Anyone out there have any advice for El Bachelore on cleaning the hardwood floors in my apartment? Do I need any certain cleaning product, or can I use soap and water? Will I need to wax them after I mop?
Yes, I have a mother. Yeah, I’m 24. So what? Shut up.
He weathered a firestorm of agony and did not break.
And while Yori raged against his unbending
courage, we took Kyuden Hiruma back.
His loss is great, but so is the gift his suffering brought.
-Yakamo’s Funeral
Don’t mop. Water is the main enemy of a hardwood floor. Abrasives are another problem. Adopt the Japanese custom of not wearing shoes in the house.
There’s a product called Murphy’s Oil Soap that is made for cleaning wood, including furniture and floors. You should be able to find it wherever you usually get cleaning stuff.
Look for Murphy’s Oil Soap. A mixture of that and water damp-mopped on your floor will clean and protect it.
The paint/stain section of your hardware store should also have a lot of wood floor cleaning products.
Make sure that you put little felt pads on the feet of all your furniture, most importantly the chairs. If you don’t, every time you move a chair you’ll scratch the floor. Again, the hardware store had both the adhesive type pads and the nail-on kind. Don’t put this off.
If you have a lot of traffic across this floor, think about getting a carpet runner or a large area rug. Or be a little Japanese and make your slob friends leave their Doc Martens, platform shoes, and stilleto heels at the door.
If this is a really sunny room, consider getting blinds. The constant beating of the sun on one spot will eventually destroy the finish on the floor.
Thanks, all, for the help.
Guy-any advice for getting rid of scratches once they’re there? Does it require refinishing the floor?
He weathered a firestorm of agony and did not break.
And while Yori raged against his unbending
courage, we took Kyuden Hiruma back.
His loss is great, but so is the gift his suffering brought.
-Yakamo’s Funeral
Flyp, one caveat about the Murphy’s: Check to make sure your floor is really a true hardwood floor and not a laminate or synthetic like Pergo. The oil won’t really harm something like that, but it’s not neccesary and may make your floor a little greasier than you would want it. As far as getting scratches out, it’s a real pain to sand floors and I wouldn’t recomend doing it yourself anyway. If the scratches are small, you might want to look into buying one of those markers they sell for covering marks in furniture; they seem to work pretty well on floors as well.
“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching
When I worked for the homebuilder, our flooring vendor recommended 1 cup of white vinegar to 1 gallon of warm water. She said to dampen a mop with this mixture and then run a dry towel over it afterwards (right after you mop it). This will clean it plus dry it off so the water won’t have time to penetrate.
You should also check to see if you have a polyurethane finish vs. a true wax finish. The treatment above is for polyurethane finishes.
You’d only need the Murphy’s every once in a while. If the floor is just dusty, you can use a dry mop sprayed with Endust or something similar.
I always find that sliding around on hardwood floors with my socked feet keeps them shining and me amused.
I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!
And keeps your socks nice and nasty PCW! eeewwwww! 
Don’t forget your MP3 of Old Time Rock and Roll.
They don’t call me the colonel because I’m some dumbass army guy.
There’s a new dry-moppy thing called “Swiffer” at places like Target that’s supposed to be GREAT for sweeping hardwood. We got it for Xmas but haven’t used it yet - but if anybody knows if it works, let me know.
Sucks to your assmar.
are you trying to say that my socks are nice and I am nasty Dem?
I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!
The last time I sprayed Endust on my dust mop and went over the hardwood floor, we were all slippin’ and slidin’ for days.
Maybe I used too much. The Swiffer thing is way cool – you won’t believe what comes up even after you sweep with a broom, or even after the vacuum. Kinda like Stri-Dex for your floor.
The folks over in alt.home.repair seem pretty down on the Murphy’s Oil Soap for polyurethaned floors. (Do a dejanews on Hardwood Floor Nightmare). Apparently it’s not so bad up until you try to put a touch-up coat of poly on the floor – the oil prevents the new coat from adhering.
Ive got wood floors, too. Real ones. 90 years old. A real bitch to clean.
My solution? Use something called Mop Glow. You won’t believe what this stuff can do to make your wood floor look nice. Even the dirt for some miraculous reason, gets picked up and a nice shine is put down & no rubbing whatso ever. A bottle goes a long way.
Flipsyde–it depends on (1) the depth of the scratches, (2) the type of finish, and (3) the type of wood. Very small scratches can be covered up using magic markers. The hardware store should carry a selection of brown markers for touch-ups; one color should match the color of your wood. Color in the scratch and wipe off the excess.
Scratches in the finish can be repaired a number of ways, again depending on the finish. For example, a very light buffing with a rag that’s been treated with solvent can take out scratches in finish. The type of solvent depends on the finish (shellac–alcohol). Not for the careless or over-cautious.
Deep honking grooves in the wood means stripping, sanding, and refinishing.
What kind of flooring do you have? Tongue&groove? Parquet? Wood tile? What kind of wood? What kind of finish?
PCW, I’d love to get nasty with you and your nice socks!
Beefymeg, I saw a review of the Swiffer on a Canadian consumer show (Marketplace) and they concluded that it was less effective than a “regular” dry dust mop. The static action shown in TV commercials just didn’t show up in real life, and you have to finish the job with a broom and dustpan.
If a way to do a job wrong exists, someone someday will do it that way.