How to clean dull wood floors
How to Polish Wood Floors and Restore Their Shine
Photo: istockphoto.com
Think about the beating your wood floors endure on a daily basis: high heels, pet nails, children’s toys, and shifting furniture, to name a few! Tough as wood floors may be, their finish is still susceptible to scratches and scuffs. Refinishing—the process of sanding floors down entirely to apply a new surface finish—is costly and really only necessary every few decades. But polishing with a product specifically formulated for your floors is an easy, inexpensive way to regain shine, even out imperfections, and extend the life of your handsome hardwood. All it takes is a flat-head mop with a microfiber cleaning pad and commercial wood floor polish, which comes in low- or high-gloss sheens to achieve your desired look.
Whether or not you should polish your floors, however, depends on their finish. Those with a protective surface—a waterproof barrier such as urethane, for example—will benefit from polish, but floors with penetrating finishes like tung oil or unsealed wood require wax instead of polish. Using the wrong product can cause a host of problems, from making floors too slick to dulling the finish, and impair proper refinishing down the road. So it’s important to determine which kind of floor you have (our Step 1 in this guide on how to polish wood floors) before you dive in and cause damage.
- Sponge mop
- Hardwood floor cleaner
- Broom
- Dustpan
- Microfiber mop pad
- Wood floor polish
- See full list «
- Flathead mop
If you’re unsure what type of finish is on your floor, scrape off a tiny bit from an inconspicuous area with a sharp knife blade.
- If the finish is smudged but no clear material is scraped up, your floor probably has a penetrating finish. Stop here, and do not polish these wood floors; these should only be waxed.
- If you see a clear material, your flooring likely has a surface finish.
It’s safe to polish these wood floors. Still, be sure to test out the polish in a small hidden or inconspicuous location on the wood before tackling the entire floor.
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Empty the room, removing as much furniture as possible, then clean the floor thoroughly to remove dust and dirt. Sweep or vacuum, then mop with a commercial wood floor cleaner or solution of a quarter-cup of dish soap and a gallon of warm water to lift any lingering grime. Give the floors a final pass with a clean, water-dampened mop to remove any cleaner residue. Dry completely with a soft, clean towel.
Photo: istockphoto.com
STEP 3: Polish wood floors to a shine.Begin in a back corner of the room, plotting a path that will have you end up near an exit, pour a small S-shaped amount of wood floor polish onto the floor.
Using a flat-surface mop, work the solution back and forth in the direction of the wood grain, smoothing out any air bubbles. Work in small areas (about three to five feet wide in either direction) to best control the amount of polish you’ve applied.
While you must make sure to completely coat the floor, thin layers will dry more rapidly than thick ones, and you can always apply another coat if needed.
Note: Polish can stain drywall and baseboards, so avoid splashing on these areas.
Refinishing your floors?
Some jobs are better left to the pros. Get free, no-commitment estimates from licensed flooring contractors near you.
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+ STEP 4: Hold off restoring the room for at least a day.Wait at least one hour before allowing light traffic through the room and a full day before moving your belongings back in and resuming normal use. To avoid scratching, take care not to drag or slide furniture; pick up each piece up and place them where they belong.
Attach felt furniture pads underneath heavy pieces for extra protection.
Now that your floors look like new, maintain them by placing rugs at entry doors to prevent dirt from being tracked inside. If your kitchen has wood flooring, also place a rug at the sink to catch stray drops of water.
Stick to a regular cleaning routine, vacuuming weekly and giving the floors a deep clean monthly. Skip any homemade cleaning solutions that include diluted vinegar or ammonia on wood floors—all they’ll do is dull a surface-finished floor. Instead, for a better all-natural approach, check out our homemade wood floor cleaner, which features castile soap.
These measures will go a way to make preserve your wood floor’s shine. You may still want to repeat the polishing process a few times annually, as needed, but don’t exceed four applications per year.
Refinishing your floors?
Some jobs are better left to the pros. Get free, no-commitment estimates from licensed flooring contractors near you.
Find local pros
+How to Clean Hardwood Floors and Make Them Shine
By
Mary Marlowe Leverette
Mary Marlowe Leverette
Mary Marlowe Leverette is one of the industry's most highly-regarded housekeeping and fabric care experts, sharing her knowledge on efficient housekeeping, laundry, and textile conservation. She is also a Master Gardener with over 40 years' experience; writing for over 20 years.
Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process
Updated on 07/08/22
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
Project Overview
Durable hardwood floors enhance and add to the value of a home, and shiny, polished wood floors are a bonus. The trick to keeping polished wood floors looking beautiful through years of normal wear and tear is how you clean them.
Sometimes the way you clean a hardwood floor can dull it, but there are ways to keep it glowing over time, too. The following steps and tips will help keep your wood floors gleaming for years.
What Type of Finish Does Your Floor Have?
One of the key bits of information for keeping hardwood floors shiny is knowing what type of finish has been applied to the wood. Was your solid or engineered hardwood sealed with a polyurethane or polyacrylic urethane finish, or was it finished with a paste wax? If you don't know, here's a test to help you make the best cleaning choices:
- In a spot with normal foot traffic, place a drop of water on the floor. If the water is quickly absorbed or causes spotting on the finish, this indicates the hardwood has not been sealed and should never be cleaned with water. But if the bead of water just sits on the surface without being absorbed, it means the hardwood has been sealed.
- To test for a paste wax finish, grab some fine steel wool and rub it lightly over the floor in a corner.
If the floor has been waxed, there will be a gray, waxy film left on the steel wool.
7 Reasons Wood Floors Look Dull
Now that you've figured out what type of finish is on your hardwood floors, there are seven common issues that can cause them to look dull.
- You're just redistributing the dirt: Using a dirty mop or forgetting to sweep, dust mop, or vacuum the floor before cleaning will simply redistribute the dirt. Imagine all that grit, dust, and dirt getting trapped in the cleaning solution and simply staying on the surface of the floor.
- Your cleaner is doing more harm than good: Many acrylic-based liquid waxes that promise to make your wood floors glow can actually make them look worse. When applied on top of polyurethane finishes or paste wax, the floor can look patchy or turn milky. You can use mineral spirits and elbow grease on one small area at a time to remove the milky look of acrylic waxes. To completely restore the shine though, you'll have to strip and reseal the floors.
Additionally, harsh chemicals such as chlorine bleach, ammonia, undiluted vinegar, or pine oil can damage floor finishes. Read labels, choose a commercial product like Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner that is formulated for sealed wood floors, and follow manufacturer guidelines for use. - Using too much product: Even if you are doing everything correctly, using too much cleaning product or water will leave floors looking worse. More is not always better.
- Leaving the job half done: After damp mopping or waxing a hardwood floor, the job should be finished with a good buffing to prevent streaking. Simply use a dry microfiber mop to buff the finish and ensure a shiny floor.
- Scratches are out of control: If you have pets with sharp claws, forget to put clean doormats inside and outside entrance areas, or frequently wear shoes with hard heels in the house, you're going to have scratches. Scratches and scuffs equal dull floors.
Practice a little prevention to keep them to a minimum. - Waxy buildup: If the floors were not sealed with a polyurethane finish and rely on a carnauba paste wax to create the shine, the wax can build up and look dull. Even if you use wax appropriately only once or twice a year, eventually, it will build up and turn dull in low-traffic areas. Paste wax can be stripped off using mineral spirits or another commercial wax stripper.
- The floor needs refinishing: No finish on hardwood floors lasts forever if the floor has foot traffic. Solid hardwood floors can be refinished and resealed numerous times. Even engineered hardwood, which has a thinner veneer, can be refinished and resealed a couple of times before needing to be replaced.
Equipment / Tools
- Broom
- Sponge
- Dust mop or vacuum
- Microfiber mop
Materials
- Cleaning solution designed for hardwood (if needed)
How to Properly Clean Hardwood Floors
Watch Now: The Simple Method to Make Hardwood Floors Shine
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Wipe up Spills
To prevent watermarks, immediately wipe up any wet spills as they happen.
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
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Remove Dirt Daily
Sweep, vacuum, or dust mop daily to remove dirt that can cause scratches and wear down the finish of the floor. Don't forget to look under area rugs that can trap grit that will scratch floors.
The Spruce / Margot Cavin -
Damp Mop When the Seasons Change
Unless you have neglected the floors for weeks and have mud and sticky messes everywhere, there is no need to damp mop more than four times per year.
With a lightly dampened microfiber mop, clean in the direction of the wood grain. Never use a sopping-wet mop because too much water can cause even sealed floors to buckle. If you feel you need a commercial cleaner, choose one with a spray applicator like the ones from Bona. Just a heavy mist of about 1/2 teaspoon of cleaner per two square feet of flooring is adequate for cleaning.
The Spruce / Margot Cavin -
Buff Dry
Follow up with a completely dry microfiber mop to prevent streaking.
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
How to wash a wooden floor to make it shine - care for an unpainted floor
Contents:
Rules for the care of wooden floors
What is the best way to wash wooden floors?
Natural wood floors give a special aura to the room. However, caring for wooden floors requires skill and certain knowledge. Cleaning company specialists specifically study how to wash a wooden floor so that it does not lose its original texture and color. With all the strength of the boards, maintaining the appearance of unpainted floors is not an easy task.
How to care for wooden floors
Wood without a protective coating is an extremely vulnerable material. New plank or parquet floors quickly lose their appeal if not cleaned daily.
Wood floor care instructions:
- Dry cleaning is required daily. This will prevent the accumulation of debris, dust and sand in the gaps between the floorboard.
If this rule is not followed, well-defined, black borders of dirt will quickly appear on the floor. - Wash the wooden floor quickly, without much moisture. Porous boards will absorb moisture, and when they dry out, they will deform. Hence the creaking floors, about which they say “dry out”.
- Colored and pungent liquids will leave indelible marks on your floors if you don't clean them up very quickly. The stain will need to be further treated with a soda solution.
- Any contamination from wood can be easily removed with dishwashing detergent. A few drops can be added to the water when washing floors regularly. This will degrease the boards and prevent them from darkening.
Wood is a delicate material and does not tolerate rough handling. Cleaning of premises with wooden floors is not carried out:
- solutions with a bleaching effect based on chlorine;
- hard metal brushes or abrasive discs;
- steam cleaners.
Painted (or varnished) wood flooring is easier to maintain than unfinished boards. What is the best way to clean wood floors? Feel free to add detergent for parquet or laminate to the water.
What is the best way to clean wooden floors?
Modern recommendations of experts on how to wash unpainted wooden floors differ little from folk experience. Our grandmothers washed boards with ashes. Cleaning services use alkaline solutions for this, which is basically the same thing.
When choosing a product, pay attention to the purpose of the room. For a bath or sauna, you will need not only to wash the wooden floor, but to carry out simultaneous sanitation. Cleaning office space will require more and more frequent use of a vacuum cleaner than rags.
How to clean an unpainted wooden floor in a sauna? For the treatment of floors and walls from soot, a melamine sponge and a soap (alkaline) solution are used. Professional cleaning companies clean such areas with disinfectant liquid soap.
This prevents the boards from darkening and “eats away” microorganisms and fungal infections from them.
What is the best way to wash the wooden floors in the sauna so that they do not become slimy? High temperature, an abundance of moisture do not affect the tree in the best way. To prevent the formation of slippery deposits, wooden floors are washed using a stiff brush. Rags and rags will not be able to remove plaque.
Please note! Old plaque is removed with a grinder and soft abrasives. Our grandmothers used clean sand for these purposes.
How to clean wooden floors to make them shine? Cleaning of premises implies not only cleanliness, but also an excellent appearance. Shine wooden floors gives the use of ammonia or detergents based on it. Such a solution removes dirt well and evaporates quickly, preventing dull deposits or stains on the floor from appearing.
How to clean and maintain wood floors
Fine dirt particles scratch the wood surface and make the floor dull.
Therefore, you should clean your wood floor regularly to keep it beautiful for a long time.
In the case of lacquered floors , it is sufficient to wipe the floor with a damp cloth. A few drops of cleaning agent for wood and parquet floors will do no harm: when wiped, the floor is impregnated and its shine is restored.
In case wooden floor , oiled , you must ensure that the cleaning and care products are suitable for the material. A wood floor and parquet installer will recommend the right product for you. Other wood protection and care products are not needed.
When using a vacuum cleaner: use a parquet brush to avoid scratching the wood floor.
The right indoor climate is also important for caring for a wooden floor, so that the wood does not “work” a lot (shrinks and expands). Relative humidity around 50 percent is ideal. A climate in which not only we humans will feel comfortable, but also your wooden floor will be comfortable.
Humidity is often too low, especially during the heating season. A humidifier can help you with this. Indoor plants also have a positive effect on the indoor climate.
Sanding and freshening the surface of wood floors
Over the years, it is recommended that a wood floor be deep cleaned by a professional woodworker. Sanding parquet removes ugly scratches, bumps and stains and ultimately refreshes the surface.
Remember that sanding changes the original look.
This removes popular features such as characteristic brushing, planing or colored surfaces.
The sanding process removes about 0.7 mm of the wood surface. The frequency of sanding depends on the wear layer of the floor.
The wood floor sander knows with a parquet machine whether the finished parquet can be sanded and how often. But first, he will need to inspect your flooring.
In general, wooden floors should not be sanded by yourself.
