How to Care for Your Wood Floors

In an active home, a little love will always go a long way in keeping your beautiful surfaces sparkling throughout the rigors of daily life. This rings especially true for gorgeous wood floors that are now as innovative as they are timeless: Whether you install engineered wood, laminated wood or solid wood flooring in your home, proper maintenance will ensure your attractive investment stays that way!

Perhaps wood floors once had the reputation of being high maintenance, but today’s genuine wood products deliver all the natural beauty with added defense for easier care and long-lasting beauty. Once you learn how to care for your specific wood floor properly, your routine will be easier- and more effective- than you probably ever thought it could be.

Engineered Wood Cleaning Instructions

For a savvy combination of strength and style, engineered wood flooring is a great option for homeowners looking for the best of both worlds. Available as planks in multiple widths and lengths for design capability, TecWood floors from Mohawk feature enhanced engineered construction that resists expansion and contraction from humidity changes.

In addition to this helpful quality, care and maintenance is a breeze for engineered wood floors:

• Make sure to vacuum or sweep your floor regularly, especially in high-traffic areas, to prevent dirt and debris from scratching the wood’s surface.
• Always use a soft-bristled attachment or broom.
• Avoid using vacuums with either a beater bar or power rotary brush head.
• Use protective window coverings to block UV rays and excessive heat from direct sunlight.
• Rearrange rugs and furniture periodically to help floor age evenly.
• Wipe up spills immediately with a clean white cloth.

Laminated Wood Cleaning Instructions

With the versatility of laminated wood, you can have the natural beauty of wood in any area of your home with the convenience of durable, easy-care flooring. Advanced options from Mohawk provide a revolutionary step in flooring that gives you complete wood beauty without compromising performance. You can install these floors at any level of your home, even over multiple subfloor types!

RevWood floors are a breeze to spiff up with a dust mop, soft bristle broom or a vacuum cleaner with suction only. Perform this step often to remove dust, dirt and loose particles on a regular basis, just make sure to use vacuums without a beater bar or with the beater bar disengaged. Also, avoid wet-mop cleaning with water or liquid cleaners.

Have you ever imagined having wood floors in areas like kitchens, bathrooms and even mudrooms? RevWood Plus and RevWood Select combine the power of three advanced technologies to form one revolutionary waterproof flooring system: Uniclic® joint system, GenuEdge® pressed bevel edge and Hydroseal perimeter coating create true waterproof protection. These impermeable floors can even be wet mopped!

For all three options, using protective window coverings and rearranging rugs and furniture periodically will help your laminated wood floor age evenly.

Solid Wood Cleaning Instructions

Although the options for installation may decrease, homeowners who want to outfit their favorite rooms with solid wood floors have many amazing species to choose from. Each SolidWood plank from Mohawk is just as the name suggests: a solid piece of wood from the finest domestic and exotic hardwoods, available in multiple widths and lengths.

As alluded to above, installation is only appropriate above grade, over approved wooden subfloors. Also, you want to limit solid wood floors to rooms with controlled temperatures and humidity. Should you spill on your solid wood flooring, follow this specific procedure:

1. Wipe up spills and spots immediately with a clean white cloth.
2. Use ice to harden tough substances like wax or chewing gum.
3. Gently and carefully scrape with a plastic scraper.
4. Wipe the area clean with a soft, slightly damp cloth.

Everyday Tips for Cleaning Wood Floors

These handy tips and tricks will help you keep all wood floors dazzling longer and decrease the amount the time you have to spend cleaning:

• Keep mats at your front doors and back entrances to prevent mud and debris from coming inside.
• When using a dust mop, try a model with a pivoting handle to effectively clean corners and inlets.
• To vacuum a wood floor, opt for a model with a hose attachment instead of a rotating brush.
• If you have wood stairs, using a dust rag by hand can actually save you clean-up time and be more effective versus trying to vacuum your stairs.

In the end, you will find that tailoring your care and maintenance to the specific type of wood floor you have installed will make a tremendous difference in the long-term effectiveness of keeping the wood looking new. Whoever said wood floors are high maintenance must have been cleaning them incorrectly, because now you’ve got it down to it a science!