What to Know About Floor Maintenance

Whether it’s carpet, hardwood, stone tiling or vinyl, your floor needs to last for a while. Not only is new flooring a substantial investment for your home, but it also looks its best when you take the time to clean it. The time and money spent on floor cleaning Manhattan NY is well worth it, and you can lower the costs with smart, regular maintenance.

Keep a Schedule

As with any kind of maintenance, floor care is most effective when done regularly. This helps you remember to do it and also keeps messes from lingering too long or going unnoticed. At the same time, don’t force yourself to sweep, vacuum and mop day to day—that’s extra effort for little gain. As a rule of thumb, once every one or two weeks is optimal. If it helps, you can write up a checklist for cleaning your home, floors included.

Proactive Cleaning

While having regularly scheduled cleaning is important, it’s better still to take steps to reduce how much cleaning you have to do in the first place. Some examples:

• Clean up spills as soon as they occur, before they can settle in or stain the floor.
• Make a habit of taking your shoes off when you enter the house, and encourage guests to do the same. This helps prevent mud from being tracked in.
• Groom pets regularly, ideally somewhere where you can easily clean up afterward. Pet hair can get everywhere.
• Put felt pads underneath furniture legs so they don’t scuff the floor, and leave a drip tray under any potted plants to catch water.

Use the Right Tools

It’s obvious that different floors need different cleaning methods, but some common pitfalls aren’t as apparent. Mopping, for instance, is easy to do wrong. Without vacuuming first, you’re likely to make the floor dirtier, and sudsy soap leaves behind a residue that traps more dirt. Limit how much water and soap you use, especially on wood.

Choose your cleaners wisely. Despite the common advice of vinegar as a potent DIY cleaner, there are definite situations where you shouldn’t use it—remember that vinegar is acidic. Keep the vinegar, and any other acidic cleaners, away from hardwood, stone tiles and linoleum. In general, check the manufacturer’s care and maintenance instructions if possible to learn the dos and don’ts for a given floor.

Floor care doesn’t have to be an ordeal—with diligence and preparation, your flooring will stay beautiful for years.