Tips for hardwood flooring

For those folks who have solid hardwood floors in their homes, bring about a real lifetime investment, and compensate some care with a life span of value. When you first glimpse a solid hardwood floor, you sense luxuriance, warmth and natural beauty. Evenly, you accustom its distinct personality � visible harmonies, the footprints of history in the timberlands and in your home .

Things to discover and cherish :

The color and pattern of the floor�s strips, planks or parquetry.

Examine the grains. Oak- is pronounced in texture; Maple or cherry-are tempered .

Check the shape of the concealed wood and the finish that protects it.

Check out the signs of neglect. Is there a surface that calls for just a meager touch to maintain it?

The nature�s essential characteristics and qualities lets you to create elegant attitude with unique textures, colors, patterns and styles of solid hardwood flooring .

What should you know about protecting your hardwood floors?

The most common way of protecting your hardwood floors is just simply keeping them clean. To take care of your solid hardwood floors� warmth and character, apply the everyday simple cleaning techniques.

There are some tips on how to prevent damage to your solid hardwood floors:

Stay away from having dirt, grit and sand on your hardwood floors. These elements are detrimental to your hardwood floors. They act like abrasive material on the finish, causing scratches, dents and dulling. Place floor mats at entrances to trap dirt and prevent damage.

Stay away from water and other spills. Standing water can warp defectively finished hardwood floor and can ruin the finish. Merely rub lightly with a cloth with the cloth all spills as they happen.

Intense Cleaning solutions. Avoid oil soaps. They can cause a accretion and create the problems when your floor is expected to have a maintenance coating . Utilize the suggested neutral pH cleaners made specifically for wood floors.

Furniture. Avoid having your furniture drawn with force along the hard wood floors . Make sure to lift up the furniture to move it. Use a thick folded blanket under the furniture legs; it will help to stop scratches.

Dents. In order to prevent tears use the vacuum with a brush attachment. Avoid the use of vacuums with beater bars.

Sun exposure . Direct sun can discolor your hardwood floor. Keep you window treatments and shades closed. Or add special sun block shades to protect from the sun�s intense UV rays.

General care for your hardwood floors:

Sweeping. Use the dusters with fine, bursting tips to trap all the dust and grit effectively.

Vacuuming. Use the specially invented canister vacuums with special bare floor attachments. They are the most appropriate way eliminate all the dirt and dust.

Dusting Mop. Use a sufficient dust mop. The dust mop should have 12� to 18� inch cotton head and a special dust mop treatment. Aerosol the treatment onto the mop head 12 to 24 hours before dust mopping.

There are several kinds of hardwood flooring

Oak and maple are the most popular hardwoods used in flooring.

Ash, beech,birch, cherry, hickory and walnut are more luxurious hardwoods that are used for floors and decorative accents.

There are some tips and suggestions to inspect the condition of your hardwood floors

Finish Condition. Check closely if the finish been deteriorated or is it just dirty. See if the finish is having very little depth of color, chipped, scraped or gouged. In order to examine if the finish is obsolete, start in a high-traffic area and pour one to two tablespoons of water onto the floor. If the water soaks in immediately and leaves a darkened spot, the finish is worn and water can destroy the wood. If the water soaks in after a few minutes and darkens the wood only slightly, the finish is halfway worn. If the water droblets on top, the surface is properly sealed. Repeat this test in low- and medium-traffic areas.

Wood Condition. Check to see if the finish is worn, the wood may have been busted. Examine the areas for stains, burns, cuts, gouges, holes, cracks or deflected boards. If the wood is busted repair or replacement may be required.

What type of finish does your floor have?What to know about the finishes of your hardwood floor?

Similar care and maintenance techniques are used for all finishes in fair condition, neverless when it comes to removing stains or restoring the finish, methods vary. If you have doubts about what kind of finish your floor has, ask your contractor or real estate specialist.

There are also self explanatory tests available for your convenience:

Surface Finishes----pre-finished floors, polyurethane, water-based urethane and catalyzed. Most of all floors installed today have surface finishes, mainly it is a polyurethane. These finishes are usually glossy and may look like a coat of clear plastic on top of the wood. A small amount of paint remover in an inconspicuous area of the floor will hence the surface finish to bubble (unless it is a water-based urethane, in which case there will be no reaction). Surface finishes safeguard the floors from any harm by shaping a protective a coat on the surface of the wood.

Penetrating Seals: acrylics, oils and waxes.

Oils and waxes usually have a satin or matte finish. To recognize the penetrating seal, run your hands across the surface of the hardwood floor; If you can observe the wood grain it's most likely a penetrating seal. Usage of the paint remover will have no effect on a penetrating seal; however wax remover or ammonia will tender and blanch the surface. Oils and waxes penetrate the surface of the floor protecting the wood from within.

Seed Newsvine

Bookmark this article in your preferred program

Comments

Add Comment

Popular Articles in this cathegory

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.