Kitchen Cleaning Tips for a Healthier Home How To Clean Kitchen Cabinets How to Clean Granite Countertops, the Healthy Way How to Get Rid of Flies in Your House Green Cleaning Tips to Make Your Laminate Floors the Neighborhood Envy Healthier Ways to Tackle the Cleaning of Your Mattress Cleaning Tips for Maintaining Beautiful Hardwood Floors How To Clean With Vinegar How To Remove Hard Water Stains How To Clean With Baking Soda How To Clean Tile Floors How To Clean Soap Scum How To Clean Marble Floors Cleaning with Lemon Juice Healthier Ways To Clean Grout in Your Home Best Way To Clean Copper Home Cleaning Tips for Fabulous Looking Blinds Natural Ways to Rid Your Home of Stubborn Mold Hardwood floors are a beautiful addition to any home. The variety of offerings fit nearly every desired taste & budget and will dress-up the look of any interior. Their function goes beyond aesthetics, though. Hardwood flooring can actually make your home greener.

Think about some of the major differences vs. carpeting: less dust & dander trapped, fewer odors, less likely to stain from spills, and not nearly as many harmful chemicals. air duct cleaning franchise for saleThey can be maintenance-heavy at times, though.best polish for oak furniture Liquids Can Damage HardwoodsThe best way to clean hardwood flooring depends on the type of sealant. robot vacuum cleaner best in testMost modern versions use a water resistant formula. best vacuum cleaner for home in chennaiWhen cleaning it’s important to remember that liquids are an enemy, so use water and other solvents very sparingly. what is the best vacuum cleaner for suction power

The key to success is a technique called ‘damp mopping’. Not familiar with the term? best car vacuum cleaner 2012 in indiaAfter saturating the mop with your chosen cleaning solution, simply wring it out as much as possible. Remember, you only want a minimal amount of liquid applied to the hardwood surface. Once completed, be sure that there is no standing water as it could damage the flooring. This holds true for spills, as well. Clean them as quickly as possible to prevent possible staining or something more severe. For quick touch-ups, regular sweeping will help. We recommend a dry dust mop or the soft brush attachment on the vacuum cleaner. Take caution using a standard broom; the stiff, straw-like bristles could damage the flooring’s surface. Traffic levels can impact how often and with what methods the hardwoods in a room are cleaned. Be sure to take care and always start with the less aggressive approach.

Maid Brigade's DIY RecommendationTo achieve a natural clean using ingredients that omit the harmful toxins in most commercially sold cleaning solutions, we recommend mopping your hardwood floors using a mixture of vinegar and water. Start with a weaker mixture and increase the potency as needed. Over an extended period of time vinegar may accelerate the dulling of your hardwoods. An alternative natural cleaning solution is warm water and dish soap (1/4 cup of dish washing liquid for a bucket of warm water). For spot-cleaning needs, sprinkle baking soda on the affected area and scrub with a sponge. To ensure that the area is completely clean, rinse with warm water and dry. This is particularly effective on scuff marks and small stains. If you have questions, call one of Maid Brigade’s local cleaning experts at 866.800.7470 for assistance. Regardless of your dedication, most homes need a deep cleaning once or twice a year to get the dirt and build-up that accumulate from everyday life.

Professional cleaning services like Maid Brigade can help. We use only Green Clean Certified® products in your home including HEPA-filtered vacuum cleaners that are approved by the American Lung Association. Our equipment along with proven methods are highly effective and ensure that only a sparkling shine remains when our maids are done. We’ll care for your hardwood floors and home like they are our own. Maid Brigade’s cleaning tips are here to help keep your home in great shape between cleanings. Allow us to handle the heavy lifting while you enjoy time with the family! For a FREE estimate, click here: Maid Brigade House Cleaning Estimate. Your floors handle a lot, especially your hardwood floors. So you should give them a little TLC from time to time! But it’s almost worse to clean your hardwood floors the WRONG way than not at all. Not something you exactly think about on a day-to-day basis, but it’s important to know what you’re doing first. To keep those hardwood floors gleaming, clean, and in good condition, check out this cleaning tutorial from Clean My Space on how to clean your floor till it shines.

The first step to spotless hardwood floors is figuring out what finish your hardwood has. And trust me, there’s a million different types of finishes. To test yours quickly, take a little bit of water and drop it on a small spot of your hardwood. If the water beads, there’s a finish. If the water gets absorbed into the floor, you have unfinished hardwood. To clean your floor, you’ll need: Do you have any tips or tricks to cleaning your hardwood? Share them in the comments section below!Taking care of hardwood or laminate floors can be challenging given the everyday conditions of a family and pets. But keeping your home looking good is crucial to maintaining its value. Generally there are two types of residential wood flooring: real wood (solid or engineered) and laminates that are man-made to look like wood. Solid hardwood floors are made of planks milled from a single piece of timber. Engineered hardwood is made from layers of material that have been glued together, with a layer of hardwood on the top.

Laminate flooring is similar, however the top layer is photographic material that is made to look like wood. Both engineered wood and laminate come with a clear protective coating or finish. Don’t know what you have exactly? When it comes to cleaning wood floors (solid, engineered or laminate) the only thing you need to figure out is whether or not your floors have a finish. You don’t really need to know the type of finish, just that the floors have been treated in some way to make them resistant to standing water, which is the enemy of all wood and wood-like floors. To find out if your flooring is finished, drop a single drop of water on the floor. If it beads and just sits there, the flooring has been finished. If the drop of water soaks in and disappears leaving a dark spot, the wood it not finished. What follows is for finished solid or engineered wood and laminate flooring only. Unfinished hardwood CANNOT be mopped since it will damage the floors. When it comes to wood and laminate cleaners, you can spend a fortune on commercial products like Bona and Black Diamond.

Or you can make your own for pennies. The key to making your own wood and laminate floor cleaner is similar to the commitment of a physician: First do no harm. The trick is making a product that will clean well without harming the finish of your floors, even when used repeatedy over many yearsWhite vinegar is a fabulous cleaning product because it cuts through dirt well. But it is highly acidic and used repeatedly will over time attack the finish on your wood or laminate floors, making them look dull. Vinegar can also soften the finish, making it feel gummy or sticky. So let’s just agree that when it comes to cleaning wood or laminate floors, no vinegar.Alcohol is a fantastic cleaning product—rubbing alcohol, denatured alcohol, even gin or plain vodka. Alcohol is also a disinfectant, as you know from visiting a doctor’s office or hospital. The great thing about alcohol as a cleaning agent is that like water, is has a nearly neutral ph—neither acidic or alkaline. This makes alcohol the perfect ingredient in your homemade cleaner to both to protect and preserve beautifully finished wood and laminate floors.

Your regular tap water, while safe to drink, may leave water marks and hard water build up on your floors over time. The best way to avoid this is to use distilled water in your floor cleaner (available in any supermarket) to eliminate streaking, hard water marks and mineral build-up.A very small amount of blue Dawn will break the surface tension of the water making the cleaner much more effective—but not so much that it requires rinsing.One part alcohol (rubbing alcohol is cheap and available in any supermarket or dug store) to four parts distilled water plus a few drops blue Dawn dishwashing liquid. Mix this up in a spray bottle each time you clean the floors. Or if you make it up ahead, be sure to label it well and keep it out of the reach of children.Sweep or vacuum the floor (you’ll read more about this below). Spray the cleaner in a small area, scrub well with a cloth or sponge and immediately wipe the area dry with a microfiber cloth. The secret is to spray, scrub and wipe dry immediately.

If you do not want to do this on your hands and knees, I recommend this Hardwood Floor Spray Mop for both wood and laminate floors. It sprays the cleaner from its removable bottle that lets you make your own cleaner; a large surface mop with even bigger detachable microfiber cleaning pad that swivels for really easy handling. This mop makes scrubbing wood and laminate floors a breeze.At least twice a week vacuum (or sweep) your wood or laminate floors to remove the real enemies here: dirt, sand, grit, pebbles and grime. It comes in on your shoes and gets ground into the finish and surface of your beautiful floors every time you and the kids walk on them. Unless the vacuum you use has a hard floor attachment (not just a setting for hard floors), you’d be better off using a broom to dislodge, sweep up and remove debris and dust. My Shark Navigator Pro vacuum has a hard floor attachment plus a washable microfiber pad that dislodges and then acts like a dirt and dust magnet. Then every two weeks, clean and scrub the floors with your homemade cleaner and a good mop that cleans and wipes the floor nearly dry in a single effort.