How To Clean Wood Floors With a Buffer

Wood floors are beautiful when new and give a building a warm appearance, but maintaining them can be a challenge. Harsh, water-based cleaners leave the floor looking dull and can damage the floor permanently. But keeping the floors looking great and protecting them isn't too too difficult with the right equipment and cleaning supplies. A buffer will make your work faster and easier with better results than any other wood floor cleaning method.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Dust mop
• 17-inch, 175-rpm buffer
• 17-inch red cleaning pad
• Mineral spirits
• 17-inch white polishing pad

1. Dust-mop the floor thoroughly to remove all dust and grit. Dust and fine grit are extremely harmful to wood floors, so a regular schedule for dust mopping should be followed whether the floor is to be cleaned or not.

2. Put a 17-inch red cleaning pad on the buffer and spray a light mist of mineral spirits on the bottom of the pad. This spraying will moisten the pad and prevent the mineral spirits from the floor becoming absorbed into the pad.

3. Spray a fine mist of mineral spirits on a small section of the floor and begin buffing. Don't do more than about a 4-by-6-foot section at a time. This is to prevent the mineral spirits from drying before being buffed. When finished with one section, move to another section until the entire floor has been cleaned.

4. Dust-mop after the entire floor has been cleaned with the mineral spirits. There may be some white residue left on the floor, but this will be removed in the next step.

5. Replace the red cleaning pad with a clean white polishing pad and buff the entire floor one last time to polish and shine the floor to its original luster. A final dust mopping will remove any remaining residue.

Tips & Warnings

• Buffers can be a little tricky to operate, and it takes some practice. The handle should be adjusted to "belt" level and the buffer always kept in front of you. Resist the urge to use your arms to move the buffer, but move the buffer from side to side by pivoting your body. Lift the handle slightly to move to the right, and lower the handle to go to the left.
• Only use a damp mop--and very sparingly--on a wood floor if the floor is well sealed.

Resources

• Source for cleaning equipment and supplies