Wood floors encompass a timeless and elegant beauty, making them a popular floor choice for many buildings, facilities, properties, and more. Since wood floors boast a lifespan ranging anywhere from 50 to 100 years, depending on various factors, it is important to know how to properly maintain and clean these floors correctly to get the most life out of your investment. In addition, having dirty, unkept floors gives off the impression of apathy and disorder, which is something that you do not want to covey as a business or facility. You want to ensure that you are communicating professionalism and quality through a properly maintained and clean space, including your flooring. Thankfully, there are some specific ways to clean and maintain wood flooring, ensuring that it lasts as long as possible and looks amazing the entire time. Read on to learn some specifics on how to care for your wooden floors:
Clean Spills Immediately
Spills happen, no matter how carefully they are guarded against. Thankfully, when they are addressed quickly, as in immediately, they don’t present that much of a problem. So, whether it is a food or drink spill or even pet urine, make sure that you clean up the spill immediately and do not let it sit on the wood as it can harm the finish if it is allowed to seep into the wood. Blot spills with paper towels or microfiber towels to clean the spill up immediately.
Sweep or Dust Mop Regularly
High-traffic areas especially require regular cleaning, including sweeping and dusting daily. Don’t use harsh chemicals on floors, but instead opt for damp-mopping only or mopping with a safe cleaner. Of course, it’s important to make sure you remove the dirt first, as trying to mop with dirt remaining on the surface could even potentially cause scratches. Therefore, remove the dirt via sweeping and then follow through with dust mopping. Make this part of your daily routine, or welcome in professional cleaners to do the job for you and ensure your floors are protected.
Use Your Vacuum Cautiously
Vacuuming can be a great way to get any remaining particles off the floor’s surface that sweeping leaves behind, even sucking it up from the crevices, cracks, and between the planks of the wood. However, if you aren’t careful, you can actually scratch your floors with a vacuum. To ensure you only benefit your floors and not harm them, make sure that any vacuum you use has a hard floor setting that you set it on, which will protect the wood flooring from the vacuum bristles.
Place Rugs to Trap Dirt and Grime
Another way to maintain the integrity and beauty of your hardwood floors involves protecting them in high-traffic areas from grime and dirt. Do this by strategically placing area rugs or runners in high-traffic areas to reduce the amount of grime that builds up on floors by protecting them using a rug. Additional ways to maintain wood floors include:
Maintain Proper Humidity Levels: When it comes to wood flooring, humidity can dramatically alter the health of the flooring. It shouldn’t be too dry as this can cause gaps, excessive drying, and cracks. Of course, excessive humidity also isn’t ideal. Therefore, it’s important to maintain a correct level of humidity for optimal wood flooring conditioning. For office buildings and other commercial spaces, experts recommend a relative humidity between 40 and 60 percent. In some cases, you might need to use a humidifier or dehumidifier based on the current humidity levels.
Protect Them From Sunlight: Wood floors can also be damaged by direct sun, which will cause them to fade. Use window treatments or the aforementioned area rugs to mitigate excessive amounts of sunlight saturating your flooring daily.
Protect Them From Certain Types of Shoes: Although it might be impossible to keep certain types of footwear off your floors, if possible, try to keep specific shoes like stilettos off wood flooring. This type of footwear can easily scuff the floor or even scratch them.
Check Out The Floors Regularly: Don’t wait until issues are obvious to address problems with your wood flooring. Instead, look for common signs that wear is taking place, like discoloration, scratches, and other types of damage. Seeing signs of this type of wear indicates your floors might need to be cleaned by a professional to restore their beauty.
Recoat Periodically
While cleaning and maintaining wooden floors is important, sometimes they do need to be recoated to address scratches, cracks, and wear. In high-traffic areas, even with careful attention to maintaining the flooring, they will likely need to be refinished every three to five years. Recoating wooden floors can lengthen their lifespan. How they are refinished should be based on the type of flooring you have. Consequently, in many cases, it’s best to hire a professional to do this to ensure that the floors are treated optimally and that no damage is done in the refinishing or recoating process.
Hire Professional Cleaners
Getting the most life out of your wood flooring will only be possible if you know how to clean and maintain those floors. While you can take many steps to protect your flooring, hiring professional cleaners like our services at Oracle Cleaning Solutions is a great way to maintain the beauty of your flooring. Whether you own an office or another type of facility, a professional cleaning can make all the difference in keeping your wood flooring in good condition, even in high-traffic areas. Contact us today at Oracle Cleaning to learn more about our janitorial services, including regularly scheduled floor cleanings. At Oracle Cleaning Solutions, we offer a variety of cleaning options, including commercial cleaning services, and have been experts in the field since 2012. At Oracle Cleaning Solutions, we approach wood flooring carefully to ensure that we protect your floors. We understand that all floors are different, so we test our products on a small area of your flooring before moving forward with our service. We will ensure that we choose the right methods and products to create the best floor cleaning possible, leaving your floors protected and beautiful.