Cleaning Ceramic Tile

Secrets to Cleaning Ceramic Tile

By: Laura EvansIf you have ceramic tile flooring in your home, you need to know how to keep your floor free of dirt. While cleaning ceramic tile flooring is relatively simple, there are some pitfalls that you should avoid. The secrets to cleaning ceramic tile floors take into consideration both the tile and the grout.
Ceramic Tile
Humans have been making tiles for their dwellings for 4,000 years. In ancient times, tile making techniques were closely guarded secrets, and each tile was handmade and unique. Caring for tiles was a guessing game, as what worked well on one composition of tile might destroy another.
Today's ceramic tile is usually manufactured in quantity, unless you are lucky enough to have handmade tile in your home. Ceramic tile, made from clay and sand, is fired at high temperatures, leaving the tile with more strength and a hard surface.
The main differences between ceramic tiles are the glazes used. These glazes give ceramic tile their finish, be it rustic or polished and shiny.
Most tiles in homes are made in the monocottura, or single-fired, process. Tiles made using the monocottura process are completed in less time and are more durable and flatter, making installation easier.
You may have biocuttura tile on the walls of your home. The biocuttura process requires at least two firings, one when the clay is fired alone and one after glaze is applied to the tile.
Cleaning Grout
When cleaning your floor, you not only have to consider your ceramic tile, you have to consider your grout. Grout is the substance between each tile that holds the tiles in place. Grout also adds to the appearance of your floor. Grout can get mold or mildew if moisture is present, and damaged grout leads to tiles loosening or falling off the surface. Since grout typically isn't as durable as the tile itself, any cleaning products you use must be safe for both the tiles and the grout.

• Cleaning products. Always read the labels of any cleaning products that you use. Cleaning products should be non-acidic and non-alkaline. Avoid products that contain wax or oil.
   
• Spills. Always wipe up spills on grout right away to help avoid staining. Even liquids that have dried may attract more dirt, leading to a messier floor.
   
• Sealing grout. You might try sealing your grout again, assuming it was sealed when it was installed, if it seems to be attracting more stains.
   
• Hydrogen peroxide. Ask your local home store specialist if hydrogen peroxide will work on your brand of grout to remove stubborn stains. Always test any tile or grout cleaner in a small, discreet area before you use it all over your floor.
   
• Door mat. Have a mat at each entrance to catch dirt from incoming shoes. This can help keep your ceramic tile floor cleaner longer.
   
• Steam cleaner. Instead of getting down on your hands and knees with a toothbrush to attack your dirty grout, rent a steam cleaner. Do not use any detergents, only hot water and pressure or an appropriate tile-cleaning product. Don't use any cleaner that has not been specifically recommended for the cleaner. A steam cleaner will get your grout and ceramic tile clean and may also pull up old cleaner reside and allergens. Make sure that you dump your cleaning water when it starts to get cloudy. Cloudy water equals a cloudy floor.

The Wrong Approach
Generally speaking, you simply sweep or vacuum away dirt and grit, then you wash the floor down with a mop and water. Voila! You have a clean floor. However, it is still possible to damage your floor. What are some of the practices that you should avoid when cleaning your ceramic tile floor?

• Abrasive Metals. Do not use abrasive scouring pads or metals on your floor. Not only can these type of products scratch your tile, pieces of metal can become imbedded in your grout and rust.
   
• Vacuuming. Do not use a vacuum with a stiff brush or a beater when you vacuum your floor. These will send dirt flying and could scratch the tile surface. Use a soft brush or tile attachment instead.
   
• Soap. Do not use soap on your ceramic tile. Soap can actually leave a scummy surface on your tile, making it look dirty.
   
• Vinegar. Do not use products that include vinegar on your tile floor. Using vinegar on ceramic tile can lead to a less-glossy, dull appearance.

A ceramic tile floor can add long-lasting beauty to your home. In comparison to other types of flooring, caring for tile tile is an easy, low-maintenance job.

source: http://www.life123.com/home-garden/building-renovations/flooring/secrets-to-cleaning-ceramic-tile.shtml

Tips for Cleaning Hardwood Floors

Though hardwood floors are durable, they do require careful maintenance and cleaning. Using the wrong cleaner on a hardwood floor could stain or discolor the wood irreparably. Follow these tips to keep your hardwood floors looking like new for years to come. Remember, before you apply anything to your hardwood floor, you should test the product in an inconspicuous area to ensure that it will not damage your wood.
Daily Care
The number-one enemy of hardwood floors is dirt, along with its cousins grit and sand. To prevent dirt, grit and sand from scratching or dulling the finish, simply vacuum your hardwood floors on a regular basis and clean with a damp, not wet, cotton mop once or twice a month. Your vacuum should have an attachment with a soft head. Never use a vacuum with a beater brush on a hardwood floor. Use doormats or small area rugs at entrances and in high-traffic areas to trap dirt and other fine particles.
Whether your hardwood floors are finished with wax, varnish or polyurethane, any food or liquid that spills on the floor should be wiped up immediately with a damp cloth and then dried with a clean towel. Water and other liquids should not remain on the surface of hardwood floors because they might damage the finish or seep in between the floorboards and cause warping.
Quarterly Care
Several times a year, hardwood floors should be cleaned to remove surface grease and dirt that may have accumulated. A neutral-pH cleaning product specifically formulated for wood floors is the best choice.
Straight ammonia or ammonia-based cleaning products should not be used on hardwood floors because they will dull the finish and possibly cause discoloration of the wood. Wet mopping with a liquid soap or using abrasive cleaners is also not recommended, because either one has the potential to strip the finish or cause it to deteriorate prematurely.
Buffing is only required for hardwood floors with a wax finish and is recommended once or twice a year at most. Spot buffing, however, is effective at removing scuff marks that commonly occur on waxed floors. Most new and many older hardwood floors have a polyurethane finish and don't need to be buffed or waxed at all.
Stain Removal

• Water stains
  The cause of water stains are the minerals that exist in water. The harder the water, the more potential there is for staining, though even soft water can stain. Water stains can appear on granite, glass, ceramic (toilets), and on fabric. The main strategy in removing the stains is to disolve or scrape off the minerals. On granite, you should consult the cleaning guide that came with your granite such that you do not damage this expensive surface. You can scrape some off with a straight blade, and polish with a cloth, but, make sure that you seal the granite when done so that this doesn't continue to happen. For glass and ceramic, you can wipe the stains with calcium and/or rust removal solutions that you can buy at the drug store. For fabric, you should just rub in diluted laundry detergent. Make sure that you test this on an area of fabric that is hidden so that you can see if there is any problem with color fidelity.
• Gum
  First, using your fingers, pick off as much gum as you can. Then get some ice from the freezer and pop it into a plastic bag. Place the plastic bag on the gum and let it sit until the gum is frozen. You should be able to remove the frozen gum by scraping it with a credit card or something similarly thin and flexible. Don't use a razor blade, knife, screwdriver or other hard implement, as this will scratch and score the surface of the wood.
• Pet Accidents
  Hardwood floors can suffer if pets or a small child have an accident on the floor. Urine, given enough time or repeat offenses, will discolor your hardwood floors and make your floors smell.
  If you discover the problem quickly, wipe up the mess with paper towels, followed by cleaning the affected area with detergent and water. Then drench a cloth with rubbing alcohol and rub away the stain. You may want to finish by applying a commercial odor neutralizer and stain remover. It may take more than one application of the commercial product to remove the smell.
  Unfortunately, if the stain is old, you may have to sand the wood down and then refinish your hardwood floor. In a worst-case scenario, you will have to replace the affected planks.
• Crayons
  Kids occasionally do their own interior decorating. You can avoid this problem completely by giving your children washable crayons. If you are dealing with a wax crayon drawing, get some toothpaste from your bathroom and rub the affected area with the paste using a damp cloth. After the picture is gone, clean off any toothpaste that is left on the floor and then wipe your hardwood flooring dry.
  If you have a clump or clumps of crayons on your floor, treat the crayons with ice in a plastic bag, the same as you would gum.

Preventative Care
Hardwood floors are easily gouged and dented by sharp or heavy objects. To prevent this from occurring, use felt pads under furniture legs and feet. Sunlight is known to change the color of some hardwood floors dramatically. Consider drawing the drapes or closing the blinds to avoid excessive discoloration in one spot, especially if there are south- and west-facing windows in the room.
With proper care and maintenance, you can keep your hardwood floors looking new for many years.
Water stains are actually watermarks that are permanently imbedded in your wood. Most likely you will need to sand the area and restain it, but before resorting to drastic measures, try some of the commercial cleaning products on the market. Most hardwood flooring companies offer a variety of cleaning products to deal with difficult cleaning jobs. If all else fails, use fine-grade sandpaper or #0000 steel wool and gently rub the stain along the grain of the wood until it is gone. Buff with a clean cloth or rewax the spot. If necessary, reapply the finish with a small varnish brush.

source :  http://www.life123.com/home-garden/housekeeping/cleaning-hardwood-floors/tips-for-cleaning-hardwood-floors.shtml

Cleaning Hardwood Floors

Cleaning Hardwood Floors:

The good news is, cleaning hardwood floors is not rocket science, it's just about applying some common sense practices. Hardwood floors are a big investment and you obviously want to keep that investment healthy. The bad news is that it's quite easy to ruin a nice wood floor, and most people are doing just that!

Prevention

Your hardwood floors greatest nemeses aren't very obvious, but they are very destructive. Dirt, grit and minute sand particles, although hardly worth noticing, are the things that scratch, dent and dull your beloved hardwood floors. In between cleaning hardwood floors, Place a doormat at each entrance to trap dirt and sand, and vacuum the mats frequently. A friend of ours places a doormat on both sides of the door, in and out, and she's hung a "shoes off, please" sign as well, since shoes not only bring in dirt, but they help grind it down into the carpet as well.

Moving furniture, especially dining room chairs, can be pretty hard on your floors unless you take the necessary precautions. Lift, do not drag, if possible. Use felt contacts under the legs. Use good quality contacts, not cheap ones. Your floor is expensive, what's another 2 bucks?

Use a broom on your floor, brooms are much kinder to your floor than a heavy vacuum. If you must, just sweep all the debris to the end of the floor and suck up with the vacuum, but at least use the attachment, not the beater bar. Dry dusting with a spray cleaner is the way to do most of your cleaning.

Using water for cleaning hardwood floors can be very risky. People have a tendency to damp mop them way too much, breaking down the protective finish. Once the finish is compromised, the wood begins to warp. Never leave standing water on a hard wood floor and only damp mop if you have a serious spill or stain to deal with, even so, spot clean that stain. When you do need to damp mop a hard wood floor, follow the system below.

Avoid oil soaps, they will build up if mixed too strong and used too often, which is usually the case. Use neutral pH cleaners formulated specifically for cleaning hardwood floors.

Direct sunlight will discolor floors. The sun's intense UV rays can damage the finish and sunbleach the wood. Keep fine wood floors in the shade if possible. It's actually cheap sealants that contribute to this problem.

Use a dust mop with a hardwood spray formulated for dust mopping. When done on a regular basis, this is all the cleaning that a new hardwood floor should need. You can damp mop the floor if the wax is healthy and you take care not to let the water stand for too long. When wood floors are in good shape, we employ these two steps to help keep them that way:



Our process for cleaning hardwood floors

1- Damp mopping with a micro fiber cloth.

Attach a micro fiber cloth to a Swiffer mop. Use the cloth designed for dusting. These do not hold much water, but do trap a lot of dirt. Soak the cloth in a solution of 1 part vinegar, 3 parts water. You can also use a mild cleaner like Simple Green, if diluted, but we find that white vinegar, with its water-softening and cleansing qualities, works best. Mop as you would if you were dry dusting. Wipe dry, then after the floor is dry...

2- Dry Dusting.

Dry dust mop with a spray cleaner formulated for dry dusting, and wash the dust cloth. Replace the dust cloth several times, using a fresh one when it starts to get wet or too dirty.

I get really aggravated by floor manufacturers who continue to bad mouth vinegar. Usually it's because they are promoting their own cleaner (that tries to emulate the excellent cleaning properties of vinegar). We've been cleaning hardwood floors for over 10 years and people always want to know how we get the floors so shiny and clean.......it's vinegar!!


Disclaimer of sort

We do not wax floors, so we will not give any info here about waxing floors. I won't even give links, but you will find that they're easy enough to track down on the Web. A lot of what one needs to know about wood floors has much to do with refinishing, which is not cleaning. So if you're in need of fixing a worn or damaged wood floor, you need advice from someone who refinishes wood floors. If you're looking for information about ink stains, cigarette burns, scuffs, wax and water issues, etc., contact your wood floor manufacturer.

We have formulas that we use for cleaning hardwood floors...

 We hope that this information on cleaning hardwood floors has been helpful, and invite you to explore the rest of the site for more helpful tips.

Thanks 

source : www.start-cleaning-business.com

Cleaning Hardwood Floors with Swiffer

Everyday Hardwood Floor Care

Swiffer Sweeper wet and dry cloths are great as a daily

 regimen for cleaning finished hardwood floors.*

    It has a thick cloth that pulls dirt and dust from your finished hardwood floors.
    Dry cloths pick up 50% more dirt, dust, and hair than a broom.
    Wet cloths dissolve dirt and grime to clean better than a mop.
    It's a two-in-one tool designed to give you a smarter clean.
    Disposable pads make dust lines a thing of the past.

How to Clean Laminate Floors

Laminate flooring is a popular choice for those seeking the look of hardwood, but also wishing to avoid the higher level of maintenance. It is much easier to maintain than real wood.

Laminate Floor Maintenance Cleaning

What you will need:

    Broom
    Vacuum with soft brush attachment
    Laminate Floor Cleaner (sold at home improvement stores and large grocery chains)
    Sponge Mop
    Bucket of clean hot water

Instructions:

    Sweep floors to remove loose dust/debris
    Using the soft brush attachment, vacuum floor, making sure to pay special attention to corners where dust and pet hair accumulate
    Following the directions on the Floor Cleaner, apply to small section of the floor (5’ x 5’).
    Dampen sponge mop, being sure to wring out excess water, and run over area of floor cleaner* going with the grain of the wood with smooth, even strokes.
    Rinse mop in clean water and repeat steps 3 & 4 on next section of floor.
    There is no need to rinse unless the directions on the cleaner suggest that you do so.

*Be careful if the mop has metal edges as these may scratch the floor.

Laminate Floor Stain Removal

Although laminate floors are generally stain resistant, some stubborn stains may require special treatment. Here are some of the more common trouble makers:

    Blood: Spray stain with window cleaner and wipe with a damp cloth.
    Liquor: Dampen a cloth with warm water and detergent and rub spot. If that fails, try using a cloth dampened with denatured alcohol.
    Grease: Apply an ice pack (a package of frozen vegetables will do in a pinch) until grease hardens, then gently scrape with plastic spoon or butter knife. Remaining residue should wipe away with a couple of squirts of window cleaner.
    Crayon marks: Rub with a soft cloth dampened with mineral spirits. If that doesn’t work, apply toothpaste and rub with a dry cloth.
    Nail polish: Use a small amount of scouring powder, warm water, and a plastic mesh pad. Work the scouring powder into a paste and apply, be careful no to rub too aggressively as it may scratch the finish.
    Ink: Wet a rag with warm water and detergent and rub. If that doesn’t work, try a commercial ink remover.
    Heel Marks and Scuffs: Rub the marks with a pencil eraser. Mr. Clean magic erasers are great for this.
    Chewing gum: Remove excess gum with plastic knife and rub residue with soft clothe dampened with mineral spirits.

Keep Your Laminate Floors Looking New

Although laminate floors are low maintenance and scratch resistant, that doesn’t mean they are indestructible or scratch proof. Taking these simple precautions will keep your floors looking new and scratch-free.

    Keep a broom and/or dust mop handy for daily quick sweeps to avoid accumulation of dirt, dust and pet hair. Swiffer makes a product perfect for this task, such as Swiffer Sweeper® and Swiffer Sweeper Vac.
    Regular floor cleaners, such as the pine scented kind are not recommended for use on laminate as they can leave a dull, soapy residue.
    Murphy’s Oil Soap is not recommended for use on laminate as it can leave it looking streaky.
    For quite clean-up of spots and spills, spray with window cleaner and wipe with a soft cloth. However, do NOT overuse window cleaners that contain ammonia as excess ammonia can strip away the protective sealant on laminate floors.
    Wipe up water and other spills promptly as excess water or other liquid can damage floors and cause warping.
    Laminate floors DO NOT require waxing and applying floor wax of any kind can result in a dull build-up.
    Consider using carpet runners or area rugs (being sure to use non skid pads under either) especially for high-traffic areas.
    Try to avoid wearing heavy-soled shoes or high heels on wood floors. In fact, barefoot is best!
    NEVER drag furniture or other items across the hardwood floor.
    Use furniture pads on the bottoms and legs of furniture (available at any home improvement or supercenters stores).
    If you have pets, keep their nails trimmed to avoid nicks and scratches.

Cleaners for the Environmentally Conscious

With the popularity of laminate flooring, commercial cleaners can be found at most of the larger grocery stores, supercenters or home improvement stores. However, if you are “thinking green” you can find environmentally friendly versions online. Admittedly though, these “friendlier” versions may not be as friendly to your wallet. For a less expensive and environmentally safe alternative, try mixing 1/2 cup of distilled white vinegar with 1 gallon of water. This mixture should cut through most dirt and grime and leave your floors looking clean and streak-free.

source : www.howtocleanstuff.net/