How to Clean Finished Hardwood Floors

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Joe Harpole, I handle hardwood for Pro Care here in Nashville. Today I'm going to talk about how to clean hardwood floors. The house that I grew up in was built in 1946. We had hardwood floors but they were waxed. That's a different finish then is available in most hardwood floors today. Most homes today have a hardwood floor that's coated with polyurethane. It's a surface finish as oppose to a penetrating finish. It should be maintained differently then a wax floor. In fact you don't ever want to put wax on one of these floors. There are two main products, two main tools to use in maintaining and keeping a hardwood floor today clean. A vacuum cleaner and a good floor cleaner with a mop. Nothing replaces vacuuming a floor to keep your dust up off the floor. As much as possible and beyond that every once in a while as often as you see the need, use a dust mop. Put some hardwood floor cleaner on it according to the manufacturer's directions. In addition to that a walk on mat at a door helps to keep dust off the floor by taking it off your shoes before you walk on to the floor. Vacuuming and mopping are both great and necessary to get dust up off the floor. But to help prevent vent dust from getting on the floor I encourage you to use a mat, something like this at a doorway. A small area rug just to help you keep from bringing dust into the home. This one came in fact from right in front of a sink where water falls on the floor. It helps to prevent damage to the floor and helps to maintain the finish on the floor by keeping the floor protected. This is a natural mat, it doesn't have any petroleum base on it. And that's the kind I recommend. Because if you put petroleum based products against a polyurethane floor you might get a chemical interaction that will cloud or stain the floor that wont' come out until you sand it. So always go for a natural mat like this when you are putting a mat on a hardwood floor."