How to Clean and Disinfect Your Wood and Vinyl Floors

With an active home usually comes an active cleaning routine, and that’s especially true as so many of us are at home right now. As you deep clean your living spaces, it’s important to remember the approved cleaning steps for your specific type of floors so you don’t accidentally damage them. And if you’re looking to clean and disinfect your wood and vinyl floors to kill germs, you’ll want to consult the cleaning advice below from the Centers for Disease Control. Let’s discuss the proper cleaning steps for wood and vinyl flooring.

Your luxury vinyl plank or sheet vinyl flooring from Mohawk is not only beautiful, but it is also highly durable and waterproof. It only takes a few simple care and maintenance steps to keep your Mohawk luxury vinyl floors looking beautiful for years to come:

• Spills should be cleaned up immediately
• Use a soft bristle broom to remove loose dirt
• Damp mop as needed with clean water and a non-abrasive floor cleaner. Harsh cleaning chemicals should not be used on luxury vinyl flooring
• Never push, pull or drag furniture across vinyl floors. Always lift and carry.
• Heavy furniture or appliances that are not moved often should be equipped with flat, non-staining floor protectors.
• Avoid using a vacuum with a beater bar.
• For spot stain treatment, use a diluted bleach solution that is 1 part bleach and 10-parts water.

For a savvy combination of strength and style, engineered wood flooring is a great option for homeowners looking for the best of both worlds. Mohawk TecWood floors feature enhanced engineered construction that resists expansion and contraction from humidity changes, and care and maintenance is a breeze:

• Make sure to vacuum or sweep your floor regularly, especially in high-traffic areas, to prevent dirt and debris from scratching the wood’s surface.
• Always use a soft-bristled attachment or broom.
• Avoid using vacuums with either a beater bar or power rotary brush head.
• Use protective window coverings to block UV rays and excessive heat from direct sunlight.
• Rearrange rugs and furniture periodically to help floor age evenly.
• Wipe spills up immediately with a clean white cloth.

With the versatility of laminated wood, you can have the natural beauty of wood in any area of your home with the convenience of durable, easy-care flooring. Advanced options from Mohawk provide a revolutionary step in flooring that gives you complete wood beauty without compromising performance.

RevWood floors are a breeze to spiff up with a dust mop, soft bristle broom or a vacuum cleaner with suction only. Perform this step often to remove dust, dirt and loose particulates on a regular basis, just make sure to use vacuums without a beater bar or with the beater bar disengaged. Also, avoid wet-mop cleaning with water or liquid cleaners, and if using cleaner, spray it lightly onto a cleaning cloth rather than directly to your floors.

If you have RevWood Plus or RevWood Select laminated wood installed in your home, your floors can be wet mopped!

For all three RevWood options, refrain from using wax, polish, oils, soap, detergents, shine enhancers or varnish. Also, use protective window coverings and rearrange rugs and furniture periodically to help your laminated wood floor age evenly.

Each SolidWood plank from Mohawk is just as the name suggests: a solid piece of wood from the finest domestic and exotic hardwoods. Installation is only appropriate above grade, over approved wooden subfloors, and you want to limit solid wood floors to rooms with controlled temperatures and humidity. Should you spill on your solid wood flooring, follow this specific procedure:

• Wipe up spills and spots immediately with a clean white cloth.
• Use ice to harden tough substances like wax or chewing gum.
• Gently and carefully scrape with a plastic scraper or a credit card.
• Wipe the area clean with a soft, slightly damp cloth.

After thoroughly cleaning your floors, we recommend following the household cleaning guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control for up-to-date information on how to disinfect your home, including hard surfaces like wood and vinyl. Remember to always test EPA-approved disinfectants in an inconspicuous area before using.

These handy tips and tricks will help you keep all hard surface floors dazzling longer and decrease the amount the time you have to spend cleaning:

• Keep mats at your front doors and back entrances to prevent mud and debris from coming inside.
• When using a dust mop, try a model with a pivoting handle to effectively clean corners and inlets.
• To vacuum a wood floor, opt for a model with a hose attachment instead of a rotating brush. 
• If you have wood stairs, using a dust rag by hand can actually save you clean-up time and be more effective versus trying to vacuum your stairs.

In the end, you will find that tailoring your care and maintenance to the specific type of floors you have installed will make a tremendous difference in the long-term effectiveness of keeping them both clean and protected for their lifetime.