How often do you clean your hardwood floors?
I would like to add one more thing: when it comes to cleaning wooden flooring you need to make sure that your mop is never wet just damp. Excess water will damage these floor boards. Of course the best is to go with a wood floor maintenance kit. This has all the sprays and other equipment you may need. You can clean these floors safely with manufacturer recommended products. Properly maintained wooden floors will remain beautiful for a life time.
How often should I clean my hardwood floor? This is a question from my "Got a Question?
This photo shows my floor which, by the way, hasn't seen anything besides the Swiffer all winter. And it's pretty obvious that my floor is old. My house was built in 1920 from the Craftsman Era and the floor is original. I know this as we are only the 2nd owners.
I'm not a fan of a set cleaning schedule when cleaning anything, really. I don't want to be confined by such tight perimeters. So I prefer to clean my floors, or anything else, for that matter when it needs it.
How often should I clean my hardwood floor?
That depends on a few things!
Are we talking what's good for the floor or are we talking lifestyle?
So the best answer I can give is this...
If you have small children, particularly babies who crawl, you will want to keep the floors cleaner for the sake of the kiddos. Add a dog that sheds to the mix and you are going to be hauling out the vac, broom or Swiffer way more often. Also, if you let your kids walk around with food and you don't want them finding week-old pretzels or crackers (that might or might not have been stepped on in shoes that walked around outside) and eating them, you will clean more often!
Sand and rock salt (which is being used in colossal proportions at the moment) are the enemy of a lovely hard wood floor so if you care about the long term survival of your floor, you will want to make sure that the salt and sand are not ground in. Seeing as my floor is ancient, I don't much care. If you have a new floor and plan in being in your home for years to come, you might care.
How Should it be maintained?
Regular sweeping or vacuuming. And occasional mopping.
These days, I don't have little people around my house often, so I sweep weekly and mop monthly.
And after parties and gatherings as usually those tend to leave spills behind. But when my kids were little, I did it almost daily. I had a dog that shed long white hair on rust colored area rugs and all over the floor all the time! Made me crazy! If I didn't clean it, I'd find it in my baby's diapers! Yup. He'd ingest it! Not a pretty thought.
Traffic flow matters too.
If you have to walk through the kitchen to your floors, you are going to track sand, dirt and rock salt and food particles to your floors. Sweeping the kitchen floor more often keeps the dirt confined. Makes less work in the long run. I usually do this after cooking a meal.
For me, it's always about motive.
Do I serve my house or does my house serve me?
I have all hardwood and travertine tile throughout my house with one runner and an area rug in my living room. I vacuum daily (because I have a toddler) and I clean the hardwood every other day. The Bruce mop and hardwood floor cleaner. I spray it in a small area, then mop it up. Bruce makes the best hardwood floor cleaner, in my opinion, because they actually make hardwood. The proof is in my sparkly floors! It only takes me ten minutes or less to clean the floors. I don't recommend Orange Glo to anyone. My mother in law used it on her hardwood and it leaves whitish streaks that are hard, if not impossible, to get rid of.
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