Engineered wood flooring can have a thin wax layer all over it when you use specific floor cleaners, which leave the wax over it upon repeated frequent use. Such floor cleaners are not mandatory to use to clean the surface as they work pretty much the same when you use vinegar-water solution to wipe the floor. So, if you are worried about the wax layer all over your engineered hardwood floor, then stop using such cleaners regularly. Instead, use them not more than once every four months.
Then, you might have spilled wax from your scented candles which is tough to get rid of unless you know the trick to remove it from the surface. Not knowing the trick will let you do the most obvious thing, which is basically scraping off the wax with a metal scraper.
Doing the obvious will only ruin the floor with nasty scratches, nothing else. But when you know how to remove candle wax from engineered wood flooring, you know that both heat and ice cube works great in cleaning off the wax. One is used to melt the hardened wax, and the other is used to set the candle wax further to make it easy to scrape it off. However, in both cases, the application of the heat and coldness has to be mild, and the attempt has to be vigilant.
With A Blow Dryer
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We prefer using the blow dryer the most to clean the candle wax from the engineered wood flooring. It’s not as risky as heated iron. After all, you use it to dry your hair. Treat your engineered wood floor like your fragile, precious hair while removing the candle wax. So, let’s start with the whole process of using a blow dryer to clean the candle wax.
How to Remove Candle Wax from Engineered Wood Flooring?
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Step #1 – Scrape Off the Set Candle Wax
The first step is always to remove the hardened wax with a plastic scraper. The purpose is to get rid of wax as much as possible without getting too deep towards the surface. Scrape most of it and then wipe it clean or vacuum the engineered wood floors wax dust off.
Step #2 – Melt The Wax
Move your hairdryer, of course, a switched-on one over the hard wax. The heat will melt the hardened candle up. If your candle wax has just spilled and splashed on the engineered hardwood floor, it’s better to be super quick with your tools and cleaning products, which is mostly impossible to arrange within minutes. So just let the spilled candle wax harden a bit so that you can start the entire process from scratch.
Step #3 – Use The Cotton Cloth
So, you have melted the hard wax through the low heat of the blowdryer. If you found the direct heat to be risky for the engineered hardwood floor, just place the cotton cloth over it. The cotton cloth that you will use to wipe the melted wax. Make sure the cloth is not too colorful to avoid stains transferring from it on the floor. Also, make sure the cloth is fresh and lint-free. Otherwise, the lint or dirt will stick on the wax rather than cleaning the engineered hardwood floors surface.
Step #4 – Blot, Don’t Sweep
If you have placed the cloth on the wax prior, then upon the wax melting, the cloth will absorb most wax leaving only a slight residue on the floor. And if you have directly used the blow dryer to melt the wax, just take the cloth and blot it with the cloth. Do not just sweep the cloth over the melted wax. It will further spread the wax and
increase your cleaning job. Blot carefully and leave the residue as it is.
Step #5 – Be Prepared with Your Cleaning Solution
Now, you have to be a bit quick as the thin layer of residue will take no time to harden once again. That is why you need to prepare your cleaning solution way prior. This is not when you start preparing the cleaning solution. You will have to prepare your cleaning solution if you are using household ones or have it within your reach if you are using shop-bought wax cleaner.
There are some good-quality and safe adhesive removers and sprays in the market, which work great on engineered wood floors. However, nothing is safer than the household products we use to clean the engineered wood flooring.
Step #6 – The Household Cleaning Solution
The household product we are talking about is white vinegar. Avoid apple cider vinegar as it might stain the surface. A gallon of warm water needs two full cups of white vinegar, and your wax cleaning solution is ready to use. So, if you are using a regular spray bottle, fill it up and pour 1-2 caps full of white vinegar in it.
Since scraping off and cleaning up the wax will require much time; hence you can use hot water so that by the time you use the solution to remove the residue, it doesn’t cool down to room temperature. Instead, it stays lukewarm, which is perfect for cleaning the wax residue.
Step #7 – Scrub, Wipe, And Dry
You can use steel wool and scrub the residue ever so gently after spraying some vinegar-water solution on the thin melted wax residue. As the last step, you must wipe the surface with clean water. Use a damp and thoroughly squeezed cotton cloth and wipe the wood well. Then, make sure to wipe it off with a dry clean cloth. Rather than air-drying the surface, absorbing all the moisture with the fabric is always the better option.
Ice Cubes or Iron
Using a heated iron placing brown paper over the candle wax is another effective way to remove the melted wax. However, heat front the iron can be tricky to control, hence the blow dryer. The same applies to the ice cube method. Instead of scraping off fully hardened candle wax, absorbing melted wax is the safer option for the engineered wood flooring.
If you do not have the blow dryer, we suggest trying the ice method instead of using the iron. Scrape off the fully hardened candle wax well after putting ice cubes in a zipper bag and putting that on the waxed spot. The residue cleaning process is the same as above.
Neither heat nor moisture proves to be too kind to the engineered wood flooring. Yes, we can use both a little carefree on it as it’s not hardwood but engineered wood flooring. But still, the top ultra-thin layer in it is wood. So, more than any other surfaces, you need to be ultra-careful while using heat or moisture in cleaning up the wax from your engineered wood flooring.
