What Do You Get When You Maintain Your Hardwood Floors Correctly?
If you are on the fence about purchasing hardwood floors due to the expense or other concerns, you can feel confident that hardwood flooring is the best choice for your home! When you consider the low maintenance and overall life of a hardwood floor, the benefits far outweigh the initial cost! Here are the top 4 reasons why hardwood floors are the best flooring option for your home:
1. Beautiful Appearance Of Natural Hardwood
The primary reason why so many folks prefer hardwood flooring is because of its unique and beautiful appearance. Despite being one of the oldest types of floor materials, it never goes out of style and adds a tremendous amount of character to your house! This is because of the wide variety of wood types that are available, including different shades, designs, colors and grain patterns. Due to the stunning look of hardwood floors, it actually increases the value of your home. In fact, hardwood flooring is often the deciding factor when it comes to the sale of a house!
2. Hardwood Floors are Low Maintenance
While hardwood floors may generally cost more than carpeted floors, they also require much less maintenance! Since hardwood floors usually consist of a sealed surface with a protective layer of finish, they are more stain resistant than other flooring types. Hardwood floors can also be repaired or refinished while carpet often needs to be replaced completely when damaged. While hardwood floors do get dented, scratched and scraped, they can often be sanded down and refinished to look like new. It is highly unlikely that you would ever need to completely replace your hardwood floor!
3. Hardwood Is Easy to Keep Clean
Another reason why hardwood floors are the best flooring option for your home is because they are easy to keep clean! There is no place for dirt and debris to hide, which makes it is easy to find and remove with a vacuum. This results in a cleaner and healthier living environment, which is particularly welcome for those who suffer from allergies! On the other hand, carpet absorbs a significant amount of dust, germs and other unwanted particles into its fibers that can be difficult to remove. While keeping carpet or rugs clean in your home, keeping clean hardwood floors just requires a making laps with good swiffer or other type of dry mop occasionally. In fact, a dry mop can keep you from needing to mix up a bucket of water and cleaning solution except when the wood floors in your home have spots or stains.
4. Environmental Benefits
While you might not normally think about the environmental benefits of hardwood flooring, it is actually the most renewable type of flooring material available! In fact, the U.S. Forest Service has stated that the annual net growth for hardwoods is greater than the annual rate of removal.
When it comes to the differences between producing carpet and hardwood, carpet production requires more synthetic materials and is treated with more chemicals. Hardwood can also last a lifetime while carpet usually needs to be completely replaced every 10 to 15 years! When hardwood does reach the end of its life cycle, it can be recycled which makes it very sustainable.
Using The best Floor Cleaning Products
Another extremely important tip for you to apply to your proper care routine is to utilize the correct cleaner. I cannot tell you how many customers have returned to my store to complain that the shine is gone from their exquisite new hardwood floors after a short time. This is always caused by using a cleaning solution that contains oils or soaps. Dish soap belongs on dishes, not wood! Only a no-rinse floor cleaner should be used on any floor that has a polyurethane finish. Anything else will leave a residue that attracts and holds dust and debris. Choose a hardwood floor cleaner like Armstrong's Once N Done, or one of the Bona cleaning products the next time you mop. Or even use a vinegar and water solution, as it will dry cleanly as well.
If you need to strip residue to have clean hardwood floors I recommend the New Beginning product from Armstrong. Just divide your floor into small areas and clean each area separately. Future cleaning will be much easier and it will take less work to maintain and care for your wood floor. Floor cleaning and dry mopping will keep you and your floor happy.
Tips To Keep My Hardwood Floor Free of Scratches
Scratches on your wood floor will happen, but there are steps that you can take to cut down on that type of damage. Two really important safeguards are walk off mats and frequent dry mopping.
Walk off mats should be used outside of all doorways that lead to the outdoors. These mats allow dirt, dust, grit and sand to fall from your shoes instead of being carried inside and distributed to the surface of your floor.
The #1 cause of scratches and abrasive wear is from particles that are found on the finish of your floor.
That is why the second tool is so important. Frequent dry mopping using a Swiffer or something similar will keep that grit on the sidelines where it belongs. Cleaning not only makes your hardwood floors look better, a clean floor is the best method for making your floor last.
Check out all of the hardwood floors at ReallyCheapFloors.com today to find the best flooring option for your home and to enjoy the fantastic benefits of a hardwood floor! We look forward to helping you make your home look more beautiful than ever!