Hardwood Floor Maintenance Tips
Tips on how to care for your Hardwood Floor in Phoenix
Today’s Modern finishes are both durable and easy to maintain. Most are virtually maintenance-free. Whether your floor is pre-finished with aluminum oxide, or professionally job-finished with our high-tech, water-based polyurethane, Tung-oil, or Du Chateau wax-finish, you can be be confident that it will be easy to maintain and long-lasting. Just follow these easy Hardwood Floor maintenance tips.
Many people today believe that wood floors require a lot of care and maintenance including constant buffing.That’s a misconception with today’s modern finishes. While its true for nearly a hundred years wood floors were traditionally finished with wax-based products that didn’t hold up well to traffic or spills and required regular buffing to maintain their luster, our finishes are tough and durable, can withstand daily high-traffic and don’t require regular buffing.
With any hard-surfaced floor there are things you can do to minimize wear, increase time between re-coats and keep your floors clean, shiny, and beautiful for many years.
- Dry-mop / Dust-mop frequently
- Clean-up liquid spills immediately
- Don’t use harsh chemicals to clean your floors
- Make sure you have the proper felt-glides on any furniture that slides
- Avoid cleaners with the words Oil, Restores, Protects, Shines
Hardwood Floors in Phoenix Arizona can last a lifetime if properly cared for using these Hardwood Floor maintenance tips!
Many floors will never need sanding or replacement if you follow these simple instructions on how to care for them, making them a wise long-term investment.
You live in the Arizona desert so sand and small granules are part of everyday foot-traffic. Using a standard dust-mop frequently will help eliminate those abrasive granules from slowly wearing down the finish on your hardwood floors.
If you prefer you can spray * Endust * on your mop-head to give it more grabbing power. Never spray * Endust * or use any other furniture polish directly on your hardwood floors.
Occasionally we spill liquid on our floors. Everything from soda, coffee, wine, and Kool-aide should lift off your hardwood floor without leaving ugly stains behind that some other surfaces would trap and lock. Remember, when you spill something wipe it up immediately using a soft towel.
Since some spills leave behind a sticky mess, you can easily and safely follow-up using a dampened towel and either *Ammonia-free Windex * or vinegar/water mixture we’ll explain below. We recommend keeping one of these cleaners in a handy spray-bottle for a convenient way to spot-clean spills and mishaps.
Damp Mopping Your Hardwood Floors will maintain the shine, while also keep your floors clean and beautiful.
Its important to note that damp-mopping floors is recommended but should not be over-done using excessive amounts of water or too frequently. We recommend no more than once per week or every-other week. Be sure that when damp-mopping, you aren’t leaving big beads of water behind.
Things like string-mops, saturated towels, or steamers are NOT RECOMMENDED as they carry too much water.
We recommend using a sponge mop, damp-swifter, or well-wrung terry-cloth towel.
Fill a sink with your cleaning solution and dip a towel into it until its fully saturated, then WRING THE TOWEL OUT so its not dripping. lay the towel flat on the floor then fold over a push-broom and cruise around until the towel is dirty. Flip the towel and repeat as necessary.
What Types of Wood Floor Cleaners Should You Use to maintain you hardwood floors in Phoenix?
Many people aren’t sure which cleaners are best or safe to use on their hardwood floors. There is a simple “rule-of-thumb” logic when deciding what products are safe to use.
Remember your floors were professionally finished either at the factory or on-site using highly-engineered finishes that are designed to hold-up well and maintain their shine!
Rule-of-thumb says don’t use any product that is going to leave behind a residue replacing your high-quality top-coat with an inferior wax or oil-based home use product. Its simple, your finish needs NO waxing, NO restoring, NO polishing.
WARNING! Many Major Wood Floor Cleaners are Bad For Your Floor!
Many products are geared towards the hardwood floor market, products like Murphy’s (R) oil-soap, Orange-Glo (R), Mop-N-Glow (R) are DAMAGING to your hardwood floors!
By leaving a residue behind, they not only reduce the overall shine over-time, they also cause adhesion problems when the time comes to re-coat your floors.
When it comes to hardwood floor maintenance – Less is More on your Phoenix floors
The less of anything you put on your hardwood floors the better off you are. Straight water works great as a universal solvent.
If you want more cleaning action add some white vinegar at a ratio of ( 1/4 cup vinegar : 1 gallon water ), the vinegar will give you more cleaning power and also help leave a streak-free shine.
Bona (R) also makes a great floor cleaner that is safe and easy to use.
Just remember to avoid anything that smells lemon-like, oily, waxy, has a milky white appearance, strong chemical odor, or uses the words, protects, shines or restores!! If you are using a concentrated product remember to follow the instructions to properly dilute it, it’s usually BETTER to OVER-DILUTE than it is to under-dilute.
Though your hardwood floors should not need regular maintenance and buffing occasionally you may notice that after cleaning your floors just don’t have that shine or evenness they once had.
It may be due to residue build-up creating a dingy, dirty appearance or its possible that you have begun to wear-through the top-coat making the floors trap more dirt and hard to clean.
At All Pro Floors in Phoenix we recognize every floor is unique.
Variable conditions such as type of finish, amount of traffic, type of traffic, cleaning products, cleaning schedule, and wood species all affect how a floor wears and maintains over time, but following these Hardwood floor maintenance tips will increase the time between recoats.
Sometimes you just can’t restore your floors without some professional help. That doesn’t mean it has to be expensive. We offer services ranging from Clean and Buff, Buff and Recoat, to complete Re-sand. We wont over-sell you on a service you don’t need!
Clean and Buff services are a simple low-cost method to restore the beauty lost due to residue build-up, and years of everyday traffic. Our team will use a professional strength product to lift heavy residues including gums, varnish, oils, wax and polishes, followed by buffing your floors to a perfect shine using the proper crystal clean polishing pad.
Services are usually able to be completed in one day. Our staff will remove and replace furniture if you desire, and floors can be walked on immediately afterwards, making it an effortless, convenient and affordable solution to restore the natural beauty and shine to your hardwood floors.
Hardwood Flooring Buff and Re-coat services in Phoenix
Buff and Re-coat services go one step further, by adding two-coats of polyurethane, tung-oil, or Du Chateau wax finish, we are able to remove scratches, worn-through areas, including light or gray spots, restore an even shine to your hardwood, also allowing you to choose the shine level you desire from high-gloss, semi-gloss, satin, or matte finish.
Our skilled re-coat professionals are also able to recoat just specific high-traffic or damaged areas of your floor without having to redo the entire floor, saving you time, money and inconvenience.
20 Years of Hardwood flooring experience in the Phoenix area!
Years of experience allow us to accurately match the shine of your existing finish and ensure a smooth even transition between newly coated areas and areas left alone. By recoating your hardwood or engineered floors you will not only refresh the beauty, remove scratches and dull-areas, but also protect your investment for years to come.
By re-coating your floors you may avoid the hassle of sanding and refinishing down the road, saving you time, money, inconvenience, and increase the life of your floor.
There is no-limit to the number of times you can Buff and Recoat a floor, however in the case of an engineered floor the sanding layer may only allow you to sand it down once or twice in its lifetime.
Don’t waste a life of your floor by unnecessarily sanding when you can re-coat it for a third of the cost!
Re-coat services are affordable, virtually dust-less, and can be completed in one day in most cases. Using our low-odor polyurethane, you are able to rest easy at night and stay in your home during the re-coat process. Floors are usually able to be underfoot the same day!
Contact All Pro Floors in Phoenix Arizona today!
Regardless of your flooring needs you can trust the floor experts to give you a great estimate and a job well done the first time. Whether its hardwood flooring installation, refinishing, or repair we put your satisfaction first.
We service the entire Phoenix metro area including Scottsdale, Cave Creek, Glendale, Peoria and the entire east valley!
We accept all major credit cards!
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