Hardwood floors look extremely gorgeous and with proper maintenance, and can become an extremely durable and prized asset of your home. To get shiny floors, you must keep your hardwoods happy, and this can be done only through appropriate cleaning techniques.
Vacuuming is one of the best procedures for making these floors sparkling clean, and your job is more than half done when you have the best hardwood floor vacuum. Nevertheless, it won’t be out of place to discuss some tips for more efficient vacuuming.
1. Attack the corners first
Hardwood floors, however shiny they might be, invite a great amount of dust in due course of time. This dust tends to accumulate more at the corners.
So as you are cleaning a particular room, you must ensure that the corners are cleaned first, and then the middle portion is addressed. Although it seems a very easy task, a number of people tend to ignore this simple thing, and fail to achieve the desired results.
If you begin cleaning or vacuuming from the middle, the dust will go and rest at the corners, which is not possible once you start off from the corners. So, you must try out this trick.
2. Prevent dusty objects
Wood has an extremely friendly relation with dust, so you will find it quite difficult to clean hardwood floors properly if dusty items are continually allowed in the room.
Given this, the first thing on your priority list should be to see that no dirty shoes are allowed inside. One of the best ways to do this is to place a shoe hanger just at the entrance to the room so that all outside shoes can be placed over the hanger.
You will really be surprised to see how much this simple initiative brings down the level of dust in the room.
3. Maintain regularity in vacuuming
Generally, you do not vacuum your house frequently. Houses are usually clean, and you are required to keep this cleanliness intact by occasional polishing. However, this theory does not apply when you have hardwood floors.
These floors remain shiny and good-looking only with regular cleaning, and you will get the best results if the floor is cleaned a minimum of once every three days.
In the long run you will find that this reduces the work load considerably and there is a lesser amount of dust gathering on the hardwood floors, keeping them sparkling.
4. Go for wet mopping
Dry dusting is the common thing to do but at times it is good to go for wet mopping. One of the major advantages of wet mopping is that it allows the dirt to settle on the floor.
So when you are cleaning the floor with a vacuum cleaner, your job would become easier, as the dust won’t fly around. It is advisable to carry out wet mopping one day in advance of using the vacuum cleaner to get the highest level of cleaning.
5. Keep water away
Although this particular tip is not directly related to vacuuming, it is worth taking into consideration if you have hardwood floors. Water can damage your hardwood floor by ruining its finish as well as seeping through any pores within the wood and staining or warping it. So, whenever you are expecting rain, close the doors and windows.
Also, keep potted plants in trays and wipe off any spilled water. Even if you are wet mopping the floor, make sure that no water accumulates.
These are some of the proven methods for efficiently cleaning hardwood floors. Follow these tips and rest assured they will work for your floor.