You have installed an unimaginably pricey hardwood flooring in your apartment doesn’t mean you will be more than happy spending on highly-priced cleaning solutions. Installing the floor could be an investment, a desire. But spending more than what the cleaning solution deserves is not a very good idea.
Especially when you can make better and safer cleaning solutions with all-natural and/or regular ingredients sitting at home at a lesser price, that too at a more generous amount. That is why many of you, and we prefer homemade cleaning solutions.
They are less pricey and safe also. Safe for your kids and pets to freely run around the house and turn the house upside down.
Homemade Cleaning Solutions Without Vinegar For Hardwood Floors
Contents
Cleaning Solutions Without Vinegar
We have to state, vinegar can be used to clean hardwood floors. And it works on stains and grease very well, but you will have to be very careful. If you want to skip the apprehension, we have other safe ingredients to use on your hardwood floor. If not more than vinegar, they are equally effective in keeping your hardwood floor safe and clean.
Our First Pick – Sal Suds
Sal Suds cleaner by Dr. Bronner is not just ours but a favorite of many experts. It is a biodegradable cleaner. That means it is safe for the environment. The best way to consider that a product is safe to use or not is to check how safe it is for the environment. If it is safe for the environment, it will be safe for you too. That directly implies that it will be mild on the hardwood surface. It is a concentrated liquid that comes in a regular bottle. And the best part is you will need only one or two drops per cup of water. So, start calculating how long a 32-ounce bottle is going to last.
Process To Make Sal Suds Cleaning Solution
You will need a spray bottle. Do not go for a huge bottle; a half-liter one will be enough. Now fill it with water. We always prefer distilled water. A half-liter bottle will need a little more than two cups of water. Take a dropper or make your guess and mix no more than five drops of Sal Suds in the water bottle. You can use a few drops of essential oil to add a pleasant smell, any of the ones that’s fragrance you enjoy. Your homemade Sal Suds cleaning solution for the hardwood floor is ready now.
Our Second Pick – Dishwashing Soap
Our second pick will be the very common dishwashing soap. Even Bronner’s Sal Suds could be used to clean dishes. But to let you know, any dish wash soap will do. Just a few drops, depending on the water you have taken. If you mix too much dish soap in the water, your homemade hardwood liquid cleaner will be too foamy, and that will make it hard for you to clean the foam and residue from the surface. So use it wisely and sparingly. Do exactly the same thing as we suggested you do with the Sal Suds cleaning solution. No more than five drops in a half-liter of water, if possible, distilled and sparingly sprayed. Dishwashing soap already has a pleasant smell, so you might not need to add essence for fragrance.
Save
Our Third Pick – Rubbing Alcohol
Rubbing alcohol is our last pick, but it definitely is not the least. It is so effective that it not only cleans your hardwood surface but works as a disinfectant too. Rubbing alcohol that contains 70% isopropyl disinfects the surface. This alcohol is not something that you will drink. Rubbing alcohol is not your regular liquor. It is an excellent ingredient in cleaning dirt and disinfecting germs and bacteria. But it is very mild in nature. Thus perfect to use on hardwood floors. Dilute the rubbing alcohol using distilled water. A cup of distilled water requires a 1/4th cup of rubbing alcohol. To make it work better, mix a few drops of dishwashing soap. The soap will add a pleasant smell and back to break the dirt into particles, making it easy to remove.
How To Use The Cleaning Solution
Now we are getting into elementary stuff, the process of using the homemade cleaning solutions. But it is essential to talk about it. The ingredients you used to mix in water could be different. But it remains a liquid cleaning solution. So the process will be the same, which is spraying sparingly, cleaning the dirt, and at the end, cleaning the residue.
Cleaning A Hardwood Floor Step By Step With Homemade Cleaner
Before everything, make sure you do the dusting. Get a high-quality microfiber cloth or pad, or anything that is not abrasive to rub on your hardwood flooring. A regular spray mop with a water tank will be perfect too. Instead of taking a random half-liter bottle, make the homemade cleaning solution in the water tank, of course, if you are using a spray mop.
Spray the solution from time to time, albeit a very sparing amount, and sweep the floor with the pad/cloth or spray mop. If your target is a specific stain, you can spray a little more and let it sit there and break the dirt particles into even finer particles. Take a soft scrubby pad to remove the stains that are too stubborn to come off.
If it doesn’t come off in the first try, try it a few times, not the same day, but day after day. Sal Suds, dish soap, or alcohol, the main but mild ingredients in the water, will be effective enough to remove the stain eventually but without damaging or tainting the hardwood floor.
We specifically skipped the all-natural vinegar here and stayed in the realm of only easy-to-get safe products. The reason is we have the idea of how apprehensive many of you are of using an acidic agent like vinegar on your precious hardwood flooring. If you fail to deconcentrate it even by a few drops, it will cost you with damaged hardwood flooring. So there is nothing to be surprised if you want to totally skip the use of vinegar and try some other ingredients that are way safer to clean your hardwood flooring.
