Dumping Buckets Of Water On Your Floor – And Lots of Other “Tips” – Are Bad Ideas
There’s plenty of dark content on TikTok, but to us, some of the darkest is all the incorrect cleaning advice that will, unfortunately, end in completely ruined hardwood floors.
#CleanTok is a viral TikTok trend where users share videos of them deep cleaning or organizing their homes – or homes of the “clients.” You’ll come across benign videos, like “Do the dishes with me,” but you’ll also watch as TikTok content creators dump buckets of boiling water onto their hardwood floors or use laundry detergent to mop.
For the record, both of these approaches are terrible for your hardwood floors – or almost any type of flooring, for that matter. Let’s take a look at why these cleaning practices are unadvisable and what you should do instead to clean your hardwood floors.
Why Dumping Boiling Water Onto Your Hardwood Floors Isn’t Cleaning Them
Sure, the act of mopping your floor will technically remove dirt and grime, but dumping boiling water will also do a few other undesirable things that are costly to fix.
First, large amounts of water – even a single bucket – can soak through your wood flooring and into the subfloor. As your porous floors take on water, wood fibers expand and become waterlogged. This can dislodge them from your floor, leading to buckling. You’ll also likely be left with dark water stains, even when the floor finally dries.
Even if you don’t see damage right away, it can occur more slowly, over time, as your cleaning habits eat away at the hardwood floor sealer and waterlog your floor.
As your floor slowly dries, you risk mold growth between the subfloor and wood floor planks, wet baseboards and drywall, and mildew. Remediating mold and mildew is not cheap and requires specialized cleaning and restoration.
Second, boiling hot water, as some content creators on #CleanTok advise using, is dangerous to dump on your floors. You risk being splashed with extremely hot water, which can leave you with burns. Heat, like water, also expands the wood in your floor, which can cause it to crack or become uneven.
Not only can this damage occur on the floor you’re dumping water onto, but it can also leak to the floors below yours. If you rent a multi-family home with an apartment below yours, you could be causing leaks in someone else’s home.
If you want to mop, use a manual mop with a disposable pad or a traditional mop that you wring out well before applying it to your floor.
Laundry Soap Pods In Your Mop Bucket? Just Say No!
#CleanTok has popularized using laundry soap pods to mop the floors, saying it will leave your home smelling fresh and clean. The problem is that laundry soap is not designed for hard surfaces. It can leave a thick, slick coating on your floor that will actually attract more debris, dust, and pet hair.
Then there’s the issue of using unsafe cleaners on your hardwood floor. Cleaning with these chemicals can dull the finish or hasten your need to refinish your flooring.
Instead, mop with quality hardwood floor cleaners that are water-based and gentle. These do not contain vinegar, ammonia, bleach, hydrogen peroxide or abrasive substances.
Be Wary Of Cleaning Product Overload
“Deep-cleaning” videos on #CleanTok depict content creators using multiple cleaning products – sometimes mixing bleach- and ammonia-based cleaners – to show how high their cleaning standards are.
Unfortunately, mixing cleaning products in this way can create toxic gas called chloramine. Exposure to this gas can cause coughing, nausea, water eyes, shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing, irritation to the throat, nose, and eyes, and even pneumonia.
These cleansers, as we mentioned before, are also not good hardwood floor cleaners. If you’re tempted to use multiple products on your wood floors, don’t. It’s better for your floors and for your health.
Instead, use cleaners made especially for hardwood floors, such as Bona.
Using Just Any Vacuum On Hardwood Floors
Many vacuums come equipped with a beater bar. This is the name for a rotating brush roller that loosens dirt and embedded hairs from carpet fibers. The rotating brush essentially “combs” dust, dirt, and hair into the vacuum’s suction ports. Beater bars work especially well on plush carpeting. On hardwood floors, however, they cause damage.
The best vacuums for wood floors are those that don’t use beater bars or that have removable beater bars. Unfortunately, some of the vacuums popularized on #CleanTok, are equipped with beater bars.
Rotating bristles can leave scratches in hardwood floors. These brushes can also inadvertently drag sharp debris across the wood floor, leaving behind deeper gouges in your floor. On carpet, this isn’t an issue, but on solid-surface floors, it could result in damage that requires professional help to address.
If you must vacuum, use a machine without a beater bar. You can also use a traditional manual broom instead.
Have You Followed Any Of These Trends? You Likely Need to Address the Problems
If you’ve followed these trends, especially dump mopping or using the wrong kinds of cleaning products, it’s likely your hardwood floors need some help.
Partner with a wood floor refinishing professional, who can address water damage, sand your floors smooth, and reapply stain and hardwood floor sealer.
Everyone makes mistakes, and it’s easy to be influenced by content creators. But now that you know the truth, you can take better care of your flooring.
