How to Care for Hardwood Floors

How to Care for Hardwood Floors
Caring for your hardwood floors is an integral part of maintaining the beauty and cleanliness of your home or business. Plus, it's important to implement a thorough floor care maintenance routine to ensure that your hardwood floor investment is protected for years into the future. Caring for your hardwood floors is simple when you follow this care guide coupled with the maintenance instructions provided by your flooring manufacturer.
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The first step in creating your hardwood floor care regimen should always be to reference the manufacturer's care instructions. Most hardwood floor manufacturers use their own proprietary finishes and materials that have specialized care requirements. You should be able to find floor care guides provided by the maker online, but if you are unable to find it, call the manufacturer. In many cases, 1877FloorGuy will be able to help you find the appropriate care products.

Tools

Investing in a set of quality hardwood floor cleaning tools is a great way to ensure that you're applying products the right way every time. For residential hardwood care, stock up on microfiber mops and microfiber mop pads, or purchase the Bona Microfiber Mop Cleaning, Applicator & Dusting Kit, to get everything you need with a single order. Commercial hardwood cleaning tools by Square Scrub and other equipment like the 24-inch wide flat mop assembly will help your employees better apply floor cleaners while reducing worker fatigue. Choosing the appropriate residential and commercial mops and mop buckets helps you better apply and distribute products onto the surface of the floor.

Products

Selecting the appropriate hardwood floor cleaner is important to ensuring that you get a sparkling clean that won't damage the floor's finish. We have hardwood floor cleaners for polyurethane coated hardwood flooring, acrylic finish hardwood floors, pre-finished aluminum oxide floors, oiled wood floors and many types of unwaxed residential and commercial hardwood floors. Always purchase industry-trusted and manufacturer-recommended brands such as Bona, Woca, Bruce, Mannington, Arlington, Hilway Direct, Arboritec and Polycare. Some floors will require formulas with a pH-neutral solution, so pay attention to the product labels when purchasing your floor cleaners.

Implementation

Although hardwood is naturally durable and long-lasting, a routine hardwood floor care schedule is important to keeping floors looking their best for the long term. Routine clean hardwood floors once or twice per month (more in commercial and high foot traffic environments), sweep more frequently and consider applying floor polish and finish once every few months.

How do you clean hardwood floors?
  1. Thoroughly vacuum or sweep the floor to remove loose dirt and debris.
  2. Mix floor cleaner according to the product label.
  3. Pour product into a spray bottle or spray mop cartridge.
  4. Mist the floor with cleaner in roughly a 4-foot by 6-foot area.
  5. Wipe the sprayed area with a back-and-forth motion using a microfiber mop.
  6. Repeat on the rest of the floor.
  7. Allow floor to air dry.
Note that oiled hardwoods will follow a different care routine and some commercial cleaning will require application using a floor cleaning machine and scrub brush. 1877FloorGuy specializes in hard-surface flooring care, so you can always contact us via phone or e-mail if you have specific questions for how to clean hardwood flooring.