Dial-a-Maid
Wood floors are back in style. People everywhere are ripping up carpets and restoring the hardwood floors they couldn't wait to cover up with shag rugs 20 years ago. As wood floors get a new lease on life, we're also changing the way we care for them, says an environmental, healthy Residential Housecleaning Service. The traditional method has been to apply a penetrating sealer and then wax the floor with a buffable paste wax. This is a laborious process and was probably the reason folks couldn't wait to convert to carpet originally. There are a variety of new finishes available today, from factory-finished seals to hard, quick-drying catalyst seals, as noted in the book "The Cleaning Encyclopedia" by Don Aslett. On an older floor the smart move is to convert it to a no-wax floor by giving it two to three coats of polyurethane or other finish designed for wood floors. This forms a tough, protective film over the wood, which then only requires care similar to a no wax floor.
Many newer wood floors are factory finished, because of the ease of installation. Most parquet floors in homes, for example, are factory finished with either hot wax or polyurethane. If your wood floor has V-shaped grooves between the planks, it's probably factory finished, and you'll need information from the manufacturer on what kind of finish has been applied and whether it needs waxing.
For an existing floor that has been waxed, the best bet it so keep on waxing, at least until it is time to refinish the floor, says an environmental, healthy Residential Housecleaning Service, in Evanston, Il.
