With the winter season in full swing, now is an excellent time to stay warm and binge on some Netflix series you missed over the past year. Regardless of your best efforts, the winter months keep you busy by combining wet shoes and hardwood floors in the worst ways. This raises the question, how do you keep clean floors during the winter?
The best way is to have a ready cleaning station to spot mob whenever someone enters the house. Combine this with a strategic doormat that people have to use before crossing the threshold, and you will avoid the worst messes.
Below, we will go through some additional tips you can use when keeping your floors clean.
Have A Rubber Mat Near Your Entrance for Drying Shoes
One of the more considerable pains of maintaining your interior environment is wet floors. The wet floors create an unsafe slippery surface for people walking by. Also, if you’ve ever stepped in a puddle in wool socks, we feel your pain.
Having a rubber drying mat (i.e., boot trays) near the entrance of your home prevents most messes. The melting snow on your boot bottoms is often the worst offender of messes.
Vacuum or Sweet Hard Floors for Salt
Another often forgotten mess of your floors is ice melt. While ice melt is a lifesaver on slippery surfaces, it isn’t beneficial on your hardwood floors. Taking that salt and dragging it across the bottom is a great way to ruin your floor finish.
You can remove the ice melt residue by starting with a sweep or vacuum. After you are sure it is all up, mop the remaining mess using a simple mop. A dust mopping can also help periodically.
Use Carpet Extractors
If you have a carpeted interior, you can be less careful but still want to keep wet boots from your interior. Regardless of how careful you are, you will want to run a carpet extractor at the middle and end of the winter season.
Carpet extractors are known to get deep into carpets to remove any remaining residue. While you might not need a daily cleaning (like with hard floors), it does require you to be careful and schedule your floor cleaning times.
Control How Often You Heat Your Home
Damage on hardwood floors is often caused by having too much humidity. This is because of the consistent amount of heating required to keep your home at a comfortable temperature.
Instead of leaving your heater running throughout the winter, only turn it on when necessary. A smart thermostat might help you in this. Also, you might consider investing in dehumidifiers for your lower levels. This will prevent the potential damage to your hardwood floors that overheating can bring.
Conclusion – Don’t Forget Your Entrance Mats
Last (but not least) a well-positioned entrance mat will save you time and money. It is best to have someone clean off the ice melt residue and other materials before they enter. It is far easier than removing stuff from your floor.
If your floor has seen one too many winters, contact our team at Parada Kitchens to see about a new floor worth all of the extra protection effort.