Our “new” house is 43 years old, but for most of that time the hardwood floors throughout were covered with carpet. The owner we bought it from took out the carpet and had all floors totally refinished with polyurethane about 6 years ago, and kept them in great shape.
What’s the best way to care for these floors? We’re looking for EASY here 
The easiest way to keep them is to cover them with carpet. Take a hint - if hardwood floors were so wonderful to live with on a fulltime basis, why did everyone start covering them with wall-to-wall carpet at the first opportunity?
djm
Paul
Home Depot carries a product by Zep called “Hardwood and Laminate Floor Cleaner.” Spray it on, wipe with one of those cloth mop things. Easy.
(Also, don’t have kids and dogs. But too late for that here.)
Sorry that it won’t do anything about the mosquitoes, though.
I’m no expert on this subject, but I’d say that there’s really not much to the maintenance of a polyurethane finish, and perhaps the only real trick is in keeping abrasives, such as dirt, dust, and sand, etc., off of it. Even then polyurethane is fairly tough stuff. Potential trouble could appear at high traffic areas, such as at doorways leading to kitchens, bathrooms, etc., where the polyurethane could simply get worn away. In that case, perhaps one remedy could be to simply sand off the old finish, and apply a new one.
I’ll take ignorance for $200 Bob!
I know, I know. And my answer, in the form of questions:
So that they could keep as much dirt in their home as possible so that the house members could spend their years sufferring from all sorts of allergy and sinus problems. And so when a pet piddles or children or adults spill, the carpet can absorb as much liquid as possible causing as much damage as possible to the fully functional and beautiful hardwood floors hidden under the scourge of mankind? Did I forget the opportunity to breath in and abosrb toxic chemicals that exude from the carpet that may cause known and unknown health problems too?
I had the floors on both levels of my two flat sanded and polyurethaned over ten years ago.
The upstairs has been rented out perhaps 80% of the time. The renters wore shoes and failed to put felt protection on the bottom of their furniture.
Needless to say, the up stairs floor has taken a beating.
Since the last tenant moved out up stairs I’ve used a liquid wax for wooden floors up there after washing the floors several times by hand to get all the dirt out of the scratches
but the floor still doesn’t look as good as the floor in my apartment.
The only “carpeting” I have in my apartment on the first floor is an oriental area rug in the center of the living room (because we don’t have room in the living room to do yoga but we do sit and crawl around on the floor a lot with my grandkids).
The front entry, dining room, three bed rooms, and kitchen with walk in pantry in my apartment are all in really great condition
despite the fact that they remain uncarpeted
and I’m really lazy about house work (never waxed them. I’m lucky when I find the time to “electric broom” them).
We’re in the process of looking for another house right now.
I’m going to insist we have hard wood floors in every room but the baths, laundry room,and perhaps the front entry way
even if we have to rip up brand new carpeting.
You all know about leaving your shoes at the door if you ever get invited over, right?
Also, because they saw them on the ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’.
we’re in the process of ripping out all the carpeting in the house (planned on but prompted by a dog and a bad case of diahrea…).
I knew there was oak floors under the carpet (you could see it in the closets, and I also checked around the registers, etc).
Unfortunately, the “first” owners of this house never put any finish on the floor. No varnish. No nothing. Then proceeded to GLUE as well as nail the carpet padding down.
So while the oak is “structurally” ok - there’s no way to sand it down enough to be able to stain and refinish - unless I wanted to go with a black stain.
There was also multicolored slate at the entryway - which they ALSO glued carpeting to. We’ve managed to get all that crap up - whitened the grout, and sealed and lightly waxed the slate - it looks really good.
But for the rest - we’re putting down Pergo. We’ve got the livingroom and hallway done - and just started on the small bedroom. We’re also repainting all the walls and trim.
After this it will be on to the kitchen… still original appliances since 1960 (except the fridge).
Sanding by hand could approach impossible, but it’s possible to rent what’s known as a belt sander, which can sand virtually anything, pronto.
Just be careful to not get too an aggressive of an abrasive belt for it!
Really, such belt sanders can turn rough cut, sawmill boards into very smooth wood in no time, so be careful.
BTW, wearing a serious face mask, such as a respirator, is also a good idea.
Because they didn’t have varathane. A "brasillian’ floor that has to be stripped and waxed is a drag. You don’t have one of those.
When it comes to maintainance, hardwood floors need to be swept or vacuumed every now and then, and that’s it. If you track in a lot of mud, I guess, you’ll want to mop it every so often.
but carpet provides habitat
Because most of Western civilization’s problems are nutritionally based, specifically that we as a species suffer from a widespread deficiency of 4-phenylcyclohexene. The carpet manufacturers, in their benevolence, are supplementing us with this vital nutrient through a convenient, 24 hour inhalation therapy modality.
Best wishes,
Jerry
If your floor dates from before the era of plastic finishes (the ‘~thanes’) then it likely did have a finish, but one in which the sealer was wax. Wax-based sealers are temporary.
There’s a really nasty black, gooey glue that shows up under flooring that was covered in the fifties or sixies (a guess), often under lino. It would soak into the wood and be pretty difficult to remove. People have spent enormous amounts of money trying to get it out. It tends to be gooey enough to gum up a belt sander in short order.
But I think you’ll regret Pergo, or any of the laminates. They look OK from a distance, but that’s the end of it. Otherwise, they’re really nasty; cold under your feet, brittle (chipping easily if you drop something) and harder than they should be to clean, because dirt gets into the joints and stays. They’re bad to mop, because even if you use huge amounts of the glue, you don’t make a moisture tight joint between pieces, so water can soak under to the foam undermatting and set up housekeeping.
The carpeting in the apartment upstairs’ living room was glued to the floor to cover up the fact that the people who owned this building before us had chopped up the floor pretty bad smack dab in the middle of the room.
The folks who sanded and finished the floors for us did a great job of repairing it.
They had to replace a few boards in both apartments but when they were finished its not noticeable at all.
I haven’t a clue how they were able to sand under the big cast iron radiators.
My son-in-law works in construction. The first thing he did when he saw our floors is stick a knife blade between the boards to measure how thick the boards still are.
The more times you sand, the thinner they get.
I think when we had them sanded it was the first time ever and the building went up in 1912.
What I’m saying is, if your boards are thick you’ve got a lot of wood to spare when it comes to sanding them.
There’s also what’s called “dustless” sanders used in the professional floor refinishing industry.
That was our kitchen’s maple floors, plus there was some water damage from a hot water heater that once was standing in the corner of the the original 1912 kitchen.
It looked pretty good when the floor refinishers were done, and still does.
If the flooring is tongue and groove (most wood flooring is) you need to stick the knife at an end joint, not one of the long side joints.
simon - you are correct - it’s that black glue. Plus disintigrated padding that has melted into the wood.
But as for the Pergo - I’ve had it before. I know it tends to be “cold” - I’m ok with that. The new stuff looks much better than the “first generation” and is much easier to put down (no more glue or straps).
This house and neighborhood just wouldn’t “return” the amount that putting new hardwood floors down would have cost. I also looked at bamboo, but since it’s thicker than the original wood - it wouldn’t have worked to replace, and wouldn’t have worked to go on top. The Pergo (and we are using Pergo, not one of the others, but only because we liked the pattern) isn’t as thick, so we’re not having to plane all the doors, etc.
I was also concerned with all the urethanes, and finishes, outgassing. None of that with the Pergo.
I’ve been “Swiffer” ing daily, and vinegar/water mopping once a week. So far, we’re good.
And I can’t believe how much crud was in the carpet!!!
If you have a polyurethane covering you are exposing yourself to all manner of VOCs being off-gassed, unless it is a very recent polyurethane that specifies on the label that there are no VOCs (which doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t off-gassing something else).
The new laminates have a very thin veneer, which means maybe one or two sandings/refinishes at best, and if you get a significant divet taken out of it you are screwed, because no two batches of this stuff look the same.
Carpets are easier to clean or replace than trying to clean between the cracks of old wood flooring. Carpets are meant to be replaced from time to time, regardless what they are made of. Everybody loves the look of wood floors. Who wouldn’t? but they are cold in winter and treacherously slippery.
djm
Regarding polyurethane finishes outgassing …
That’s only a concern for the first two or three weeks unless the individual is exquisitely sensitive, which is not what we’re talking about here.
Urethane is done outgassing very quickly and then becomes much more neutral than the vast majority of carpets and carpet pads. Carpets mainly outgas 4-phenylcyclohexene (the characteristic new carpet smell); foam carpet pads outgas toluene di-isocynate. Both outgas far longer than polyurethane finishes do.
Every time I carpet a mobile home, I’m impressed by the fact that the carpet fumes kill every insect that was there. Dead flies all over the place the next day.
Best wishes,
Jerry