Thanks for this. I would not have thought about this because my mom’s house has lighter wood floors than you do, and hers just get vacuumed & swiffered, but I would like to replace our carpet with wood, and I was leaning to darker, but this is a point against.
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Don’t you people have a cleaning service?
We have medium/dark hardwood and use murphy’s wood floor cleaner and don’t have issues with streaking. What’s your water quality? What kind of finishing do your floors have? Do you dry the floors right after mopping?
A dry swifter will take care of dust.
A damp mop is good too. Something like this:
So GoA, I need the definitive answer on cleaning wood floors. My hardwood floor guy says only use white vinegar (1 cup vinegar to 1 gallon water), and that modern products are harmful. But I’ve seen articles that say exactly the opposite, that modern floor cleaners are fine, and that vinegar can harm modern finishes. Thus far I’ve found sweeping and mopping with just water is fine, our floors are oak and pine with a matte finish so streaks aren’t noticeable if I have any.
Most floors are finished with polyurethene if installed on site. Prefinished floors usually have a resin finish, and I have a two-part water-based Bona finish that’s probably closer to what prefinished floors have. Not sure how finish affects which cleaning product is appropriate.
Also, the spin mop that Costco sells is pretty rad. Big fan.
Real wood or stuff that looks like wood?
And is it finished?
This article seems to be quite thorough.
One thing it doesn’t note is how often these things should be done. Home Depot noted a daily dusting, which means we wouldn’t EVER get hardwood floors.
Haaa, yeah. The sweeping is basically daily - or at least sweep the part you just used before it tracks everywhere else.
The floor I have now I haven’t actually attempted to mop yet (outside of spot cleaning). It was the floor in my first house that was streaking with the Swifter wet jet. That floor was a dark, shiny red-brown hardwood, and the water in Kitchener was hard AF (like we all needed water softeners hard AF, and the dishes in the “clean” dishwasher would have deposits of soap scum).
I’m pre-worried about how this floor is going to look after I clean it - don’t think I’m going to invest in another wet jet though.
Also I’m not sure I know what kind of wood or finishing the floors have, I suppose the previous owners would tell me (they’re super nice).
I use a shark steam mop which the article warns not to do but the seal on the flooring is pretty good and it dries from the surface in just a minute or two.
I get streaking if I mop perpendicular to the way the floor has been laid.
I have hardwood (white oak) floors in most of my house. They get swept when i notice dirt that should be removed. Back before the pandemic, the cleaning lady vacuumed every other week. I can’t recall ever mopping them, but if i did I’d probably use water, and maybe a little soap. Like… Probably dish soap if just water didn’t do the trick.
But why would you need to mop them? I’ve lived here more than 20 years without doing that. We had the floors refinished when we moved in, and except for a little patch my grade-school soon set on fire, they still look great.
We do have tile in the kitchen and bathrooms and garage door, and small rugs in front of the other doors, where you can remove muddy boots…
The kitchen floors get mopped from time to time.
The builder of our previous house strongly recommended Bona.
We used this.
I honestly can’t tell you if it’s “real” wood or some fabricated thing. I do know that they put some sort of sealant on it. Oh, here’s the email from the builder…
…so I assume that means it was real wood.
Before we sold the place we polished it (can’t remember with what), so that it would look nice. The office floor was scuffed up quite a bit by the chair. Surprisingly, the dogs didn’t do much damage to it. For spot-treatment, we just used a can of Pledge - lemon scent, no doubt.
When I had mahogany floors I had to damp mop them occasionally. They show tiny stuff that the vacuum doesn’t get. Like a water stain from a crumb of ice that flew out of the ice dispenser and across the floor and melted and dried in that particular spot. Or some teensy speck of goo deposited by a larger bit of dirt that the vacuum did get. Or a scuff from the rubber sole of my slippers.
Hire a competent cleaning crew to come in once or twice a week.
Once or twice a week!? Bi-weekly, maybe. I ain’t no billionaire rockstar over here yo.
I thought you are making baller quant money. Does Oddy work?
Our guy comes in once a week. For like 2 hrs. $300/mo
Being unemployed for 2 months in 2020 made me feel significantly less baller. I also went from getting paid every week, to getting paid once a month, and it takes some getting used to. Anyways, I’m a little baller, maybe - but no more baller than like, an FSA.
I like to pretend that he doesn’t, much in the same way that Miss Alimony likes to pretend that she’s a poor, single mom.
I pay nearly that much for a woman who comes in every other week. But we’re slobs, and she’s worth it.
(Well, until covid. But once we get vaccinated we will hire her back.)
