Having floors made of hardwood at your home can be pretty exciting and beautiful. In addition, such floors are always durable and can also add a great deal of value to your humble abode. However, many people often tend to avoid installing such luxury in their homes since they often require a great deal of maintenance.
After all, losing the gloss and shiny nature of your hardwood floor can be pretty distressing and discomforting. Now, there are a few causes that may lead to the hardwood losing its shine and become dull. While there are a few causes that may need the services of professionals to fix, most causes can be fixed quite easily through regular maintenance and cleaning. Therefore, you need to identify the various causes that may lead to the dullness caused to your hardwood flooring and deal with them accordingly and within time. In this article, we are going to discuss some useful ways to prevent and treat some of the causes for such floors becoming damp so that you can always have a shiny floor that always looks new.
Identify natural causes that influence wood floors and keep them at bay. Wooden floors tend to be adversely affected by sunlight as well as moisture. It is important for you to ensure that the wooden flooring of your house does not receive much of either. Use proper curtains on the windows to limit the amount of sunlight falling on the floors. This, however, does not mean that you can flood the rooms with excessive artificial lighting as that can also adversely affect the floors.
At the same time, you must also maintain the humidity in the rooms of your house to a range between 35-55 percent as that will ensure least damage to the wooden floors. The best way to avoid both of these natural factors is to use floor carpets, rugs or mats on your hardwood floor. This will not only prevent the sunlight and moisture from reaching the flooring, but also enhance the beauty of your rooms. However, you must also ensure floor cleaning and housetipster can help you with advice for keeping your floor in good condition.
Regular cleaning, sweeping and polishing is necessary. It’s essential to keep your wooden floor free from any dust particles that may accumulate over time. Therefore, sweeping or vacuuming the floor everyday might be great to ensure least dust and dirt accumulation. Doing it every other day can also be effective if you don’t have the time to do it every day.
You must also remember to use soft brushes or felt-type vacuums to clean the floor or the wooden texture could be irreparably damaged. Likewise, it’s important to polish the floors at least once a week. Use good-quality polish and mops to clean the floors and avoid the use of excessive water. In case of spills, take action immediately and wipe the water off to avoid any long-term damages due to the wood absorbing the water. Proper and regular maintenance will certainly ensure that your wooden floors are able to maintain their glossy and shiny nature for many years to come.
Although it is necessary to polish wooden floors regularly to maintain the shine, it is best to avoid watery polishes and mops. It isn’t always advised to jump to the use of natural cleaning items just because you heard about them from someone. For instance, vinegar can be a great cleaning agent, but it will eat away at the finishing or your hardwood floor over time due to its acidic nature. Therefore, you just carefully study the effects of any cleaning products before using them on your precious wooden floor. Some cleaning products that you must always avoid include: vinegar and oil-based soaps, liquid-based wax products and household cleaning products that have ammonia, silicon, citrus oils, tung oil, etc.
It’s almost never okay to use mops to wet-clean or damp-clean the wooden floors as it can lead to the absorption of water by the floors. Maintaining a shiny wooden floor does require intense work, but it’s all worth it in the end when you have a glossy floor to enhance the look of your rooms.