Hardwood Floor Cleaning in Leesville, SC
In houses built before the war, the floor finish is often shellac, and shellac has one weakness that turns up in every household in the world.
Polyurethane did not become the standard until the 1950s. Before that, a finished floor in a house like the older ones around Leesville and Batesburg was almost always shellac, sometimes with wax over it.
Shellac is a beautiful finish and it is repairable in ways modern coatings are not. It also dissolves in alcohol, which is a genuinely inconvenient property to have in a room where people set down drinks and use hand sanitizer.
The Test
Find a hidden spot, inside a closet or under where a rug sits. Put a drop of denatured alcohol on it and wait thirty seconds, then wipe with a white cloth. If the finish goes tacky and colors the cloth amber, it is shellac. If nothing happens, it is a modern coating. Do it somewhere nobody will ever look, because the test itself takes the finish off.
What Marks a Shellac Floor
Spilled spirits, perfume, hairspray overspray, hand sanitizer dripped off a hand, and any cleaning product with alcohol in it. Each leaves a dull white patch where the surface has redissolved and set again rough. Water leaves white rings on shellac far more readily than on polyurethane too, which is why old dining rooms are covered in them.
How We Handle One
Carefully, with products chosen for it, and having established what we are dealing with before anything goes down. Our normal system is water-based and safe on modern coatings, and a shellac floor is a different assessment every time. On some we clean and coat as usual. On others the right answer is to clean gently and leave the finish alone, and we will say so.
The Advantage Nobody Mentions
Because shellac redissolves, it also blends. A shellac floor can be spot-repaired by somebody who knows how, with no visible seam, which is not true of any modern coating. If you have one and it is in reasonable shape, it is worth keeping, and worth finding a finisher who still works in shellac. Covering it with polyurethane loses that property forever.
Not sure whether your floor needs cleaning or refinishing? There are three tests you can run yourself in about a minute, and they will tell you which one you are dealing with before anyone quotes you.
Hardwood problems we handle in Leesville
If your house predates about 1950 and nobody has redone the floors, this is the first thing to find out.
Reach us on 803-310-5135 or book online. First visit is $50 off.
Areas we cover around Leesville
Neighborhoods: Leesville, Batesburg-Leesville, western Lexington County
Zip codes: 29070
Hardwood questions from Leesville homeowners
How can I guess before doing the alcohol test?
Age of the house, an amber-orange cast to the finish where a modern coating would look clear, and a lot of white ring marks. Shellac also has a particular slightly uneven sheen that people describe as looking hand-done, because it was.
Can you put your maintenance coat over shellac?
Sometimes, and only after testing adhesion in a hidden area. Wax over the shellac, which is common, rules it out until the wax is gone.
Somebody spilled bourbon and there is a white patch. Fixable?
By a finisher who works in shellac, usually yes, and often very well. By us, no. That is a repair, not a cleaning, and it is worth going to the right trade.
Book online
Schedule your Leesville hardwood floor cleaning
Prefer to talk it through first? Call 803-310-5135. Otherwise, pick a time below.
See the grain you paid for
Enter your zip code to reach your local Safe-Dry® team. We clean and protect hardwood across 532 locations in 6 states, with same-day appointments in most areas.