Tips for keeping your floors looking beautiful.

Maintaining commercial hardwood floors can be challenging with extreme traffic, and limited time to access and care for them. Here’s how to make the most of your floors:

• Place Stanley Steemer mats in doorways—they trap sand and grit from incoming traffic.
• Do not slide heavy items across floors, like fixtures or display racks.
• Use protective felt pads—install felt pads on the feet of furniture and any items that come in contact with the floor.
• Don’t let sand, dirt, or grit build up—this can act like sandpaper and actually abrade and dull your floor’s finish.
• Vacuum and dust mop (without any chemicals) floors daily, replacing dust mop as needed.
• Clean walk-off mats daily to maximize their effectiveness.
• Remove spills, or any excess moisture, promptly.
• Never wet mop a wood floor—excessive water can cause your wood floor to swell and cup.
• Don’t use wax, oil soap, or other industrial cleaners - these products can adversely affect the appearance of the finish and make refinishing difficult in the future.
• Where possible, use area rugs on high-traffic pathways and pivot areas, at the end of steps, near doorways, etc. Rugs should allow floors to breathe - avoid rubber-backed or non-ventilated rugs.
• Maintain a consistent humidity level—this is very important between heating seasons. Excessive swings in humidity levels will cause hardwood floors to swell, shrink, cup, crack, and show excessive gaps between boards. The use of humidifier and/or dehumidifier systems is recommended where inconsistent humidity levels occur.