How to wash wooden floors without spending a lot of time on it?

Wood flooring allows air to pass through well, retains heat, has a beautiful appearance, and has a calming effect on the nervous system. The main thing is to know the ways and means that will help keep your wooden floor clean.

How to clean a painted floor

In a residential area, it is customary to paint a wooden floor with paint or enamel specially designed for this purpose. This coating reliably protects the wood from the formation of greasy and dirty stains. Dust does not penetrate through the protective film, but remains on the surface, which greatly simplifies the work of cleaning the floor.

Before you start wet cleaning, you need to clear the floors, as much as possible, of objects standing on them. Then you should thoroughly vacuum or sweep the boardwalk with a broom. Otherwise, all the dust will move into the joints between the floorboards, and it will be very difficult to wash it.

To clean painted floors, use a soft flannel cloth and a mop. If ordinary daily cleaning is planned, you can do without detergents. You just need to pour clean warm water into a bucket, wet and wring out the cloth thoroughly and walk along the floorboards.

It's another matter if it's time to do some spring cleaning.In this case, the following products will help clean wooden floors:

• acetic acid (9%) - a five-liter bucket of water will require 50 g of vinegar;
• ammonia - 1 tbsp. l. for 5 liters of water;
• baking soda - 4 tbsp. l. for 2 liters of water.

When cleaning painted wood, you should not choose products containing chlorine. The dirty spots will disappear, but the wood will permanently take on a whitish tint.

At the end of general cleaning, you can wipe the floors with a special solution that gives painted wood a special shine. To prepare the product, add 2 tbsp to 2 liters of water. l. table vinegar and 1 tbsp. l. furniture polishes.

How to wash floors for the first time after painting

A freshly painted wood floor is shiny and sparkling clean. But a few days pass and dust, various prints and other contaminants appear on the new coating.

To remove stains and stubborn dirt from recently painted floors, you need to remember a few rules:

• The first time the floor is washed two weeks after painting. During this time, the paint will dry thoroughly and be absorbed into the wood.
• Do not use detergents, just warm water and a soft cloth. You just need to change the water more often (bucket 2-3 m²).
• If the floorboards are painted with pentaphthalic-based alkyd enamel, you can wipe the floors with a solution containing vinegar essence. To do this, pour 1 tbsp into a 10 liter container of water. l. 70% vinegar, wash the floor, and then be sure to wipe it with a clean damp cloth. Be careful: vinegar essence should not get on the skin or mucous membranes!
• If nitro enamels or polyurethane enamels were used to paint the floor, it is better not to use an acid solution, but simply wipe with a damp cloth.

For all paint and varnish coatings, you can use a weak solution of ammonia (add 1 tablespoon of ammonia to 10 liters of water).

How to properly clean an unpainted floor

Unpainted wooden floors are most often found in bathhouses, cottages, verandas and summer kitchens. Such a coating requires careful cleaning, otherwise the wood will darken, become covered with numerous stains of grease, and the room will look sloppy.

When starting to clean unpainted flooring, you need to prepare:

• a brush with short, stiff bristles;
• a piece of cotton cloth;
• bucket with water;
• laundry soap or soda.

To obtain a cleaning product, baking soda in the amount of 3 tbsp. l. dissolve in 1 liter of water. If you decide to use laundry soap, then grind one bar on a coarse grater and dilute it in 5 liters of warm water.

Moisten the floorboards one by one with the prepared mixture, while rubbing them with a brush. Do not leave puddles on wooden floors for long periods of time. To prevent moisture from being absorbed into the surface of unpainted wood and the boards from swelling, each area to be treated must be wiped with a slightly damp cloth.

Removing Stains from Wood Floors

On wood floors, like on any other flooring, complex stains can appear in the form of paths in the hallway from dirt brought in with shoes from the street, oil stains, stuck chewing gum or traces of cat urine. Each type of contamination has its own cleaning method.

Dirty stains near the entrance

The part of the corridor near the front door is the most trafficked place in a house or apartment, so the floors in this place get dirty the fastest. To wash street dirt from a wooden surface, you need to arm yourself with a rag, a brush and any detergent.Dishwashing gel, washing powder, and laundry soap are suitable. Having prepared a soap solution, apply it to the surface of the floorboards, rub with a brush and rinse with clean water. If it is impossible to deal with stains using ordinary detergents, use Pronto wood surface cleaner.

Grease stains

Such stains can most often be found in the kitchen or dining room. Food falling on the floor, splashes when frying fish in a frying pan, spilled mayonnaise - all this can lead to a room looking sloppy. You can deal with contaminants using gasoline or solvent. You need to moisten a paper napkin in one of these products and rub the stain thoroughly, then wash the floor in this place with a soap solution.

Adhesives

If chewing gum is stuck to the wooden floor, children have smeared plasticine or stuck tape, do not despair. You can deal with such contaminants by freezing. Place a bag of ice on the sticky substance and wait until the stain is thoroughly frozen. After this, the hardened substance can be easily scraped off with any metal object.

Dye

Drops of old dried paint can be removed with alcohol. A cotton pad soaked in alcohol is placed on the blot and left for several minutes until the stain becomes soft and pliable. Then they scrape it off with a knife, and wipe off the remaining traces with a soap solution.

Rubber sole marks

Many have found themselves in a situation where the guests have left after the holiday, and the entire floor is covered with rubber heels. Baking soda will help get rid of such contaminants.The powder is poured onto the dirty area, moistened a little with water and rubbed until the black stripe disappears. Then rinse the floorboards with clean water and wipe with a dry cloth.

Urine stains

Pet owners are familiar with the problem of removing urine stains from wood flooring. It’s not so bad if trouble with your pet happened for the first time and the puddle was noticed in time. In such a situation, you need to act as quickly as possible, because urine discolors the paint and quickly eats into the wood, while an unpleasant odor spreads throughout the apartment.

To get rid of contamination, you need to do the following:

1. dry the puddle with a paper towel;
2. wash the area of ​​contamination with warm water and detergent;
3. clean the remaining stains with a swab dipped in ammonia.

In the store you can buy a special product to remove such contaminants and treat the surface with it. If none of the techniques help, you will have to replace the damaged floorboards.

It is not difficult to care for a plank floor if you carry out wet cleaning at least once a week, lay rugs near the entrance and in the hallway, and do not walk around the house in boots. And random stains can always be removed using household chemicals or improvised means.