How To Clean A Hardwood Floor With A Steamer

Hardwood floor steam cleaner

The question of steam cleaning hardwood floors is a tricky 1, with plenty of variables and confounding factors and alarming net tales to consider.

Luckily, the short answer to "can yous steam clean hardwood floors" is yep, provided you follow a few simple guidelines. Here's how.

What Type of Hardwood Floor Can You Steam Clean?

There are many unlike types of hardwood flooring, such as laminate, sealed hardwood, unsealed hardwood, and woods grain vinyl flooring, and each ane comes with its ain set of opinions.

The Advap squad has been using dry out steam vapor on floors for more than twenty years with the Ladybug, MondoVap, and VaporJet systems. Other than unsealed hardwood flooring, all other types of hardwood floors can exist cleaned successfully without any signs of degradation across multiple types and brands of floor when used properly.

Hardwood floors that have an acid-cured, aluminum oxide, water-based polyurethane, oil-based polyurethane, or moisture-cured urethane finish should all be fine for steam vapor cleaning. If a penetrating oil sealer was used on the floor, then steam vapor cleaning can slowly dethrone it over time and require you to touch it upwardly every so often.

Always cheque your flooring commencement in an inconspicuous surface area, and y'all may likewise want to bank check with your manufacturer for warranty information besides.

What Are My Options to Clean My Hardwood Flooring?

You have a few choices when it comes to cleaning flooring of the same varieties.

Cleaning solution. Some flooring companies may offering a cleaning solution you tin can utilise by mitt, scrub, and then buff off. All the same, this is fourth dimension-consuming and physically taxing, especially with a big area to comprehend.
Dry mopping. Dry out mopping with a damp mop is a popular option. However, similar a cleaning solution, this also takes a lot of fourth dimension and attempt.
Wet steam. Then at that place are and so-called "steam" cleaners that are non dry steam vapor systems. These can vary from a steam mop to a extraction vac wet system. Both of these systems are, in our opinion, too wet and tin damage the floor.
Boiler steam vapor systems. There are also inexpensive steam vapor systems that practise utilize a boiler to produce steam, but are not of high enough quality to produce the kind of "dry" steam vapor nosotros are looking for.
Loftier-quality steam vapor. When choosing a loftier-quality steam vapor system, you lot are looking for a college wattage system designed to produce and maintain a quality dry steam vapor. This will give you the type of steam yous want without over-wetting the surface, which makes drying times nigh instantaneous.

Is It Safe to Steam Clean a Hardwood Floor?

Short respond: Yes, if it's sealed and you lot're using dry steam vapor.

Whenever y'all employ a new cleaning method, no thing what your flooring blazon, you should check with your manufacturer's warranty and and so exercise a spot cheque in an inconspicuous area to brand sure your cleaning tools don't cause any damage or discoloration.

You should also bank check to confirm that your floor is sealed (go on reading, nosotros'll get at that place) and that there aren't any gaps or loose boards where water could potentially go far.

The main concern that manufactures most steam cleaning wood are warning confronting involves the buildup of too much moisture. Since dry steam vapor has very little moisture content, you don't take to worry about that as much.

How Practice I Know if My Floor Is Sealed?

The sealing process prevents moisture from sinking into the floor. Try dropping a small amount of water onto the floor and run across what happens. If the droplets bead upwards, that ways your floor is sealed. If they spread out or absorb into the wood, and so it isn't.

Are In that location Any Risks to Using Dry Steam Vapor?

The main things you should be concerned with are over-wetting your floor or overheating it by leaving the heated tool in one identify for likewise long. Both of these issues could potentially crusade h2o damage via water penetrating deeper into the flooring or structural or buckling issues from overheating.

Make sure yous use a high-quality system, which will reduce any potential issues. You should as well make sure yous're using the system properly (more on this below), which reduces risks not only on hardwood, merely also laminate, vinyl, and many other surfaces.

Many manufacturers may not comprehend what they remember of as "steam cleaning" your hardwood floors. This is due to the fact that they are unfamiliar with dry out steam vapor. "Steam cleaning" is dissimilar from cleaning with a steam vapor machine; steam vapor is very dry, so not much moisture is left on the flooring. Steam heat tin enhance wood grain if the wood is blank or just a wax finish is used, but most sealed hardwood is smashing with dry steam vapor.

How to Use a Steam Vapor Organisation to Clean Hardwood

There are 2 principal stages to a skilful dry out steam clean: before and during. Here are the steps you should keep in listen and on your to-do list.

Footstep 1: Warm up your system.

It'south best if yous've already been using your system for at to the lowest degree a short while before starting on your floor to make certain it's heated up properly and creating the hottest, driest steam. Possibly beginning off with your walls or a carpeted flooring, while yous've got the organization out.

Step 2: Set the book.

If your system has a book control, keep it on the lowest setting, a one or a two at most if it's numbered. This volition make sure you're creating the hottest, driest steam possible.

Stride 3: Cheque your accessories.

It'south e'er important to accessorize properly. Usually, the best accompaniment for hardwood is a large rectangular floor brush connected to at to the lowest degree two extension handles.

You should besides use a filler pad between the nylon bristles, which helps to more evenly bridge the heat and steam out over the entire surface of the brush. The pad likewise helps trap any extra condensation that may form as the steam exits the steam tube and moves to the open pocket/channel in the brush.

Step 4: Wrap it upwards.

The floor brush should be fully wrapped with a terry towel forcing the steam downwardly to the floor surface and not bravado out the ends of the floor tool. Yous're basically "diapering" the big flooring brush using the filler pad and a terry towel.

If using a microfiber towel, information technology is very of import to brand sure that the steam can laissez passer through the microfiber and non become trapped behind the towel. Trapped steam will brand the fiber become very moisture very quickly, and a wet towel cannot absorb moisture.

Footstep 5: Spot bank check.

Practise a small test in an camouflaged area to make certain the steam doesn't have whatever negative effects on your floor or its finish.

Step 6: Commence the brushing.

Traveling in the direction of the wood grain, move the brush in a back and forth movement, slightly slower than you would vacuum. Always keep the tool moving at a speed just slower than vacuuming, following the direction of the woods grain, and don't spend as well long in any one spot.

If you are interrupted for any reason, make sure you don't go out the hot tool sitting on the flooring or you're leaving yourself vulnerable to that heat damage we discussed.

Step 7: Render to tough spots.

If at that place were whatsoever spots that didn't come up one your first and second pass, at present is the time to attempt going over them once again. Once more, try one or 2 more passes, then move along for a bit and come back.

Step eight: Relax!

There's no need for rinsing or drying with dry steam. Only enjoy the polish.

Conclusion

For a fast and effective mode to clean your sealed hardwood floors, y'all tin can't do better than dry steam.

Avant-garde Vapor Technologies has been in the market for more 20 years and is confident that the Ladybug system will leave your floors looking like they've been freshly buffed.

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Source: https://www.advap.com/blogs/news/steam-clean-hardwood-floors

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