Summer Maintenance Guide - Hardwood Flooring Edition

Summer Hardwood flooring maintenance: 

As the snowy winter conditions change into the hot months of summer, your wardrobe is not the only thing that changes. Your hardwood floors also need the same considerations you do as the weather conditions change. Here are some of the tips you need to keep in mind for proper maintenance of your hardwood floors. 

1- Regulating Humidity 

In Canada we tend to have hot and humid summers. The heat and humidity feel amazing on our skin, but hardwood floors don’t like prolonged exposure to either element. Whether it is solid or engineered hardwood, hardwood floors expand in the summer months with exposure to heat and humidity. 

Solid hardwood flooring will expand more, since it does so through the thickness of the entire plank, whereas engineered hardwood floors tend to be more structurally stable due to its multilayered construction. But regardless of that, each hardwood flooring product has a comfort zone when it comes to humidity levels. Each manufacturer will set the exact humidity levels for the products they produce, but the general range for solid hardwood flooring is between 35-60% and for some engineered hardwood, it can be between 35%-80%. In the summer months it is really important that you use a dehumidifier. 

2- Temperature Control 

The second factor in the summer months that both people and hardwood floors need to regulate is temperature levels. Generally speaking, if you feel like the room is too warm, so does your hardwood floors. Temperature is the other factor in the expansion of solid and engineered hardwood flooring. Generally, it is recommended to keep the home at around 20 degrees Celsius all year round. 

Keeping the room temperature regulated will help protect your hardwood floors from expansion, specially if it is solid hardwood flooring. Engineered hardwood floors can tolerate a bit more of temperature fluctuations due to its structural stability, but both type of hardwood floors, and even laminate and vinyl floors are affected by rising temperature in the summer. 

3-  Sun protection 

During the summer months we have more sunny days and higher UV indexes. UV not only tans your skin during summer months, but it can also tan your floors. All wood species will mature under sunlight, this means the hardwood itself will change colour. Species like hard maple and birch will turn more golden orange over time, while species like walnut can fade in some spots and get lighter in others. Over exposure to UV will speed up this process. 

The finish used on solid and engineered hardwood, as well as laminate flooring, will yellow with exposure to UV. The more intense the UV exposure is, the faster this yellowing will take place. You can clearly see this in the outline of furniture and area rugs, left behind after UV exposure. The areas that were covered will look lighter than the uncovered areas. 

The best way to protect your floors in the summer months is to install UV filters on the windows, or keeping the blinds and curtains closed during the day, specially with a southern exposure. This will reduce the amount of UV that both the wood and the finish are exposed to. You can also rotate your furniture and area rugs around to stop the exposure lines from forming under them. 

4-  Regular cleaning 

Regular maintenance becomes even more important in the summer months, because there is increased traffic with parties and family gatherings. Your floors are exposed to more shoes, and spills, and dirt and dust. 

As fun as summer parties are, make sure that you clean up spills as soon as possible, sweep the floors often to remove any debris that can create dents and scratches onto the surface of the wood, or worse, can remove the finish all together, leaving your floors exposed. 

Regular vacuuming and moping with a warm damp cloth or hardwood floor cleaners, can help you deep clean the floors and remove stuck on dirt, grease and other stains, increasing the longevity of your floors. 

To get a more comprehensive maintenance guide, check your manufacturer’s website for specific instructions to your brand of hardwood floors. 

For more tips and to stock up on cleaning supplies, visit our showroom.