Hardwood floors add beauty, charm, and warmth to your home but, besides their aesthetic value, one of their best attributes is that they’re easy to clean. Most of the time, a quick vacuuming is all they need.
I’m not talking about vacuuming for a little longer than usual or wiping them down with your Swiffer. I’m talking about rolling up your sleeves and getting rid of the stains and grime that have built up over several months.
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Although the process is quite simple, there are important details to know about each step to maximize your efforts and, more importantly, avoid damaging your floors.
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To get the full story, keep reading. In this article, I explain step-by-step how to deep clean hardwood floors. Plus, I teach you how to avoid common cleaning mistakes, how often your floors need cleaning, and how to prevent stains in the first place.
The first and easiest step in the process is to remove loose dirt and dust from your floors. The best tool for this step is a vacuum with a floor attachment that has soft bristles.
Avoid using a vacuum with an aggressive beater bar with hard bristles. A beater bar is a cylinder-shaped bar within the vacuum head that spins rapidly to lift dirt embedded deep in high-pile carpets. Large upright-style vacuums designed for carpets typically have ultra-aggressive beater bars, and most of them will scratch hardwood floors unless the vacuum head is designed specifically for hard surfaces.
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If you’re thinking about investing in a new vacuum, I recently published this article comparing the top vacuums for hardwood floors and area rugs. Spoiler: I highly recommend canister-style vacuums, and the best one you can buy is the Dyson Ball Multi Floor Canister Vacuum (also helpful: my in-depth comparison of Bissell vs. Dyson vacuums). It’s super powerful and comes with plenty of attachments for hardwood floors.
If your current vacuum doesn’t have an attachment for wood floors, the next best option is to use a floor mop that has a detachable microfiber head like this one. The microfibers act as a vacuum for particles of dust while other mops and sponges with thicker fibers push dust along but don’t pick it up.
To get the best results, fill a spray bottle with water and give your floors a very light spritz before wiping them immediately with the microfiber mop. The water will attract dust and dirt particles, and the microfiber cloth will absorb the water.
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If you don’t have a vacuum safe for hardwood floors or a microfiber mop, sweep up the loose dirt and dust with a broom that has fine bristles and exploded/split tips (like this). The fine bristles are small enough to pick up dust and dirt sandwiched between the floorboards. Some brooms have thicker bristles that won’t pick up dust as well and could scratch your floor.
Now that you’ve cleared out the loose dirt and dust, it’s time to determine the type of finish on your floors. This step is vital because floor cleaning products are designed for particular finishes, and using the wrong product could lead to severe, and in some cases irreversible, damage.
The good news is that you don’t have to be a home improvement guru to figure out which type of finish is on your floors. Let me explain in straightforward terms.
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Surface finishes are the most common type of residential wood floor finish. Some examples of finishes in this category are polyurethane, oil-based urethane, water-based urethane, and moisture-cured urethane. They are applied on top of stained wood floors to provide a layer of protection and give them a glossy, semi-gloss, or satin look.
Surface finishes prevent water and other liquids from absorbing into the floor, making it easy to wipe up spills. This type of finish is so popular because it makes floors super durable and easy to maintain.
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Rather than creating a barrier on top like surface finishes do, penetrating finishes (also known as oil finishes) absorb deep into the fibers of the wood to oxidize and harden it from the inside out. Most floors with penetrating finishes are coated with a layer of floor wax, which adds some surface protection but not nearly as much as a surface finish.
Floors with penetrating finishes are very prone to water damage. Since the finish and wax coating doesn’t completely seal the surface, liquids can seep into the wood, causing it to expand and warp.
Since floors with penetrating finishes require more maintenance, they are much less common than surface finishes, especially in newer homes. However, before surface finishes came about in the 1920s, oiled and waxed wood floors were the only option. If your home was built before 1920, there’s a decent chance your floors have a penetrating finish.
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Now that you understand the two types of finishes, how do you determine which finish is on your floor? There are a couple of methods; the water method and the scraping method.
The product I recommend for floors with surface finishes is Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner (see on Amazon). It comes in a spray bottle, making it easy to apply while keeping the amount of moisture in check. You can also buy a larger tank to refill it.
To learn more about why I recommend Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, check out our in-depth review that covers how to use it, what it’s made of, it’s key benefits, what customers complain about the most.
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Alternatively, Bona makes a great microfiber mop that comes with their cleaner and spray functionality built-in. All you have to do is pull the trigger below the handle to wet the floor as you mop. It’s super popular and is very affordable on Amazon .
When it comes to water-based wood floor cleaners, there are so many options. You can save money buying generic brands, but I typically choose Bona products since they’re a trusted brand that has been completely dedicated to the installation, renovation, maintenance, and care of wood floors since 1919 .
Bona water-based wood floor cleaners are incredibly effective and have very low VOC emissions making them not only safe for your floors but also safe for you. I’ve talked to many unaffiliated floor experts over the past several years, and 8 out of 10 of them recommend Bona products.
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If you’re not a fan of Bona, Black Diamond Stoneworks Wood & Laminate Floor Cleaner is another great water-based cleaner that’s very affordable and gets excellent reviews. Like I mentioned, there are dozens of others if you browse the cleaning aisle at any home improvement store.
You can’t go wrong with either of these specially formulated cleaners, but you can go wrong by trying to develop a solution of your own. Many blogs will tell you to grab a bucket and mix water and vinegar, or water and lemon juice, water and bleach, or even water and tea bags—I’ve read it all.
What they don’t tell you is that the acid in these homemade solutions will break down the top layer of sealer, allowing moisture to absorb into the wood. When moisture gets in, the wood expands and begins to warp—not good.
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The tricky part is that your floor may look great after cleaning it with water and vinegar/lemon/tea once, but experiments have shown that repeated use will degrade the finish and lead to severe damage.
While they sound like great “hacks, ” your hardwood floors are too important and frankly too valuable to risk it. Spend the $15 or so and get a cleaner that will get the job done without the risk.
Since floors protected by a penetrating finish are even more susceptible to water damage than floors with surface finishes, use only pH-neutral cleaners specifically designed for penetrating/oil-based finishes. Avoid all water-based floor cleaners as those will quickly absorb into the wood and lead to irreversible damage.
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The best product on the market is the Bona Professional Series Natural Oil Hardwood Floor Cleaner (see on Amazon). Its solvents and surfactants are specially formulated for hardwood floors treated with penetrating oil finishes. It’s not only safe for your floors, but it’s also non-toxic, non-flammable, biodegradable, and GREENGUARD Children and Schools Certified, making it safe for you and your family. For more details, check out this product’s technical datasheet.
Now that you’ve removed the dust and dirt, identified the finish, and gathered the proper cleaning solutions, it’s time to get cleaning.
For surface-finished floors, spray the water-based hardwood floor cleaner of your choice on your floors and wipe it immediately with a microfiber cloth or floor mop with a microfiber cloth head. You do not need to mix the cleaner with water; the cleaner is designed to work on its own. Also, it comes in a spray bottle to limit the amount of moisture on your floors.
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If you don’t have a mop with a microfiber head, you can buy one on Amazon (they’re very inexpensive ), or you can use a regular sponge mop. I recommend microfiber because
