Floor care

Floors used to be so easy to take care of. Get a mop in a bucket and go to town. But now we have so many different types of flooring, and we have to be quite particular in terms of how we take care of our floors so that they last for a long time and look great. Because, let’s be honest, when you damage a floor, it is an expensive and annoying repair.So floor care is most important for all of us.

 We’ll be addressing the process of cleaning three primary types of hard floor care:

1. Hardwood
2. Laminate
3. and luxury vinyl flooring.

Hardwood

Hardwood or engineered hardwood features a genuine wood surface atop a wooden base.

Laminate

Laminate is a variety of different layers all laminated together with a photo of something that looks like wood on top.

Luxury vinyl flooring

Luxury vinyl flooring is comprised of PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, and it can be made to look like just about any finish.

Some general dos and don’ts for all of these floor care

• You always want to sweep or vacuum before you mop.
• you don’t want to use the beater bar on your vacuum when you’re cleaning a hard floor surface.
• Beater bars are that roller brush on your vacuum that is designed to kind of pull things out of your carpet and get them super clean.
• It can scratch or damage hard floor surfaces.
• so always use that soft bristle brush on your vacuum when you’re cleaning your hard floors or sweeping them.
• Only when that’s done can you mop.

If you don’t do that,

• you’re going to scratch your floors.
• You do want to make sure that you’re using protection on the bottom of your furniture .
• felt pads, or you know what they look like.
• because if you don’t do that, your floors can scratch.
• and these floors are particularly difficult to repair.
• You might have to remove the plank.
• you might have to refinish it, and it’s always going to be an eyesore.
• Do mop in the direction of the grain.
• If you mop in the opposite direction of the way that the grain runs or the floor is laid.
• you’re going to see streaks.
• Don’t use a steam mop.
• Steam is just no bueno for this type of flooring.
• I know all the steam mop companies are going to tell you that theirs are safe.
• but if you talk to the flooring installers and the flooring manufacturers.
• they’re going to tell you they’re not safe.

You do want to make sure you’re using the appropriate type of mop when you’re cleaning this floor.

• If you use a string mop or a yacht mop, you’re going to leave too much moisture behind, and that is not good for this type of flooring.
• You want to use a flat-head mop and as little moisture as possible to clean the floors. In fact, you can even follow up with a final mop with just a dry pad to remove any excess moisture.
• Make sure that when there are any spills or stains, they are cleaned up immediately. That goes for anything from water up to paint, nail polish, cat puke, or juice. It all has to go despite how durable your flooring might be, even your luxury vinyl tile flooring, which, you know, is waterproof.
• You can still deal with stains, so anytime there’s a stain, moisture, or liquid on a surface, just blot it up and clean it as soon as you can. Don’t use any old products to mop your floor.

So make sure that you know the type of flooring you have, that you do your research, and that you use the appropriate product so that your floors can last a long time and look beautiful.

The first thing to know about hardwood floor care

The first thing to know about hardwood floors is that you can have finished hardwood and unfinished hardwood. Now, the quickest way to find out if your floors are unfinished is to take a drop of water and just put it on the floor. If water beads, it indicates that your floor has a finish. If the water soaks in, the floors are unfinished. And what that tells you is that you can’t use moisture on your unfinished floors.

Hardwood floor care

We have a very straightforward DIY recipe that you can use. In this recipe, it’s essentially the same as the luxury vinyl tile cleaner, but we’ve backed out the rubbing alcohol. And the reason that is is because the particular type of varnish that hardwood or engineered hardwood has doesn’t love rubbing alcohol, whereas rubbing alcohol is great on the other two types of finishes because it helps water dry quickly.

So the way that you want to clean the floor like this:

It’s important to steer clear of any soapy detergents entirely.So in the DIY recipe that we have put together, you’ll see there’s vinegar, you’ll see there’s rubbing alcohol, and you’ll see there’s water, but there is no soap.

So here it is for our DIY recipe:

Use two cups of warm water, half a cup of white vinegar, half a cup of rubbing alcohol, and, of course, five to ten drops of your favorite essential oils if you’re feeling adventurous.