Bleaching Hardwood Flooring Is a Bad Idea
Homeowners often ask us if they can use bleach to clean and disinfect their hardwood flooring. Using bleach as a household cleaning agent is a cost-efficient way to disinfect the bathtub and keep your socks looking bright and clean, but bleach is a highly caustic chemical; using it to clean your delicate hardwood floors could cause serious, irreparable damage to your floor’s delicate finish.
A quick Google search will turn up a trove of information on just about any topic you can think of, but just because someone posted it on a website doesn’t necessarily make that information reliable, accurate, or truthful. Some self-proclaimed home improvement aficionados tout bleach as an effective method for pickling certain species of unfinished wood.
If you’re trying to lighten reclaimed banisters, moldings, or chair rails, bleach may work for those specific purposes; however, using bleach to lighten or pickle your hardwood flooring will weaken the wood’s fibers, making your flooring more susceptible to damage caused by foot traffic.
Save the Steam for Ironing Your Clothing
Some people claim using steam is the best way to clean a hardwood floor. Steam may work to remove dirt from the surface layer, but steam will cause the wood to swell and contract, which could lead to unsightly gaps between the planks. Additionally, steam may cause your flooring to peak, creating a trip hazard that might send you or a loved one to the emergency room.
So What Should I Use to Clean My Hardwood Flooring?
The best method to maintain hardwood flooring’s beauty is inexpensive and easy; all you need to do is remove your shoes as soon as you enter your home.
The treads on your shoes pick up tiny rocks and other abrasives that will inevitably cause unsightly scratches and dents on your hardwood flooring. Removing your shoes and maintaining a regular sweeping schedule—always with the grain, never against it—is the best way to keep your floor’s finish looking beautiful and scratch-free.
When your flooring is in need of a more thorough cleaning, we recommend using the Bona hardwood floor cleaning system. Wilhelm Edner, founder of Bona, made floor wax as a means to supplement the income he earned selling coffee in Sweden back in 1919.
As demand for Bona’s products began to grow beyond the European marketplace, Bona started to expand its existing product line. Ninety-nine years after Wilhelm Edner made his first sale of floor wax, Bona’s award-winning line of sealants and cleaning products are available to consumers throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and South America.
When you want your floors to have the very best protection, maintain them with one of Bona’s floor-cleaning solutions. For more information on Bona’s superior cleaning products, visit bona.com/en-US/.
