Still cleaning wooden floors with a mop and bucket?
A mop and bucket sound like the obvious choice for cleaning your wooden floor. It is perfectly fine for slate flooring, limestone and other tiles. Not a good idea for wooden flooring. Wood does not like water and a bucket and mop is an easy way to over-wet your wooden flooring. Over-wetting can cause some big issues over time. Especially issues like cupping and other movements in the wooden flooring.
Cupping is where the edges of your wooden flooring will be higher than the middle. I see this on many floors before the restoration process. You can see this in the image above. The client has been using a mop and bucket for a prolonged period of time. If you have a parquet floor then the water will get into the floor and loosen the old bitumen adhesive. Then you will notice blocks becoming loose. The mop heads aren’t designed to be cleaned and I find they are not changed for new regularly enough. The answer?
The right way to clean your wooden floor
- A flat-headed microfiber mop such as The Mr Siga flat mop . These are available in a spray mop form or you can use a spray bottle.
- Microfiber heads are antibacterial with how they are constructed
- The real benefit of this is the ability to control how much cleaner you are using. Less is more when cleaning wooden floors.
- Dry dust the floor daily. Dust will dull your wood floor. Too much dust can also lead to microabrasions that lead to premature wear of the floor finish.
- Daily the floor should be swept with a soft brush or using the microfiber mop. These mop heads can be machine washed which makes them a good value solution. An added benefit of microfiber is that they are antibacterial in design.
- As previously discussed, it is vital to use a PH neutral cleaner such as Pallmann Clean and Go. Keeping your flooring clean should not be a task.
- Have matts placed at front door and other external doors. It will capture small dirt from outside that can scratch your wooden floors.
- If you need advice please get in touch.
