Whether you have hardwood, laminate, carpet, concrete, or tile floors, you’ll want to know how to do the best job you can maintaining them. Here, we have a list for any floor type so you can easily read about how to clean and maintain your floors.
Carpets: Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum! Especially in heavy traffic areas. Dirt and grit acts like fine sand paper fraying the ends of your carpet pile. Regular vacuuming with a high quality vacuum will lengthen the life of your carpet and keep the pile looking tall and fluffy much longer. If you need a suggestion on a great vacuum to purchase, check out our Big Vac Pro. Sturdy and dependable, this is a vacuum for the pros!
Now, I’m sure you already do a lot of vacuuming, but what about spills? Spray spills and stains immediately with Speed Cleaning’s Red Juice and blot up with a cotton cloth. Red Juice works miracles, I tell you! My husband spilled a cup of red tea on our living room carpet, and just blotted it up with a towel….needless to say, the stain was still there the next day. So I grabbed my bottle of Red Juice and sprayed and blotted. Voila! Completely stain free, even a day after the stain had dried.
Hardwood: If you happen to have the older high-maintenance, get on your hands and knees and wax hardwood floors, we wish you well… They require a lot of upkeep! Nowadays, most wood floors have a hard, plastic-like finish such as polyurethane, which requires much less maintenance since it is a no-wax finish. Do be sure to keep it swept/vacuumed, but do not wash the floors with any soap-based detergent. Clean with a dilute ammonia solution or a neutral cleanser formulated for these floors.
Laminate: Laminate flooring is one of the easiest floors to keep up with. All you need is a solution of warm water, vinegar, and a mild detergent like dish soap or a neutral cleanser like Sh-Clean. Easy peasy!
Tile: The key to keeping tile looking great is to clean up dirt/grease/spills quickly. Sweep or vacuum frequently. It will keep the grout looking clean and new as well. Mop with either Sh-Clean or a little bit of Red Juice to keep floors spotless.
Cement: Cement floors are pretty simple to keep up with. Start by running over with a dust mop or a wet/dry mop. Follow up with a solution of warm water and a mild dish detergent or neutral cleaner like Sh-Clean. Be sure to not get these floors overly wet.
As is the case with all cleaning and maintenance chores, the key is to clean often rather than letting the dirt build up, which makes the cleaning more time consuming. Who wants to spend more time cleaning???
I had no idea grit and dirt could fray your carpet ends! I’ve never been one to vacuum much, but now that I know this, I will get to it. My wife really wants to get new carpet next year, even though the carpet we have right now looks just fine. We’ll see what it looks like later on.
This is some really good information about carpet cleaning. I like that you pointed out that you should vacuum regularly. It does seem like that would make your carpet stay cleaner longer and have other cleaning treatments come out better as well.
I have old hardwood floors. They were just restored not long ago. They are so beautiful, but they take up so much of my time to clean. Thank you for wishing me luck with my floors. I need it! I think I will find a company that knows how to clean the old floors.
I learned really good carpet maintenance habits from a young age because I had two cats living in my room since I was 7. Cats make lots of messes on the carpet, which I had to clean up. My experiences are solid evidence to support your statement that spills or messes need to be sprayed and cleaned immediately. If I caught my cats in the act, I could get it cleaned up so well that you wouldn’t know anything had happened. If it happened while I was at school, then I had to put lots of work into removing the stain. My mother vacuumed the living room and family room every day, and she made sure we vacuumed our bedrooms often. She taught me the good habits that my current roommates never learned.
Thank you for advising everyone to vacuum their place periodically to extend the life of their carpet. I would also recommend having the carpets heavily cleaned at least once a year. This way, they will stay looking new.
Thanks for sharing some tips for cleaning different types of floors. I didn’t realize how important it is to clean any dirt or spills from tile as quickly as possible. I think my tiles are permanently stained from ignoring spills and other things for too long. Hopefully, I can find a good professional cleaning service that can help me.
I like that you pointed out that when it comes to laminate flooring you will want to use warm water, vinegar, and a mild detergent to clean them. That is good for me to know because the condo I just bought has laminate floors in the guest bathroom. I should look into getting a professional to help me with deep cleaning the floors.