Get matched with top floor polishers in Park River, ND

To maintain wood floors, sweep them regularly and mop using wood-safe cleaners. To protect the floors from wear and extend their lifespan, you should apply a sealant periodically and refinish them when needed.

Before starting on a full refinishing project, determine if your floors need to be completely sanded down to the bare wood or if the damage is shallow and mostly cosmetic. Deep scratches and gouges will require you to rough sand using a drum sander or belt sander, but small surface scratches or floors that have only lost their luster don’t need a complete overhaul. Instead, you can skip the rough sanding step and sand-screen the old finish with a buffer, removing only the top layer of polyurethane.

Most DIY floor cleaners don’t require rinsing, but you’ll want to make sure you don’t add too much dish soap or oil to the cleaner to avoid having to rinse it after cleaning. For non-wood floors, mix 8 parts warm water, 1 part vinegar, and 1 part baking soda with a few drops of dish soap. For wood floors, use olive oil in that same mixture instead of the vinegar. You can let these solutions air-dry after cleaning your floors with them, although you should manually dry your floors if they aren’t waterproof.

Vinegar is an excellent cleaner for vinyl flooring and won’t ruin the material. Mopping the floor with a cup of vinegar diluted in a gallon of warm water can make it sparkle.