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How to clean a wooden floor

How to clean a wooden floor is the most frequently asked question by potential buyers. The nightmare of cleaning and maintenance can sometimes put people off buying.

However, the maintenance of a wooden floor is actually quite straightforward. Nowadays the finishes are so much improved compared with before and you no longer need to remove or apply wax or spend hours and hours polishing the floor.

SO CLEANING WOODEN FLOORS IS VERY SIMPLE AND FAST.

Here are some tips on the everyday cleaning of your wooden floor:

1.  Check what type of finish your wooden floor has

So please consult the wooden floor manufacturer’s identification sheet and Quality Certificate, which the dealer is obliged to supply, for information on how to look after and maintain the floor you have purchased and also the kind of finish it has.

The wooden floor can be treated with OIL, WAX or VARNISH and the surface can be SMOOTH, BRUSHED or irregular through workings such as PLANED, SAW CUTTING, and so on. This information will help you understand the appropriate ways of maintaining your floor, e.g. if it’s an oiled or waxed floor it will need to be oiled or waxed again after a certain period of time.

REGARDLESS of the finishing used, the wooden floor is always washed in the same way, whereas its non-routine maintenance will be different.

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2.  Before each wash, please vacuum the wooden floor

Using a vacuum cleaner with suitable brushes or with electrostatic wipes.

3.  DO NOT USE steam floor cleaners or robot floor cleaners

because the former use exceedingly high temperatures that ruin the finishing, and the latter use too much water, which penetrates the wooden floor, or very aggressive products.

The traditional method “BUCKET, BRUSH, NEUTRAL SOAP AND CLOTH” is ALWAYS THE BEST!!

4.  NEVER USE WATER ONLY

It’s important to REMEMBER that WOODEN FLOORS should NEVER be cleaned with WATER ONLY, because WATER ONLY doesn’t REMOVE GREASE from the surface of the floor (when we wash our hands we also need soap to remove the grease and this also applies to wood flooring and other household surfaces too).

5. Please use NEUTRAL DETERGENT SOAP

(in the recommended amounts as instructed on the bottle) in just a few litres of warm water (35°/40°). It’s important that the DETERGENT CONTAINS NO ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS such as oils, waxes, creams or rinsing agents, or ammonia, bleach, aggressive limescale removers, alcohol, etc. The choice of the right detergent is very important, as using polishing products together with the cleaner can smear the surface of the wooden floor over time, whereas overly aggressive products can corrode the finish. Therefore it must be washed with soap ONLY, diluted in warm water, because at this time it is important simply to “degrease” the wood.

The sanitizing and disinfectant hands detergents, in case of contact with the wooden floor, can damage the treated surface.

6.  Please use a CLOTH

With LONG FIBRES if the wood surface is ROUGH or UNEVEN, or SHORT FIBRES if the surface is SMOOTH. The best cloths are those in pure cotton sponge or in a good microfiber.

7.  Please use a rectangular BRUSH

With plastic or corn fibre bristles as it has a larger surface and the bristles help to apply pressure to the cloth. 
Work with two cloths, leave one to soak and use the other, exchanging them in turn.
Lightly wring out the wet cloth and pass it over the wooden floor with the help of the brush trying to go along the grain and then circling. Exchange and often rinse the cloth often and when the water in the bucket becomes dark/dirty please change it. Whilst the water in the bucket is dark, this means that the floor is not yet clean and needs rewashing.

Leave to dry

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8.  USE of MAINTENANCE WAXES

The current VARNISHED finishes don’t need to use any maintenance waxes. But if you want (once a year), you can use them to brighten up the wooden floor. Whereas, for waxed or oiled wooden floors, a periodic use of maintenance wax is sincerely suggested (even many time a year), because it helps to postpone the moment of the re-oiling treatment.

But the WRONG WAX over the years will CREATE CHEMICAL LAYERS, smearing the grain of the wooden floor. So it’s very IMPORTANT TO USE A SUITABLE WAX (ideally suggested by the wood floor manufacturer), better if natural and liquid wax. Please DO NOT OVER-USE.

In any event the wax must always be applied to a prewashed/degreased floor.

Consult the Product Identification Sheet

9. The cleaning products USED by CADORIN parquet

BIOFA cleaning products contain natural components and can be used for any kind of wooden floor finish: oiled, waxed, varnished.


NACASA

natural detergent for everyday cleaning of wooden floors, containing no chemical preservatives, chlorine, ammonium chloride or phosphate.
1 cap for every 5 litres of warm water

NAPLANA

natural liquid wax emulsion, 3 caps to be diluted in 5 litres of water and applied to a clean floor. Please apply evenly for a self-polishing effect.
This emulsion helps revitalize and nourish wooden floors with oiled or waxed finishing.
Use once or twice a year.


10.  STAINS ON THE WOODEN FLOOR

Cadorin parquet are treated with varnish or oil/wax finishes, preventing stains from being absorbed into the wood. Any stains/grease/dirt on the floor should be removed with a damp sponge soaked in wooden floor detergent. For stubborn dirt, please use pure detergent. Never use abrasive sponges or scourers.

Download the “How to clean a wooden floor”

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