Two questions: What is recommended for cleaning (everyday) hard wood floors? Seems like in some areas the top coat has come off. What is to be done to address this.

really need help with the upkeep of my maple hardwood floors, everything we have tried do not work, we do not have pets or small kids. please can you help. Thanks

HELP! A friend recently bought a 90 year old house with beautiful hardwood floors in the main part of the house. The floors feel tacky and are dull. I suspect that the previous owners uses…..yikes Mop and glow on the floors. How do I get this off and what do we put back on them to protect the floor?

We really can not afford to strip and refinish at this time, and the floors are in very good shape with this exception. Any help would be appriciated.

Thanks SKC :)

Is it okay to use the cleaner “method” for our hard wood floors?

we have hard wood floors, about 10 years old,not been cleaned very often, but would like too clean them. what would i use. we do not wear shoes in our home.someone said vinegar. thanks tom vallier

What is a good cleanner for my solid oak floors. I heard vinegar and water?

What is a good floor cleanner for my 7 year old sold wood oak floors? My kitchen and family room area are becoming dull. I have been using the manufacturers recommended product (they make it) and now I have a build up.

Sounds like my troubles are the same as Rosemarys. I have hardwood in almost every room. There is an area ( a strip actually) that is lighter then the rest of the floor. and then there are several area that only a board or two is doing the same thing. those areas are not exposed to direct sun light. I feel as though the boxes may have had some defects in the wood. Do I need to take up the flooring to fix it? My next question is how do I care for the rest. I have heard use Murrphy oil, use viniger(if so what ratio?) or use orange cleaner for wood floors. I want that shine back in my floors. Thank you for your help

Hi, We have lovely oak floors pre finished.There is some wear where the main traffic is, not really bad but beginning to lose its glaze What can I do or apply to get it back looking like new ?

Would appreciate any advise, Thanking You, Yours Sincerely, Mike Ahern .

I have hard wood floors that were previously carpeted over them. The carpet has now been removed so how do I clean the fragment spots of carpet let on top of the floors. There are also a few scuff marks on them. Can I get by with just buffing the floors, with a cleaner? After they are buffed does a finish need to be put on the floors?

Looking for a machine to clean hard wood and ceramic tile flooring. What do you recommend. I recently purchased a Shark steamer. Please advise. Thank you.

I have new cherry wood floors nothing seems to keep them from printing when you walk on them. (socks, shoes and even clean bare feet leave prints). With four children this is very frustrating is there a product that can help prevent this?

I have hard wood floors have used several different cleaners but the floor are still dull. What products should I be using?

I cleaned our oak hardwood kitchen and living room floors with Murphy’s oil as directed,but with a mop. At first they shined but in 2 days were very dull and had streak marks. They looked better before i cleaned them! the livingroom is only a few mths,& never cleaned. The kitchen has been 1 yr & i just had washed it with warm water before. how can i get them back to look clean???

We just installed Bruce gunstock oak flooring with a polyurethane finish. What is the best way to clean it and what is the best cleaner to use?

I am having trouble finding a cleaner for my hardwood floors, they have a milky film over them and nothing seems to help. I used the vinegar and water but didn’t seen to remove all.

Thanks

I have the same problem as Lisa, nothing that I use keeps foot prints of the hard wood floor and it’s a big problem because we have cherry wood floors. I have two kids and it’s frustrating to keep cleaning every time someone walks on it. Please help me and tell me what can I do so solve my problem.

I am having the same problems as several other on this site, I wish you would put your answers to them on this site so we can all get the benefit of it, not just one person. But I have about 4 or 5 year hardwood floors that once had a beautiful shine and now have streaks and are dull. I have heard that Orange glow leaves a film. Unfortunately i didn’t hear that until I had already used it. How do I remove the Orange glow film and what is the best way to clean. I have two dogs that go in and out. In the spring or winter I have wet footprints even with a rug at the door. If you clean with vinegar and water, what ratio. I don’t want to have to get on my hands and knees to clean this floor constantly since this is a large floor area on my main floor. I am really confused about hardwood products, because they all say good for hardwood floors. How do you know which ones will leave a film and which ones are the best for cleaning.

My husband just installed engineered wood flooring in our kitchen. We put the felt pads underneath the chairs and table. It didn’t take our kids long to wear the pads and the adhesive is now on the floor. Could you tell me what to use to get it off the floor. I hate to use the wrong thing and damage the finish. Thank you

I had hardwood flooring put in 11 mos ago and I now notice that the wood is not flushed together, does the wood shrink? and in some parts it creeks. they were nailed in…. can anything be done? I would appreciate some advise. thank you

What do you recommend to clean my brand new oak hardwood floors? I am waiting a reply as I will need to clean them.

please help - my floors seem to have a dullness or film - can you tell me what to use to restore the shine and how to keep it that way. Thanks

My hardwood floors are getting dull and are losing their lustre. They have a polyurethane coat on them.How do you recommend cleaning them? Dilute vinegar–how often?.Would appreciate your advice

We have hardwood floors that are about 10 years old. We just moved in and everywhere our big dog walks, he leaves his footprints. I’ve tried cleaning with special cleaners made for hardwood and I’ve tried Murphy’s Oil Soap and water with vinegar. I’ve even scrubbed on my hands and knees. Nothing works - HELP!!!!

I am about to clean my hardwood floor with diluted vinegar and water. What ratio do you recommend?

I have a small section of water damage (where water came in around a window during hurricane Ike). What can I do to repair the damage? Can I refinish just the small section or will I need to do the entire floor? My hardwood floor goes from entry hall to dining room, office, living room and kitchen with no separation. It seems like a huge area to do for only a 1x1 square foot of damage. Please help!

My wood floors are only about a year old. What should I use to keep them clean? I started using just white vingar and water because other cleaners seemed to build up and the floors began to have a dull, sticky feeling. With the vingar and water alone, I don’t feel that the floors are really clean and I have tried various mops but they all leave streak marks. What is the best and safest clearer to use on my floors so that they are clean and shine?

Is vinegar and water the best method? If so, how much and how often? Should I use anything else?

HEY…..I see great questions, but how the heck do I get to the answers? I’ve never seen a site like this……The questions are a tease, but where are the answers or a link to them??

Thanks LP

We just installed prefinished hardwood floors. They look beautiful, but do need more than vaccuuming and dusting. How do you recommend washing them? Thank you

I agree with Linda Patterson…could you also post the answers. My question is that I see tv ads with steamers on hardwood floors…would you recommend?

Thanks for the fabulous feedback and comments on this page. We are working on getting our experts to review and answer your questions!

I apologize for any delays! We hope to get all of your burning questions answered quickly!

Our hardwood is very noisey when you walk on it. What can we do to quiet the floors? Also, is a wet mop harmful to the floors?

I have bruce prefinished floors. I mopped them with orange glo for hardwood. Now they have a white film on them. What can I use to take this film off?

We have a home with Brazilian cherry hardwood in all rooms on the main floor. The hardwood is protected with polyurethane. When I try washing the dirty areas with water and a cleaning pad the floor look streaked in these areas. Is water and vinagar the answer?

What kinds of wax are best for laminated wood floors?

mil

In how many years is expected to treat this kind of timber floor. Specially to protect the shines and the surface ,does it need any special kind of materials , chemical to clean it. Any suggestion will be appreciated.

We just installed Bruce Hickory hardwood floor in our kitchen. Please let me know how to best take care of it. Should we use no wax floor cleaner, or vinegar and water, etc. Thank you, Mary

We have hardwood flooring in our cafe and have been cleaning it with vinegar and water. This seems to act as well as any commercial product we’ve tried from Walmart or Home Depot to remove stains but leaves a haze.

Winter foot traffic is a real problem (we do have mats at the entrance to try catch snow melt and salt) so any tips would be appreciated.

I have severe allergies, I cant use harsh or heavy duty cleaners, I need to remove the wax on my tile floors to rewax as well as the rest of my home is done in all hardwood floors, which need cleaned as well. But due to the fact I cant use cleaners I can only use naturals cleaning, anyone have any idea’s on how I can clean these and still keep my lungs? If anyone knows please email me and give me your idea’s. Thanks in advance for all the help.

It never fells that I clean my hard wood floors and I turn around and there are feet prints all over them. Does not matter if you wear socks or not. How do I keep this from happening? This of course is after the floors are dry.

I would appreciate any answers you can post on caring for old hardwood floors that have been refinished with a polyurathane finish. I have been using a damp mop after sweeping/vacuuming.

I have a new prefinished hardwood floor, used murphys oil and then tried another make from costco. Both looked good for a day or so and now I cannot get the floor to shine to its original state. What am I doing wrong and what should I be cleaning this floor with to get the best results. Thanks Annette

Hi,

I installed Bruce prefinished hardwood flooring in my home 25 years ago. It is Gunstock and 3/4” thick with the beveled edge. Needless to say it is in need of help with 25 years of kids and traffic.

I had an estimate from a floor refinisher to sand and refinish this floor. He told me te prefinished floor had a wax finish. Is this true?

What and how do you recommend cleaning this floor?

What and how do you recommend restoring this floor until I have the floor refinished?

Thanks, Charles

I have bruce prefinished floors. The floors are gunstock. I mopped them with orange glo for hardwood. Now they have a white film on them. What can I use to take this film off? I want them to look like they did four years ago when they were installed. Thanks you.

Brenda

Rosemary - My floor was horribly dull and faded from pets and everyday wear-and-tear…I would suggest making sure to rid your house of these dangers…trim dogs nails regularly, place foot-paddings underneath all of your furniture. These steps will prevent anymore damage to your wood. To correct the problem, apply another layer of finish to the floor. If you are really in the mood for improvement, re-sand the floors and apply a brand new finish!

Lin, I use a 4:1 ratio…water:vinegar. It looks great at the end! Good luck…

George…swifer for hardwoods — easy and cheap! Those are the best results we have had. My friends use a little shark steamer to maintain and clean the wood once a week…Hope that helps!

Angie - I LOVE MY SHARK STEAMER! My son has asthma and I get headaches from strong smells, so the steamer is the best solution! Go to www.trysteammop.com - this is one variation of the steamer and explains how it works! I love mine and I think you are just going to love yours!

Carol, I understand. Everyone keeps talking about these steamers and I have to agree. Because of my asthma, harsh chemicals take my lungs down for the count. The steamers clean without giving off an bad emissions - just steam!

For Rosemary: You can do 1 of two things; Hire someone to come in a strip your floor and re-coat it, or If you are handy enough you can go through the steps and do it yourself. As far as cleaning hardwood floors, we like using the swifter as well as a steamer mop. Hope this helps.

to Bremda use a concentration of vinegar and water and it may take you a couple of rotations but it will get it up. Honestly that is what we use to mop our floor once a week.

Please Help I just cleaned a friends house and she asked me to use orange glow and i did I put in on the mop and at the end I decided to squeeze the bottle on to the floor well it freaked me out it left streaks and spots on the floor. Help please what do i need to do? can i get an answer asap? Thanks, Worried Sick

I am about to uncover hardwood floors from under my dirty stained old carpets. Can’t afford to have some one refinish them at this time, what is the best treatment I can give them so that they look half way decent? Is there a solution, cleaning product or wax I can buy?

I have hardwood floors that are 1 year old and are very dull with a buildup. What can I do to get the shine back and to get the build up off.

We just built a house and had Bruce -oak hardwood floors put in. I want to know the proper way to maintain a clean floor with a healthy shine.

I have also used orange glo, oil soap and pledge I now have a film on my floor I did try vineger and water doesn’t seem to help and have been on several sites that take me to this book offer on how to clean wood floors I don’t want to purchase a book I just want to get the film off my floors can anyone please help my floors are only a 9mths old and are DULL!!

Sandy, I used oil soap and then another product and the result was a streaky mess! Someone told me the combination of different oils made it look streaky.

It took several cleanings with 1 part vinegar and 4 parts water to get all of the residue off of the floors, but it did work eventually and now our floors look great.

Now, I use the Orange Glo products exclusively and never mix in another cleaning product. That seems to keep them looking even and “like new.”

I’ve read many of the requests listed at this site and I’m more confused now. My floors are from the original builder but had always been carpeted. We have had the floors sanded and restained and sealed. Later this week the contractor will put an oil-based poly finish. So all I will ever need is to dust or vacuum? What about the problem of foot prints that so many people are inquiring about? At some point I probably will feel I need to clean the floors, but from all the comments I read there doesn’t seem to be a particularly good product. Please instruct me on the best route. Thanks.

I live in an 80-something year old apartment with wood floors. The patterns differ from room to room. To the best of my knowledge the floors have not been polyurethaned and I don’t want to have that finish put on.

Do I ever want to wax the floors? If yes, how do I do it? What else do I want to do to care for them? I have never lived with old wood floors and I’m totally in the dark.

Do NOT use this Orange Glo product nor buy any of the ebooks folks are trying to sell you on how to remove the build up/haze. I called Orange Glo’s customer service line directly and found out how to remove this product off the floor. Their solution? Plain old ammonia and good old fashioned hands and knees elbow action! My entire main level is hardwood so imagine how long it took me an entire weekend to get the floors back to their original luster because there was so much build up on them.

Directions from Orange Glo’s customer service line:

1. Mix 1/2 cup of ammonia with 1 gallon of warm water.
2. Apply solution to floor with mop in inconspicuous place first to test.
3. Once you determine it’s okay to use on your floors…apply to floor and let stand for 5 minutes.
4. Wipe up the solution with a clean soft cloth.
5. Wipe with circular motion if there is more of a build up.
6. According to how much build up you have…you might have to repeat the process until it’s all off.

We’ve been using this product and at first it really looked nice but then the floors started looking dull and very scratched up. I didn’t understand why and then noted streaks where some parts of the floor were shiny and others were dull so I scraped with my fingernail and removed some product. Underneath it was shiny. So I decided to Google and found that lots of people were having the same problem!

I’m very disappointed this product is still being sold in stores as no one should ever use this on their floors!

We moved into a beautiful home with Southern Ontario Maple floors throughout. The wood is faded in several spots from area rugs and the rest is kind of “dingy” looking although cleaned thoroughly. There are also some black spots of stain where a pet food / water bowl has been left and we can’t seem to lift them. What to do? We also would like to know the best way of weekly cleaning these floors to bring them back to beautiful.

The best way I have found to clean my floor is to use the vinegar and water solution. As for removing the stain, you might want to invest the time buffing the floors and reapplying the floor polish?

In general, you should avoid using vinegar to clean hardwood floors frequently. Cleaning with vinegar can be damaging your hardwood floors in the long term. Vinegar is basically acidic; acidic substances tend to slowly chew through surfaces. Thus, when you use vinegar to clean hardwood floors on a regular basis, the vinegar will eventually damage the finish, giving the floors an uneven look. Vinegar won’t drastically damage your hardwood floor’s finish if you use it to clean your floor once or twice a year. However, it will cause your floor’s quality to degrade if you repeatedly use vinegar for cleaning for two or more months.

help very dull floors after using pledge floor cleaner we buffed rubbed uses h2o vingar alittle alcohol omg they are a mess help will they ever shine again

Im definately not an expert at this wood floor thing, but I do know that my floors look just fine…for now at least……I live in a 1940s style home that is roughly about 2500 square feet all of which are oak flooring….The floors have had a thin coat of polyurethane put on them so they are sealed but not super shiny by any means…..My wife and I swiffer them about once a week and then once a month we use Water & Murphy Oil Soap….It seems to work fine but I would like to know if there is something else that I can do to make them really shine without having to Poly the entire house….Ive Polyed an entire house before and its not a really quick job and then move back in……its a go stay at friends for a week while it dries and the fumes go away kind of job……

We just put in hardwood floors and I dropped a glass casserole cover on it and it made a big gouge in the floor. I have to look at it every day because it’s right by the fridge. Any suggestions on filling the hole or what should our plan be? Thanks

I would like to know if I should try and fill a whole in my new wood floor.

We have just had installed Scandian Brazilian Cherry Hardwood Floors throughout our entire home that we just purchased. They were expensive and they are beautiful.

Because the dining, living and family rooms, along with the kitchen are also about finished being remodeled, there is a lot of dust from the remodeling work to be cleaned off of the floors. I have read that a shop vac is a good place to start and was wondering if this were true.

We also have Bona hardwood floor cleaner which has come highly recommended, and plan to use that too.

My main question which we have received several different answers is this.

I have seen several TV infomercials that says these new STEAM MOPS are safe for lifting up dirt and dust from hardwood floors and they will not damage or hurt them. Has anyone had any experience using one of these, and if so, did they do a good job without causing any damage? Or should we play it safe and just stick to the vacuum first, then Bona hardwood floor cleaner on the micro fiber mop cloths>

Thank-you all for any help.

I have streaks on my hardwood floors from orange glow 2 in 1 clean and shine. Orange glow told me to clean them with 1/2 cup amonia to a gallon of water. I did that and cannot tell a difference at all. What will get the streaks out?

I had a minor leak in my fridge and it has had some affect on the floor. Anything I can do to help the situation?

Just installed Scandian Brazilian Cherry Solid Hardwood Flooring in majority of new house. How do I clean? Scared to death after reading the comments. I don’t want the finish to become dull, please help.

We have maple hardwood floors in our home which is 4 years old. For the last 3 and a half years we have had several rugs on top of the hardwood floors to protect them from scratches etc. When I took the rugs up to have them cleaned I noticed that the color of the wood that was under the rug is different from the other wood. Is there a way that I can get all the flooring back to the same color? It has now been 6 months since we had the rugs down and there hasn’t been any noticeable changes.

Hello, I am sick over this one. I have a new cleaning lady that I asked specifically not to use anything on our brand new hardwood floors. She took it upon herself to use orange glow cleaner made for wood floors, after I asked her to only dry mop and vacuum it. My floor is terribly streaked and dull in several spots where it looks like build-up from the cleaner. What can I do to fix this?? I am sick over this, PLEASE HELP!!! Pam

David; Yes steamers are fine on hardwood floors I use one weekly on mine and do not have a problem with it. My finish looks great.

Pam; use a concentrated mixture of vinegar and water you may have to mop over your floor a few times to get the mixture to break up the orange glo.

Hope this helps

We have prefinished hardwood floors that we have been cleaning with “recommended” prefinished hardwood floor cleaners. The flooring , after about a year started loosing it’s satin finish, becoming hazy when viewed with the grain, but still shinmy when viewed cross grain. The dealer has no reccommendations as to why this happened and what we can do about it. Can we use a hard paste wax and buff it much like the old oak flooring? How do we “occasionally” clean off the old wax buildup without destroying the original “prefinish”?

Thanks, we appreciate any help you might give us

I have Brazilian cherry hardwood floors - less than 2 years old. I have used a variety of products - both on line, and on the shelf - (Orange Glo, steam cleaning, PolyCare floor cleaner, Bruce Floor products) etc over that time. Now, the floor is now dull, streaked and looks very bad. I have heard that using vinegar and water may help to help, but have also heard that it will degrade the floor’s surface so now I’m afraid to use that.

Please, does anyone know how to clean hardwood floors, and bring back the life in its appearance? After spending a fortune to have these installed, it is very upsetting to say the least.