Parquet cleaning and parquet care - home remedies in the test

• Parquet floor - painted or waxed
• Home remedies for parquet care and their effectiveness
  • 0. Basic cleaning
  • 1st tea for color safety
  • 2. Vinegar eliminates stains
  • 3rd floor wax
  • 4. Floor cloths for single use

Parquet is becoming increasingly popular today. However, many homeowners are somewhat afraid that parquet could be very sensitive. In fact, parquet is in principle more for cleaning, because you should clean it as little as possible and as dry as possible. Here we show you the practical home remedies for parquet care in the test.

When cleaning parquet, a distinction is made between sealed and unsealed parquet. If the parquet has been completely sealed with varnish, you will generally have less problems with cleaning and may also use a little more water. However, unsealed parquet requires much more care and attention during care. Whether vinegar, tea or microfiber, all recommendations from the department home remedies have in certain cases in the parquet cleaning also their dark side. Which of the numerous home remedies care for the soil really carefully and how effective the individual methods are, we show you here.

You need this:

• bucket
• soft broom
• soft towels / cotton towels
• mop
• Floor wiper with wringing system
• Vacuum cleaner with parquet nozzle
• Wooden floor soaps
• wood wax
• wood oil
• vinegar
• tea
• Einmaltücher dry
• One-time cloths wet

Parquet floor - painted or waxed

A waxed or oiled parquet must always be cleaned slightly when cleaning. Especially the waxing of the parquet floor takes a while and must be carried out at least every few months as part of the normal parquet care. When laying the parquet, you should consider whether you can even spend more time later to care for the soil so extensively. After all, the furniture usually has to be moved aside. Much easier to care for is a lacquered parquet floor, as it also takes care of a damp cleaning. In an oiled or waxed parquet floor, the best parquet floor care is that no one enters the floor with street shoes.

Tip: To protect the parquet, you should provide guest slippers in different sizes in the hallway. Usually there are complete sets of such soft slippers with a so-called slipper garage to buy.

That may not be overly stylish, but does not fail to protect the parquet. You can also style things up by sewing colorful shoe protectors yourself. You probably know the finished blue shoe savers that are in new homes like small garbage bags next to the door. From old duvet covers you can sew more beautiful specimens yourself, which fit over any shoe and still protect the floor.

Home remedies for parquet care and their effectiveness

If you do not walk on the parquet floor with street shoes, it is often not necessary to put a cleaning agent in the cleaning water when cleaning. Never use hot water on a wooden floor and only pour a little high-quality wood soap into the mop water. Most mops can not be wielded strong enough to wipe a parquet really only damp. You should therefore use a microfibre floor wiper system with an automatic wringer in the bucket.

0. Basic cleaning

A normal basic cleaning looks like this:

• Sweep floor with soft broom or cotton mop / vacuum with parquet nozzle
• lukewarm mop water with a few drops of wooden soap
• Soak the soil as dry as possible
• if necessary wipe with a dry cloth

There are some absolute no-go's in parquet cleaning. This of course includes a steam cleaner, but also chlorine cleaners or other chemical substances, should be avoided. In addition, scraping cleaning equipment on the floor are not desired. Many housewives also advise against microfibre cloths because of the special fiber type. But basically it just depends on what type of microfiber cloth you use. There are some rough floor cloths, which are more suitable for tiles or stone floors. In the trade are also very soft fluffy floor towels, which were developed especially for parquet floors.

Oiled parquet

For an oiled parquet, the wooden floor soap is not recommended, as it can leave a small layer on the oil over time. As a result, the floor then looks a bit dull and gray. In addition, you can not oil the floor if you clean it with parquet or wooden floor soap. Then you have to use a special cleaner before, which painstakingly removes the old soap layer. Instead of the wooden soap, there is a special oil for the oiled floor, which, like a skin care, maintains the naturalness of the wood for a longer period of time.

Tip: With a new oiled floor you should wait a few weeks anyway with the parquet cleaning. During the first few weeks, just wipe dry over the wood parquet as the oil will take a while to completely retract. If you now wipe over the superficially existing oil with a wooden soap, streaks and ugly gray plaster stripes form. Therefore, you should wait a while before you wet clean the oiled floor.

1st tea for color safety

With tea you maintain the parquet and prevent the fading of the wood at the same time. Whether you store the remnants of your morning tea or simply throw the tea bags into the mop, the intensity of the tea and water mixture should be adjusted to the color of the wood. With a light maple parquet, you should completely abandon this method. But otherwise, tea very nicely supports the natural wood color, especially in waxed or oiled floors. The floor gets a perfect wood gloss, which you can hardly achieve otherwise.

Tip: Light spots can be compensated with black tea. If you have a bright spot on the floor somewhere, you can gradually color it back to its original color. To do this, put lukewarm slightly moist tea bags over and over again on the affected area. If it is a very small spot, just dab some tea on the faded spot with a brush. Allow the spot to dry completely from time to time so that the wood does not become too dark.

2. Vinegar eliminates stains

Vinegar is a great product to remove stains on wood. Unfortunately, vinegar is a bit difficult to use and can quickly do a great deal of damage yourself. Too much vinegar causes the wood to dry out and brightens it up a lot. You should first put some vinegar on a soft cotton cloth and dab the spot or stain with it. But wear gloves made of rubber, otherwise the vinegar will damage the skin very much.

Even if the dog has relieved on the ground, this wet stain on the wood can be eliminated with some vinegar. Wipe up the mess with paper towels as quickly as possible so that the wood does not absorb more of it. Then dab the affected area with pure vinegar, depending on the intensity. Even if the dog urine is already drawn into the wood, you can do with the vinegar from the dark bad-smelling place a bright dry and quite clean place. You may have to adjust the color of the wood later, but the unpleasant part of the pollution has been sucked out of the wood by the vinegar.

3rd floor wax

Previously, every floor was treated with floor wax. When maintaining a wooden floor, the floor wax can still serve well today, because the pores of the parquet floor are thus sealed for some time downright. But if you want to lay out individual runners or small carpets on the parquet, you should under no circumstances work with floor wax. The runner would slip away on the slippery ground constantly, turning the floor into a downright dangerous slide. Today, there are simpler methods to maintain the parquet floor, because you usually have to buff or buff for quite a long time.

4. Floor cloths for single use

Actually, it is of course not a home remedy, but the new disposable wipes are very well suited for parquet floors. There are very soft floor towels, with which you can maintain the parquet dry. The advantage is that you do not always push the old abrasive dirt of the last cleaning over the parquet floor. In a broom, there is always a bit of sand left. The floor is not only cleaner, but also protected from scratches and scratches caused by sand and small stones.

Similar to the dry cloths, there are also very soft, slightly damp floor cloths . Since these towels are always only damp, no damage can be caused by an excessive amount of cleaning water on the floor. After use, the towels are simply thrown in the trash. This may not be the cheapest kind of parquet care, but since parquet is finally also considerably more expensive to buy than other floors, the use of these floor towels for single use is well worth it.

Tips for quick readers

• Pre-cleaning only dry with a soft broom
• Vacuum only with parquet nozzle / bristle attachment
• Wipe without chemicals / just damp
• Clean new oiled floor only dry
• regrow waxed parquet from time to time
• Tea gets wood color and shine
• Tea colors small bright spots
• Wear gloves when working with vinegar
• Vinegar removes dark patches of wood
• Use vinegar sparingly and carefully
• absorb liquid dirt with kitchen towel
• Soak coarse impurities with pure vinegar
• dry disposable cloths do not spread old dirt
• Wet disposable wipes gently clean and damp