HomeTriangle Guides: Importance of sealing and treating your hardwood floor

Well, if your apartment or home sports a hardwood floor, it is mandatory for you to know if the floor is treated, so that you can casually clean and care for it in the right way.

It is quite easy to find unfinished wooden floors in homes and apartments which has been withstood for decades. Finished or sealed floors have a characteristic of contemporary homes, with different treatment or sealing choices available in the markets today.

Real wood floors are treated with surface sealants (synthetic resins which mainly use urethanes and polyurethanes) or penetrating sealants as well, this sealant can be oil, water, or any solvent-based formulations. Sealants either cover or penetrate into the wood/ surface in some cases. Apart from this hardwood floors are often coated with varnish or wax. In this case, shellac and lacquer are used sparingly.

You can also carry out a few simple tests in the conspicuous areas of the floor to determine if the floor is properly sealed or not as well.

Test of Water Drops

Put a water droplet on the ground. If it just sits there and looks directly at you, then congratulations—your floor is finished. If it absorbs, either the sealant has worn out or the floor is not finished.

Steel wool surface testing

Consider examining the floor with some steel wool to look for residue. If the floor has been wax-finished, the wax will inevitably show up as a grey film on the wool.

Acetone Swab Check

Now this is the time when you wipe your floors using a nail polish remover aka (acetone). Varnish, Shellac, Wax, and a few other items help with a proper finish and this completes with a better polyurethane finish as well.

And if you are clueless about your floor's hardwood finish, consider checking out your local retail flooring store in this case, so that you can get an idea of what a generic wood-friendly cleaning product looks like, and how safe it is. If you are to consider a new cleaning product, then a small-scale trial seems to be a better way to proceed with.

Take this advice from me, always make sure to choose a small area of the floor, that has a higher chance of staying hidden from a direct view, it might be a carpeted area or an area that is in a remote part of your home.

To Wrap up:

With that being said, I hope you are by now clear on the concise use of sealing and testing your hardwood floor. Be sure to add a human and smooth touch to it, and don't hesitate to reach out fo professional services.