How to Clean Hardwood Floors

Acquire how to clean hardwood floors naturally with household staples.

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Time

A full day

Complexity

Beginner

Toll

Costless

Introduction

While hardwood floors are beautiful in a variety of colors and finishes, this blazon of flooring needs special care. You can't simply mop it once a week and motility on to the balance of your to-do list. Though there are plenty of loftier-chemic cleaners that you can observe in your grocery-shop aisle for cleaning hardwood, they typically come with fumes and ofttimes do damage to the environs. If yous're a hardwood floor-possessor and natural cleaning methods are your thing, then this listing is for you. Brand new or 100 years old, here's how to naturally clean your hardwood floors.

Project step-by-step (7)

Step 1

How to Clean Hardwood Floors: Avoid H2o Damage

  • To maintain the sheen on your floors and keep them flat and finished, avoid h2o damage at all costs.
  • Especially in clammy or common cold seasons, go along boots and moisture shoes off your fragile hardwood.

Even with a loftier gloss flooring polish, wood is still forest, and continuing water can do horrible impairment to the boards yous so carefully picked out or refinished. Even a pocket-size puddle left lone can apace warp wood and sink through to the ceiling beneath. Years later, you'll thank yourself for learning how to clean hardwood floors and this dedication to item.

Step 2

How to Make clean Forest Floors with Vinegar and Water

  • Cleaning forest floors with white vinegar and water is highly contested, but it's definitely worth a try if yous're looking to avoid harmful chemicals.
  • Depending on the strength of acetic acid (the chemical component in vinegar that breaks downwards oils and sugars) you are looking to utilise to your floors, go for anywhere from a half cup to a total cup of vinegar per gallon of h2o.

Another plus side? If you're into natural remedies, you likely already have a variety of kinds of vinegar in your cabinet or refrigerator (but probably avoid the cerise wine diverseness).

best way to clean hardwood floors

Step three

Utilise a Spot-Cleaning Approach

  • In lodge to avert water impairment, clean small spots ofttimes with your chosen cleaning solution.
  • While washing forest floors you're improve able to control the amount of liquid you're putting on the floor and can apace wash and dry.

This will aid avoid big-calibration exposure to moisture while however keeping your floors clean.

washing wood floors

Pace 4

Give Plant-Based Cleaners a Endeavour

  • Even at the grocery shop, y'all can notwithstanding find wood floor cleaners that aim to minimize their effect on the surroundings.

One such company is Method's Wood for Good line of cleaning products. With everything from daily sprays and polishes to mopping solutions, this plant-based nontoxic formula besides smells astonishing with a pleasing, non-chemic almond aroma (think of freshly baked behave claws and you lot've got the flick). This is the all-time way to clean hardwood floors and this method even takes it a step further and doesn't test their products on animals. Natural? Check. Smells skilful? Cheque. Appeases the animal-lover in you? Check and check.

how to clean wood floors

Step 5

Minor Flooring Repairs Brand Hardwood Easier to Make clean

  • Pick upward a standard wood filler and a putty knife at your local hardware store, and go to boondocks filling and smoothing any noticeable areas.
  • Wait for it to dry, and and then work on carefully staining the filled sections to match the original wood.
    • It doesn't have to be perfect, and the results volition amaze you.

If you're a proud owner of original hardwood floor in a century-old home, so your boards have likely swelled, shrugged or shrank over time, leaving gaps and crevices. Dust, dirt and fifty-fifty food can easily detect their way into these cracking picayune gaps, looking ugly and doing farther damage to your hardwood. The solution? Plug those holes.

Step 6

Effort Other Homemade Solutions for How to Clean Wood Floors

  • You'll find a host of ingredients that volition do just fine when mixed or diluted with h2o. Recall Castile lather, borax, essential oils and even black tea.
  • Don't alluvion your clean forest floors with the mixtures, though, because that could lead to backlog water impairment. It's best to just use a damp floor mop.
  • Experiment with the mixtures on a hidden or scrap piece of flooring commencement to brand sure they don't negatively affect the finish.

Stride vii

Employ Rugs in High Traffic Areas

  • In club to avert dirtying your hardwood floors in the starting time identify, clean and prep with whatever of the solutions above, and then carefully place rugs in high traffic areas (remember dining room, living room nether a java tabular array, etc.).
  • However, be sure to regularly clean wood floors underneath the rugs and movement them occasionally to avoid uneven wear on your floors from sunlight.