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How To Clean Hardwood Flooring and Keep It Looking Like New

Dirt, sand and grit are the primary enemies of hardwood floors. Those common household ingredients—especially if you have kids around, act as a deadly sandpaper on that lovely caramel colored finished that you worked so hard to pick out. Sweeping, vacuuming and dust mopping are essential to maintaining your floors in great shape.

Daily sweeping, vacuuming and dust mopping in active households wouldn’t be too often. Brooms with ends that have frayed tips are the best for picking up bits of sand and dirt on the floor. Dust mopping is effective as well. If you use a spray on the mop head, it is advisable to spray the mop head the night before for added effectiveness.

Types of Wood Floor Finish

There are two types of finishes: surface finishes and penetrating seals. Determining the type of seal will help you determine how to maintain your floors. Surface finishes include polyurethane (the most common), water based polyurethane (second most common), prefinished floors, and catalyzed. Penetrating seals includes oil finishes, acrylics and waxes. Surface finishes are usually shiny finishes and penetrating seals are generally satin or matte.

Most hardwood floors are made of either oak or maple for their color and quality. Ash, beech, cherry, hickory and walnut are also commonly used.

Never, ever use ammonia on either of these finishes! Ammonia will weaken, soften and whiten the finishes on wood floors. Bleach is another chemical you will want to avoid putting on your wood floor.

The Process For Wood Floor Stain Removal

General staining can be repaired by using the following procedure:

1. Sand the stained area one to two layers of finish off of the board. It would be better to sand the entire board for a better finish.
2. Remove the dust from the area to keep it from mixing into the refinishing process
3. Reapply the same finish lightly twice. Do not over apply or you will build up more than you have removed.
4. If this doesn’t take care of the stain, the entire board will need to be refinished or replaced.

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Removing Wood Floor Stains

The following special stains have special techniques/methods of removing the stains.

Water stains:

Use No 2 steel wool to sand spot and re-wax area. For darker stains, you may have to strip further down, clean with mineral spirits and refinish. Worst case, you may have to replace the board.

Cigarette burns:

Use steel wool to sand spot. Clean with mild soapy water (use something like Dove ™ dish washing liquid).

Heel marks/ Scuff marks:

Use fine steel wood but don’t sand too deep. Clean with a basic floor cleaner recommended by the manufacturer of you wood floors. Wipe area dry and polish.

Ink and other dark spots:

This one will just have to be sanded away and refinished. If the stain remains after that, now is the time to drag out the replacement boards.

Chewing gum and wax stains:

First get off as much as you can by scraping without spreading the stain any further. One way to ensure this is to work from the outside in. After, fill a zipper bag with ice and place on the gum or wax and leave on sufficient time to freeze. The gum or wax should pop right off. If it doesn’t, try putting a cleaner over the gum for about 20 minutes. The cleaner will seep under the sides of the gum and allow it to pop off. If all else fails, this is another case where the board may have to be replaced.

Alcohol:

Apply a liquid or paste wax to the alcohol and shine away. Alcohol will only make a dull spot on the wood so a good polish should take care of that.

Hardwood Floor Stains

When working on stains on your hardwood floor, be sure to work from the outside in so that you don’t spread the stain any further out.

When you are assessing your stains, remember that you are looking at the difference between fixing the wood and fixing the finish. This decision will make a big difference in how you go about attacking the stain.

For repairs or stains on the actual wood, replacement is usually the only option. There are some instances where smaller gouges, holes, burns etc in the actual wood can be repaired temporarily by using a wood putty in the same color as your wood floor. These putties can be found at your local hardware store.

Several years of shrinking and swelling of the wood cause squeaks. Every winter the wood will dry a bit and the wood will shrink. Obviously the opposite happens in the summer when the weather is humid. After a couple of years you will notice that squeaks come up in the most inconvenient places. To fix those squeaks, try putting powdered graphite, talc powder or powdered soap in between the wood planks. If that method doesn’t work, you can nail down the offending plank and cover the nail hole with wood putty.

One thing worth noting. Many consumers believe that oil soaps like Murphy’s Oil Soap ™ are made for cleaning hard wood floors. Oil soaps are in fact made for cleaning woods, especially hard woods, but most hardwood floors are now treated. You want to keep in mind that you are now cleaning the finish and not the actual wood (unless you have a very old fashioned unfinished wood floor).