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A couple of months ago, we bought a cedar log cabin home. The floors are wood floors throughout (Yes, bathrooms and kitchen too! Eek!). The wood floors are not engineered wood floors but older style wide plank wood. So far, I've cleaned them with a damp mop and used warm water/vinegar/couple drops of dish soap. Is this okay? I used a regular type mop and just made sure it was damp but now I think I should use a microfiber pad style. I am not sure, I think those pad styles are made for the newer style floors.
You do know that women used to scrub their wooden kitchen floors, right? Anyway, to the OP, it really depends on how the wood floors are finished. If they have a shellac finish, absolutely do NOT use any water on them. However, if they have a polyurethane finish, then a microfiber pad or even a Swiffer-type product can be OK as long as you don't soak the wood. I have 88 year old heart pine floors throughout most of my house and I wet-Swiffer them every couple of weeks because I have pets and don't like pet smudges on the floors. The floors still look the same as they did when I bought the house almost 14 years ago (shiny-wise) and there's been no swelling or cupping. YMMV.
You do know that women used to scrub their wooden kitchen floors, right? Anyway, to the OP, it really depends on how the wood floors are finished. If they have a shellac finish, absolutely do NOT use any water on them. However, if they have a polyurethane finish, then a microfiber pad or even a Swiffer-type product can be OK as long as you don't soak the wood. I have 88 year old heart pine floors throughout most of my house and I wet-Swiffer them every couple of weeks because I have pets and don't like pet smudges on the floors. The floors still look the same as they did when I bought the house almost 14 years ago (shiny-wise) and there's been no swelling or cupping. YMMV.
Shellac has been around for literally centuries, it is a good product for wood trim, but its wear characteristics are not well suited to flooring and it really is not likely that a cabin would be finished with the product. It dissolves in alcohol and is generally not considered a good option these days...
BTW- There is NEVER a good reason to add vinegar to anything that might have been glued together or has natural wax finish-- acetic acid can, over time, dissolve glue, and cause wax to haze: thus is NOT something that should ever come in contact with wood flooring -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetic_acid
The safest thing to do is try to control dust / dirt BEFORE it enters the home. Put a nice durable entrance mats at all the doors! Then focus on DRY DUST MOPPING. If you spill anything CLEAN IT UP QUICKLY WITH ABSORBENT towels. Any residue that is sticky / oily should be "spot cleaned" with a NEUTRAL soap that is as dilute as possible on a sponge that has been wrung out to be just barely damp.
You can get a Swiffer Wet Jet type mop with washable microfiber pads -- Rubbermaid has one, Bona has one. You spray the floor and wipe up the grime. Pull off the pad and toss it in the wash. Replace with a clean one and keep going.
NOW -- here's the thing -- you can't let dirt and grime build up. If you do, these types of cleaning pads will pick up the dirt and scratch your floor and you will be stuck with the two bucket (one soapy wash water, one clean rinse water) and rags and hands and knees cleaning, where you wring out the rag well, wipe and flip the rag, so you have a fresh side to wipe the floor with.
My floors are wrecked -- but refinishing is out of the question right now, and I use Lemon Pine Sol, and a hurricane spin mop. If my floors are dirty I slop the water on, then rinse the mop, spin it out dry and pick up the water. My floors are over 90 years old and they look every second of it...
I hardly ever wash my wood floors. I suspect the floors in a log cabin need it even less frequently than my fancy scraped ones. I dry mop and vacuum mine every few days, for dust, and once in awhile I mop them with a cotton cloth dampened with a cleaner for wood floors.
Isn't the whole point of a log cabin low maintenance?
If the OP is concerned about cleanliness in the bathrooms, maybe she should put in some tile. I can see how wood might be problematic in a bathroom.
After reading countless articles from the "pros" to personal reviews on so many different ways to clean and maintain hardwood floors, I'm more confused now than ever. For each product or solution recommended, you will find 10 other sites telling you not to do that. For some cleaning products sold for hardwoods, you'll find those who swear by them and some who warn you it will destroy your floors. Some tout the vinegar/water, others say not to use it, some say even to use ammonia or glass plus, others tell you never to do that. Bona is recommended here but I found just as many say that Bona caused a horrible buildup that had to be scrubbed off. Some sites say just use water while others say never use water.
There seems to be NO consensus on cleaning hardwood floors.
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