Any homeowner who has put hardwood flooring in their house always dreads the winter. Salt and sand are extensively used during the winter to clear the roads. These get carried back to our own homes in our shoes and boots and can potentially damage your hardwood floor. Suppose you have hardwood flooring in your home; you need to contact your local cleaners, such as the Hardwood Floor cleaner in London, who can properly clean your floors, carpets, and rugs from sand and salt. 

However, waiting for the damage to your floor before calling a professional cleaning company is not enough. You can do many things to prevent salt and sand available on the streets and sidewalks from tracking back to your home and damaging your floors.

Let us dwell on this problem and look for various solutions to finally select a few that effectively save the hardwood floors from their natural enemies—salt and sand.

How Sand and Salt Can Harm Your Floors

Here is a list of reasons you should do your best to protect your precious and beautiful-looking hardwood floor from sand and salt.

1. The coarse sand and salt grains can damage your hardwood floor when you unintentionally rub them against the flooring surface when you walk over them.

2. The granules of sand or salt are pretty rough, and they can remove the polish of your hardwood floor whenever they scrape against it. Furthermore, the road salts used by the authorities to clean away snow from the roads have high pH values. When these salts come into contact with your hardwood flooring, they can cause repairable damage. Additionally, when ice is carried to your home by your boots and melts on the hardwood floor, it can cause extensive water damage.

How to Protect Your Floor from Sand and Salt

Now that you have understood how sand and salt can severely damage your hardwood floor, you have to take some proactive steps to prevent this damage, and if it does take place, you should limit its scope. Try the following methods to ensure you don’t have to regularly call a professional like a local Hardwood Floor cleaner in Banstead to clean and maintain your hardwood floor frequently.

1. Always leave your shoes and boots in a mudroom. The most effective way to prevent sand and salt from damaging your floor is to ensure that they don’t enter your living room in the first place.

2. Ask your family member or a visitor to keep their footwear at the entrance of your home, especially during icy, snowy weather.

3. You should put door mats at the entrance of your home. If you find removing shoes at the door of your home irksome, you should put floor mats in front of your room. The floor mats can easily trap the sand and salt from your shoes and ensure they do not enter the room. You can also use runners to cover those parts used frequently during the day to get more protection for your hardwood floor.

3. You should clean your floors regularly. If you find salt on your floor, you must immediately clean it. You can use either a vacuum cleaner or use a broom. If it is ice, we suggest you use a towel or cloth to remove it, so it does not damage your wooden floor.

However, suppose the damage has already occurred. In that case, we suggest you call a professional cleaning service like a Hardwood Floor cleaner in Croydon to limit the damage and restore your floors to their original shine.

Clean up the salt stain.

If you take some time to remove the salt (you may not have noticed it earlier), it can lead to a film on the floor as the moisture in it dries. The film forms when the salt’s chemicals leave an alkaline deposit. To prevent the damage from worsening, we suggest you use a moist cloth to rub away the stain slowly. However, we caution against using any chemicals to remove the stains. You may damage your floor even further if you lack expertise. Therefore, call your local cleaning company, like the Hardwood Floor cleaner in Surrey, who also provides hardwood floor cleaning services to remove the stains. The specialists of such a cleaning company have a great experience, the right tools and knowledge to remove any stain or repair minor damage to your hardwood floor. After they have cleaned the surface, you will be amazed by the results. Your floor will regain its original elegance, which will charm your visitors.