How to Clean Sticky Engineered Hardwood Floors

Wooden floors and their replicas, like, say, the engineered hardwood floors, can make your house look drastically different than any average home. Wooden floors are too expensive and easily damaged; thus, people happily opt for engineered hardwood floors. The top layer is wood, and that’s fine by most wood zealots. And the good thing about engineered hardwood floors is that they are way more lenient to moisture, heat, and humidity, unlike their wooden equivalent. Also, just like the hardwood, if you are well-maintaining the engineered hardwood floor, you do not need deep cleaning of it frequently.

Engineered Hardwood Floors Very Much In-Demand

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Engineered hardwood floors already have a nice finish over them as a protector, you do not need to clean it thoroughly often, and lastly, when needed deep clean, you can damp mop it without worrying about it warping, bending, and water seeping through its layers. So, with it, its owner is in a comfortable situation. Thus it is one floor so in demand as kitchen and bathroom floors even if the whole house is installed with super-expensive ebony.

 

Demand results in Issues

When it’s so overly-used by so many people, the issue stems up. And what is the most common problem with floors; sticky residue all over the floor. Every floor has it, and the so-in-demand engineered hardwood floors are no different.

Reasons could be any. It could be your floor cleaner, mopping with dirty water, not cleaning the spills well, not drying the floor, putting carpets and rugs with plastic bottoms over the wet floor, so on and so forth.

Each one of these reasons could cause a sticky engineered hardwood floor. However, you can clean this high-in-demand but sticky floor quite easily with just a single product, and no, we are not talking about vinegar.

How to Clean Sticky Engineered Hardwood Floors

How to Clean Sticky Engineered Hardwood Floors
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Vinegar is not what we prefer to clean engineered hardwood floors. So, which product we are hinting towards and how to clean sticky engineered hardwood floors is our discussion topic. So, let’s talk about how to do it the right way.

Not Vinegar but Rubbing Alcohol

Instead of the over-used and everyone’s favorite vinegar, we prefer rubbing alcohol to clean the sticky engineered hardwood floor.

If you want, you can use vinegar, it’s a product that works on hardwood too, so it will not be that bad for engineered hardwood floors. However, to make your engineered hardwood floor and its protective layer on top last, you should avoid cleaning it with acetic acid.

Rubbing alcohol is way more mild but effective in cleaning the stickiness from the engineered hardwood. And it is a disinfectant too. So, when you are cleaning with it, you are sanitizing the surface simultaneously.

 

But we have to say it, whenever you are cleaning an dark engineered hardwood floor, make sure it doesn’t get sticky from the very start. That way, you will not even have to use any extra product to deep clean.

Homemade Cleaner with Rubbing Alcohol

  • Make your own floor cleaner with equal parts of distilled water and rubbing alcohol in a bottle. Then add a few drops of dishwashing soap to make the cleaner more potent to remove stubborn sticky residues.
  • The floor cleaner is ready; now, whenever you will mop the sticky engineered hardwood floor, just add a full cap, at best two tablespoons in half a bucket of water.
  • To remove stains, directly spray the solution on them and then wait 5 minutes for the cleaner to work and break the stubborn stains into fine particles.

Do The Dusting Before You Mop?

  • Even though it’s a sticky surface, there is no skipping of dusting ever.
  • If you find it hard to do the dusting of the sticky surface with a broom, just take a stick mop, attach a pad to it, and dry-sweep the floor thoroughly.
  • Disposable pads are the best to dry-sweep the sticky floors.
  • We need zero dust particles on the surface to save ourselves from deep cleaning another layer of sticky residue.

Damp Mop with Rubbing Alcohol Homemade Cleaning Solution

  • When you have a dust-free engineered hardwood floor, take the stick mop, attach another pad to it and soak it in the water mixed in with rubbing alcohol, distilled water, and dishwashing soap. Due to the soap, there will be suds, so be prepared to handle it.
  • Every time the water seems dirty, change it, and clean the rest of the floor with clean water. Please do not make it seem tedious and avoid changing the water because once you make yourself believe it’s hard work and continue mopping with the same dirty water, the sticky residue from the floor will never go away. Whatever you did or will do will be a massive waste of time and energy.
  • Also, make sure you thoroughly wring the mop to remove every drop of excess water from it. Wet mopping will eventually cause damage to otherwise resistant-to-moisture engineered hardwood floors from within.
  • It is imperative to follow a pattern while cleaning the wooden layer. It helps avoid streaks on the veneer. By keeping just a few crucial points in mind, like mopping in one straight line, you can ensure a streak-free, stickiness free, clean, and sanitized engineered hardwood floor.
  • If an area is still not cleaned off of its stickiness, continue rubbing it with the same pad. It’s microfiber, so it will not be harsh.
  • You can also try direct spraying of the rubbing alcohol cleaning solution and rubbing it with a cotton ball or the pad. The sticky residue will eventually vanish.

 

Damp Mop It with Clean Water with No Cleaner

  • Just like you have damp mopped the floor with water and cleaning solution, the same way you have to remove the suds, residues, and cleaning solution from the engineered hardwood surface.
  • Thoroughly wash the microfiber pad. Disposable ones are not feasible in this case, so make sure you are using reusable and washable ones.
  • Now damp the pad in clean water and mop the engineered hardwood floor, following the same pattern to remove suds and residues.

Make Sure to Thoroughly Dry the Floor

  • Engineered hardwood floors are very much resistant to water, yet it’s always better not to damp mop it for obvious reasons.
  • The less you damp mop such floors, the longer they are going to last. It is still a wooden layer with multiple layers made of plywood’s and different materials beneath. The water will eventually seep in.
  • So, after damp mopping and deep cleaning the floor, sweep it dry pronto. Do not let the water or the alcohol seep in by skipping this quick but necessary step.

Final Tips

So, what you need to do is use the indicated floor cleaner, frequently change water while mopping the floor, immediately deep clean drinks, and food spills, dry the wet floor, put carpets with no plastic bottoms, and the sticky engineered hardwood floor issue will be nearly solved and will never resurface.

It is pretty clear more than mopping, we are asking for regular dry sweeping of the engineered hardwood floor. And about sticky floors, if you take care of the issues that cause stickiness right from the start, there will be no sticky engineered hardwood floor. So, dry sweeping and wet mopping when the floor desperately needs it is the only way to keep engineered hardwood floors clean with no stickiness.

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