Archives

Cleaning hardwood flooring

April 27, 1979

About the article

This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.

See the article in its original context from April 1979.

Brought to you by

Open Original Page

A hardwood floor can be refinished in most cases to look like new. First, to remove the old finish you need a power floor-sanding machine and an edger, the latter to sand close to the walls, and a hand scraper for corners. This equipment can be rented. For old floors in bad condition, three cuts are usually recommended-first with coarse sandpaper, second with medium and third with fine sandpaper.

This sanding usually removes most stains. If some stains remain, apply oxalic acid solution — one ounce to one quart of water.

Caution: Use rubber gloves and eye goggles, as this is poison. Let the solution stand one hour, then rinse with clear water. As oxalic acid is a bleaching agent, the area treated may have to be stained to match the surrounding areas. Cracks in the hardwood floor can be filled by using a new filler stick to match the floor, or with a mixture of sawdust from the sanding machine. After the floor has been sanded and repaired, I would strongly recommend a floor seal, a relatively new kind of material being used on an increasingly large scale for residential as well as heavy duty flooring.

It differs from other finishes in an important respect. Rather than forming a surface coating, it penetrates the wood fibers, sealing them together. All hardwood should be waxed after the finish has throughly aried. Be sure to use a liquid or paste wax recommended for hardwood.