Caring for Your Wood Flooring


  1. Set (and keep) a schedule for cleaning and maintaining the floor.The NWFA recommends sweeping or dust mopping daily, vacuuming weekly using your vacuum’s bare floor setting, cleaning monthly with wood flooring cleaner, applying a maintenance coating every three to five years, and sanding and refinishing every few decades. Exact schedule is up to you.
  2. Prevent scratching up the floors by placing throw rugs at your doorways.
    Shoes pick up anything and everything you can think of from outside. Throw rugs are beneficial for more than adding an extra design element to a space – they catch some of that debris and keep it from making scratch marks.
  3. Use stick-on felt protectors on the legs of your furniture.
    Like a throw rug with outside debris, felt protectors can help protect your floor from being scratched up by your furniture. The NWFA recommends replacing them often, because dirt and debris can get into them and turn them into something more like sand paper than protection.
  4. Clean up spills quickly.
    Liquids and wood flooring are not the best combination. If you spill something on it, use a slightly dampened cloth to clean it up.
  5. Take off the broken heels before you walk on wood flooring.
    The amount of pressure your foot exerts when you are walking across something is more than you think (8,000 lbs/square inch for a 125 lb woman wearing heels with an exposed heel nail, according to the NWFA). Your broken heel will put dents in your floor, which you probably do not want. This also goes for sports cleats.


Considering wood flooring in your home? Contact us for an estimate today.