Hardwood Floor Cleaning in Montgomery, TX
A floor that has been down since before the Civil War does not need restoring. It needs somebody who knows what not to do to it.
Downtown Montgomery has genuine nineteenth-century building stock, and some of those houses still have their original floors: wide planks, sometimes a foot or more across, face-nailed with square-cut nails, worn into gentle waves by six generations of feet.
People who own one of these floors have usually been told several conflicting things about it, most of them by somebody who wanted to sand it.
What Makes an Old Plank Floor Different
It was laid green or nearly so, it has moved for a century and a half, and the gaps between boards are permanent. It was never coated with a modern film finish, so what is on it is decades of wax, oil, and dirt over bare or lightly oiled wood. The surface is not flat and was never meant to be. All of that is what makes it worth having, and all of it is what a modern sanding machine destroys in an afternoon.
The Things Not to Do
Do not fill the gaps. The boards need that space and filler either falls out or cracks the board edges. Do not sand a face-nailed floor unless a specialist in historic work says so, because the nail heads are proud and the planks are thinner than they look. Do not put a modern polyurethane over old wax, since nothing bonds to wax and it will peel in sheets. And do not let anybody flood it with water for any reason.
What Can Sensibly Be Done
Accumulated wax and grime can be taken off carefully, with a metered solution and immediate recovery, which is exactly the process this service is built around. Underneath is usually wood in remarkable condition with a color no factory reproduces. Whether anything goes on top afterward is a judgment call, and on a genuinely historic floor the honest answer is sometimes wax again, applied by somebody who does that work.
Where We Stop
We clean and, where it suits the floor, we apply a water-based protective coat. Sanding, refinishing, re-staining, and screening and recoating are none of them things we do, and on an antique floor that limitation is a feature. Boards that are cracked, cupped, insect-damaged, or worn through are a restoration carpenter's work, and around here there are people who do that properly.
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 Montgomery
Historic floors deserve somebody who will tell you to leave them alone where that is the right answer.
Montgomery is booked at 936-582-1617 or through the form here, and the first cleaning is fifty dollars off.
Areas we cover around Montgomery
Neighborhoods: Historic downtown Montgomery, Lake Conroe waterfront, Walden on Lake Conroe, La Torretta area
Zip codes: 77316, 77356
Hardwood questions from Montgomery homeowners
Somebody told us the floor needs to be refinished to be protected.
It needs to be clean and it needs a maintained surface, which are not the same as refinished. Sanding a nineteenth-century plank floor removes the patina permanently and takes thickness that cannot be replaced. Get a second opinion from somebody with no sanding equipment in the van.
Can you tell if ours has wax on it?
Yes, in about a minute, with a white cloth and a little mineral spirits in a hidden corner. A brown or amber smear is wax. That result changes the whole plan for the floor and it is the first thing we check.
Do you work on the lake houses too?
Regularly. Walden, the Lake Conroe waterfront, and the newer subdivisions are all normal work, and most of those floors are engineered plank with a completely different set of considerations.
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Schedule your Montgomery hardwood floor cleaning
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