Hardwood Floor Cleaning in Fort Worth, TX
In the older parts of Fort Worth the finish on your floor may predate polyurethane entirely, and it dissolves in things you have under your sink.
Fort Worth has more pre-war housing still in daily use than most cities its size. Fairmount alone runs to well over a thousand houses from the 1900s and 1910s, and Ryan Place, the streets around TCU, and parts of Arlington Heights are not far behind.
The floors in those houses are usually original. What is on top of them frequently is not polyurethane, because polyurethane did not become the standard residential floor coating until the 1950s. Before that it was shellac, or an oleoresinous varnish, or wax over one of the two.
Why the Coating Type Decides Everything
Shellac dissolves in alcohol. Not slowly, and not partially. A cotton ball of denatured alcohol left on a shellac floor for thirty seconds takes the finish off down to bare wood. Since a great many household cleaners, hand sanitizers, and glass sprays are alcohol based, a Fairmount floor can be damaged in a moment by somebody being helpful. Old varnish is tougher but it is brittle and it has usually gone amber and crazed, so it responds badly to aggressive scrubbing.
The Test That Takes Two Minutes
Pick a spot inside a closet where nobody will look. Put a drop of denatured alcohol on it and wait half a minute, then wipe. If the finish goes soft or gummy, it is shellac. Then do the same in another closet corner with a drop of mineral spirits. Softening there points at varnish or oil. If neither does anything at all, you have polyurethane and you are on modern ground. That sequence is worth doing before anybody, us included, starts work on a hundred-year-old floor.
How We Approach a Pre-War Floor
Slowly, with a test area, and with the technician telling you what he finds before the whole house is committed. A shellac or wax floor is a different job from a polyurethane one and sometimes it is a job we decline, which is a legitimate outcome and better than the alternative. When it does go ahead, moisture stays metered and recovered in the same pass, because a hundred-year-old board with open seams has nowhere to put standing water except down.
What This Service Is Not
Not sanding, not refinishing, not a re-stain, and not a polyurethane recoat. On an original Fort Worth floor that matters more than usual, because sanding an old floor is a one-way decision that removes irreplaceable material and takes the patina with it. Where a floor genuinely needs that, it needs a specialist in old floors and not us.
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 Fort Worth
An old Fort Worth floor deserves somebody who asks what is on it before deciding what to do to it. That is a phone call and a test patch, and it starts on 682-207-4287. Booking is on the site as well, with $50 off the first cleaning.
Areas we cover around Fort Worth
Neighborhoods: Sundance Square, Camp Bowie, Fairmount, Cultural District, Stockyards, TCU area, Westover Hills, Ridglea Hills
Zip codes: 76102, 76103, 76104, 76105, 76107, 76109, 76110, 76111, 76112, 76115
Hardwood questions from Fort Worth homeowners
Our house is in Ridglea Hills and was built in 1955. Same situation?
Probably not. By the mid-1950s polyurethane was in general use, and most Ridglea and Westcliff floors are on solid modern ground. The test still costs nothing if you want certainty.
The floor scuffs white when we drag a chair. What does that mean?
Usually wax. Wax marks white under friction and buffs back with a cloth. It is a useful tell and it changes what should and should not be put on the floor afterward.
Is there any point cleaning a floor that dark and old?
Frequently a great deal of point. Most of what reads as dark on an old Fort Worth floor is accumulated wax and grime, which holds light where the finish underneath would have thrown it back. Whether that is your situation is a walk-through question and not a phone one.
How much of the city does the crew work?
Fairmount, the Cultural District, Camp Bowie, the Stockyards blocks, TCU, Westover Hills, Ridglea Hills, and Sundance Square, plus Arlington, Benbrook, Saginaw, Keller, Grapevine, and Dallas.
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Schedule your Fort Worth hardwood floor cleaning
Prefer to talk it through first? Call 682-207-4287. Otherwise, pick a time below.
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