Help me clean my beautiful wood floors

[Anonymous]

after a bunch of renovations.

I know there are threads about Bona, Murphy's Oil, etc. I need more than swiffer here because things are super dusty. What is the definitive answer? Any posters who contradict each other need to come shine up a room for me

[Anonymous]

Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum starting from top to bottom. Everything surface. Some might say wet mop lightly first, then when dry vacuum so you blow it around. Change your furnace filter after this is done.

I use Bona exclusively on my hardwood (waterborne polyurethane finish on wood). I've heard of using water with a touch of vinegar. There are Bona substitutes at big box stores (Bona is expensive).

Please, don't use Murphy's Oil Soap or Orange Glo ever on your hardwood. It changes the finish in an undesired way.

[Anonymous]

^Sorry, that should read "so you don't blow it around". Ha!

[Anonymous]

THANK you PP! Yes, I have heard the same about the Murphy's and Orange Glo, basically you are sealing dirt into vegetable oil. So I will take your advice. Thanks again! There's a dog in the mix, so the vacuum is my numero uno amigo right now.

[Anonymous]

What type of wood floor do you have? Mine are super old oiled treated (versus the newer surface sealed)...can bona be used on this type?

[Anonymous]

I use the Hoover floormate. It's easy on the floors and smells nice

[Anonymous]

19:59: when you say "old oiled treated" do you mean as with tung oil? For cleaning tung oil wood floors a damp mop with a maximum mixture of 1 - 2 oz. of white vinegar to 2 gallons of warm water is good. If insufficient, look into a specific tung oil cleaner (Waterlox has one).

Bona Hard Wood Floor cleaner is for polyurethane based floors as I understand it.

[Anonymous]

OP Take the first swipe with warm water and some white vinegar to remove the grit. Then ask a good wood floor installer for a recommendation on the type of product to use on your type of floor. Bona is not good for all floors.

[Anonymous]

One piece of advice I saw was that when you mop with Bona or the like, use a microfiber push mop and DON'T PICK IT UP. This way, you are pushing the dirt, dust, hair, what have you, not catching it under the mop where it will scratch the floor.

I'd try to vacuum as much as you can first. I use this mop with Bona. http://www.rubbermaid.com/category/pages/subcategorylanding.aspx?CatName=CleaningUtility&SubCatId=SprayMopping

(FYI, the spray thing was annoying so I just use the spray straight from the bottle it came in now, YMMV. Get extra pads so that you have one clean all the time.)

Our floors are old and ugly, but after using Rejuvenate Restorer on them and Bona cleaner, they don't look half bad. I'm not replacing the floors anytime soon as we are in the young kid phase of life and also have a big dog. DH stresses too much over our pets/kids destroying all of our nice things, so there you go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:19:59: when you say "old oiled treated" do you mean as with tung oil? For cleaning tung oil wood floors a damp mop with a maximum mixture of 1 - 2 oz. of white vinegar to 2 gallons of warm water is good. If insufficient, look into a specific tung oil cleaner (Waterlox has one).

Bona Hard Wood Floor cleaner is for polyurethane based floors as I understand it.

This is pp. thanks. I'll give it a shot. We just did a renovation and the wood floors are kind of a disaster...hopefully some cleaning will restore them a bit.

[Anonymous]

While white vinegar is a great cleaner, it is entirely too harsh for hardwood floors, even just a small amount diluted.

The best thing is warm water.

[Anonymous]

So much great advice. Even the ones that contradict! I'll probably stick to lots of vacuuming and lightly damp mopping with just water to get it under control.

The hoover for hardwoods sounds good (even just using water) but two of my rooms are newly sealed and a few others I'm not so sure. One is a custom peg floor.

The ones that are new, my contractor said Bona is OK. Which is good because those are in the messy kitchen area and I'm sure will need something stronger than water from time to time.

[Anonymous]

I use my dyson stick vacuum on my wood floors, works great. For washing them down after all dusk and debris have been removed, I use vinegar and water, or sometimes just my shark steam vac with water.