Installed wooden flooring is fantastically easy to keep clean and gorgeous looking and doing so has never been easier; you’ll spend your time enjoying your wood flooring rather than looking after it. However, there are several things you can do to ensure your wood floors stay in tip-top condition.
Make sure furniture such as tables, chairs and sofas have protectors between each leg and the surface of your flooring to avoid scuffing. If you’re moving heavy furniture, don’t drag it across wood flooring, pick it up and carry it.
You can also protect ‘high traffic’ areas like hallways - or the area around the sink, if you have wood flooring in your kitchen - by covering them with mats and rugs. This also stops dirt from being trodden into your floor surface. Another pressure point is inside and outside doorways – again, rugs and throws can prevent scratching and help keep your wooden floors clean.
Try not to walk over your wooden floors in pointed heels, and keep pets’ nails trimmed so they don’t dig into your wood flooring. Other things that might scratch the wood, if you’re not careful, include the plastic wheels on some upright cleaners.
If you have a spillage, wipe up the mess immediately with a barely-damp cloth, and do not tread it in to the floor’s surface further. It’s important to remember not to get large quantities of water or any other liquid on your wood floors, so don’t use a dripping wet mop. Water can dull the finish, and damage and permanently discolour the wood.
Wooden floors don’t need vigorous vacuuming as carpets do. Just give them a quick once-over with a soft-bristled broom, or run a vacuum cleaner over them once or twice a week and you’re done. When vacuuming, make sure you use the right attachment for wood flooring.
You may also want to use the cleaning product recommended by your particular manufacturer. Usually you can just spray this on, and wipe with a slightly damp cloth.
If you wanted to, you could get a professional cleaner in to do the job for you.
Be guided by your manufacturer’s advice, and stick to cleaning products which they have recommended. Read their instructions about care and maintenance carefully, and follow their advice to the letter.
Do not use ammonia to clean wooden floors, and never use wax on wood floors which have a urethane finish. If you do want to use wax, bear in mind that some acrylic waxes can cause wood flooring to become slippery, with a dull appearance. Never over-wax wooden floors, buff them up with a dry cloth instead. So that wax doesn’t build up in areas of light traffic, such as under furniture, consider only waxing those areas every other time you wax your wooden floors.
Finally, if you have a lot of wood flooring, you may want to think about using a humidifier during the damper winter months to keep the shrinking and movement of the wood to a bare minimum.