Make Your Hardwood Floors Shine
You have just installed hardwood flooring in your home. Now what? How do you keep your hardwood floors clean and shiny? Read the following Q&A in which two hardwood floor owners are asking just that.Q: "I was reading your site and saw that one should not use oil based cleaners. Why? Our installer told us to use vinegar in water, and use a damp cloth to clean the floor about once a week. Will this damage the floor? What is a polyurethane cleaner? Where do you buy it?" A: If an oil based cleaner is used on polyurethane finished floors, it leaves an oily residue on the surface which can not only make cleaning the floor more difficult, but after a period of time, when the floor is showing signs of wear and needs to be buffed and recoated, this residue can present adhesion problems. When cleaning any hardwood floor, or furniture, minimal water should be used.
In other words, wipe with a dampened, not wet cloth. Adding a capful of vinegar can help and is suggested by the National Wood Flooring Association. However, I have heard one floor finish manufacturer dispute this, believing the vinegar is too acidic and can break down the finish eventually. The absolutely simple and safe way to clean any sort of wood that is finished with a urethane is to use polyurethane cleaners which are manufactured by both hardwood flooring manufacturers and manufacturers of polyurethane. I use Squeeky Cleaner from Basic Coatings.
Any hardwood flooring supplier near you should carry this or similar product. Also, Home Depot is a likely place to look, since they do sell hardwood flooring. This cleaner is usually blue in color, and is mixed 4 parts water to one part cleaner in a spray bottle. Mist some on a cloth and wipe. You can use this to clean any wood finished with urethane top coats.
Q: "We bought a beautiful old home with wonderful wood floors throughout which were installed in 93. They looked pretty good when we moved in two years ago, but now they look dull and mottled. Our cleaning person uses ****** for floors and some floor dusting cloth called ********. Could they be the problem? What can we use to get the shine back?" A: There are any number of cleaners on the market, found in supermarket that say they are for hardwood floors. Your safest approach is to purchase a cleaner created by hardwood flooring manufacturers or floor finish manufacturers.
This can be purchased (these products, as far as I am aware, are all basically the same) from local hardwood flooring retailers or a big box store that sells hardwood flooring. Best bet is the Hardwood retailer who specializes in hardwood. I use "squeaky cleaner" manufactured by Basic Coatings. See their web site: www.basiccoatings.com.Mirage cleaner is another one. It sounds likely that the cleaners being used on your floors are leaving some sort of film on the wood surface.
This can create the situation you are describing and can make buffing and recoating in the future impossible to achieve due to adhesion issues. To sum it up, your best bet to make your floors shine is to purchase a cleaner created by hardwood flooring manufacturers or floor finish manufacturers..
Craig Mouldey is the owner of http://www.FaceLiftFloors.com. He has been in the flooring business for over two decades. You can find more flooring Q&A at http://www.FaceLiftFloors.com.webmaster@faceliftfloors.comGet A Registry Cleaner And Speed Up Your System
Before trying to understand the need for a registry cleaner, it is important to understand the very basic use of the registry. Before Windows 95 windows used system INI files to store the configuration data of all the programs and users. These files were scattered all over the system making the whole operating system unstable and slow. With the introduction of Windows 95 Microsoft included a built in central database that assimilated all this information into one central database that the whole system and the programs could share and access. This speeded up the system at the same time brought with it one main drawback.
It could asl0 crash the system if one glitch occurred in any program. These glitches could be removed by regular cleaning of the registry with registry cleaning software.
Just as you choose a file to store or save your data in Windows stores all its data in a central database called the system registry. The information that Windows needs to store...
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Refrigerator electricity usage lowered in 15 minutes
November 2004I recently had a customer ask for my advise about cleaning her refrigerator.I started to describe the pros and cons of different cleaners that can be used to clean the interior when she stopped me abruptly. "I know all about that stuff ", she informed me, "I mean the black coil thing on the back".So, in response to this common question I offer the following step-by-step directions.Firstly, the 'black coil thing' at the rear of the refrigerator is called a condenser. Without too much technical jargon, its job is to dissipate heat into the kitchen. It does this by the condensation of the refrigerant gas. Hence, its name.
The condenser tubing is usually seen on the rear of a refrigerator. It is produced in a serpentine form with additional fins running across it for added heat dissipation."Heat, I thought we were talking about refrigerators, not stoves".You will have to believe me when I say: ?a refrigerator does not produce cold air'. Rather, its job is to transfer...
Refrigerator electricity usage lowered in 15 minutes
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