Wood Care & Maintenance

During the purchasing process, end users should be clearly informed on how to keep their new hardwood floors looking their best. The basic steps for Hardwood maintenance is to ensure that there is regular dusting, vacuuming or mopping — these are the standard floor cleaning activities and can be easily adopted into your home’s pre-existing cleaning routine.

Do’s

  • Although water is often considered the enemy of wood, dirt, dust, grit and oil are also quite harmful If left for long periods on time. It is always advisable to put a mat at the entryway.
  • We recommend a microfiber mop or cloth (instead of a broom) to safely clear dirt and clean the floors. Depending on your floor type and finish, you should select the right the cleaning solution and at San Diego Marble & Tile, we can help you choose the right cleaner for your wood flooring – please just ask one of our friendly staff.
  • Avoid using anything harsh, like vinegar,
  • Avoid using a lot of moisture, whether that be water or cleaner
  • Avoid wet mops that use a lot of water or steamers.

Don’ts

– Tip #1

The best way to protect a hardwood floor is to give it a fresh coat or finish every five years or so, depending on the foot traffic it experiences. If correctly maintained, a hardwood floor should never have to be placed. But wood’s most unique selling points is if the floor does endure a catastrophic event like a flood or suffers from deep scratches, then it can be sanded down, retreated and re-coated to look like new.

– Tip #2

A solid wood floor’s top surface can be sanded down four or five times, but that number varies with engineered wood depending on the thickness of its veneer, and the lower quality options sometime can’t be sanded down at all.

– Tip #3

The thicker the wear layer, the more it has to be sanded down. But there are other factors to consider, too. For example, if it’s wire brushed, we have to sand away even more material — rougher surfaces require us to sand down peaks and valleys, so you may lose some or all of the character created with hand scraping, if present.