry out some research concerning different woods and their finishes if you want yours to remain in top condition.
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