5 Things to Avoid when Cleaning your Floors

Gone are the days of just vacuuming or mopping your floors and expecting it to last you for years. Now days everyone expects your home to have beautiful quality floors, and I can’t say that I blame them. It is so easy to find great looking laminate or tile floors now a days. So much so that if you try to sell your home with cracked or worn down floors you might as well throw in the towel and purchase some new flooring because I can guarantee this will make or break the sale of your home. So I have compiled a short list of things that can prematurely wear out your beautiful floors.

Cleaning Devices

Your weapon of choice weighs heavily on the type of flooring you are cleaning. A Good cordless steam mop is needed for laminate flooring and vice versa a heavy-duty vacuum cleaner is needed for those plush carpets. When cleaning tile flooring or hardwood flooring make sure you stay away from abrasive materials like scrubbing pads, instead choosing a steam mop with a soft terry cloth wipe. Also, be careful not to use a vacuum on hardwood or tile as the rotating brush can easily scratch your beautiful laminate flooring.

Cleaning Chemicals

Home made or natural cleaning chemicals or safer to use and better on my floors, right? Not so fast, even though they maybe more wallet friendly than the store bought alternative they aren’t always safer. Lemons and vinegar are highly acidic, which means they contain acid. Every wonder why a lemon cleans hard water scale so well off of a water faucet? Acidic materials clean hard water scale very effectively, now you know. However acidic materials can etch some stone surfaces and even peal the sealer right off of your hardwood floors. It is okay to use them every so often but don’t make it a habit of using them all the time.

Too Much Water

I know no one hardly mops the old fashion way with a bucket and old wig mop, but it doesn’t go without saying the old mop is well history. You can easily damage your hardwood or laminate floors with an old mop and bucket. The water will pile up on the surface and slowly work its way through the cracks of the flooring and compile up underneath the boards, not good. That is why we always recommend using only the best steam mops and steam cleaners. They ensure no excess water is put on your floors and that they aren’t damaged.

Carpet Stains

Have you ever tried to remove a stain from carpet before? I have and let me tell you I learned the lesson the hard way. You want to Blot, not scrub. Scrubbing spreads the stain around can ruin the carpet. The important thing with stains is that you react quickly, the longer the stain has to soak into the carpet the harder it is going to be to remove from it. White rags or paper towels work best to soak up the liquid quickly. Then Blot, don’t scrub and before you know it your carpet will look brand new.

Did you know there is a correct way to vacuum carpet?

I didn’t know that, until now. I used to just vacuum however I wanted until I learned how to do it properly. Did you know that vacuuming perpendicular to the walls would just cause the dirt and dust to get shoved under the trim? Just think about how much stuff could build up under there in a few years, yuck! Make sure you always vacuum parallel to the wall not into it. Then go over the room in one direction and come back over it again in the other direction. This ensures that you get all of the containments out of the carpet.

Walking down the cleaning aisle at your local hardware store can be quite daunting, but just remember to stay away from products you don’t know or seem extremely corrosive. Keep it simple and stick to what you know, steam mops for all floor types except carpet. And if you happen to spill some wine on your carpet remember to Blot, not scrub!