Hardwood Floor Cleaning in Saint Hedwig, TX
Sometimes the right advice on a hundred-year-old Saint Hedwig floor is to keep sweeping it and spend the money somewhere else.
This settlement dates to the 1850s and a fair number of families here are living in a house that has been in the family the whole time. The floor came with the house, nobody chose it, and it has been walked on by four or five generations.
Owners of those floors ask us a version of the same question, which is what they ought to be doing to it. The honest answer is sometimes very little, and that is worth saying out loud in a trade where the answer is normally a service.
What an Old Farmhouse Floor Usually Is
Wide pine or a mixed-width local hardwood, face-nailed with square-cut nails, laid straight over joists with no subfloor beneath it, and finished originally with nothing at all or with a shellac that has long since gone. What is on it now is a century of wax, oil, soap, and use, and in many of these houses that layer has become the finish. It is doing a job. Removing it entirely exposes bare wood that has nothing protecting it, which is a bigger decision than most people realize they are making.
Three Situations Where We Say Leave It
If the boards have gaps you can see daylight through, aggressive wet work is a bad idea and a light hand is the whole strategy. If the surface has a deep patina that the family values, taking it back to clean wood loses something that cannot be put back. And if the floor is thin, cracked, or has boards that flex underfoot, the useful spend is a carpenter and not a cleaner. In all three the advice is to sweep regularly, keep grit off it, deal with spills quickly, and leave the rest alone.
What We Would Actually Do Here
Where a floor like this is worth working on, we work far drier than we would on a modern finish, in small sections, taking off the loose accumulation and the soil while leaving the historic layer intact. It is slower and it is a different job from cleaning a suburban floor, and it should be quoted that way by anybody who takes it on. The result is not a floor that looks new. It is a floor that looks properly cared for, which is what people in this township are generally after.
Where Nobody Can Help
Boards eaten at the ends by old moisture, splits running the length of a plank, sections that have been patched with something else entirely, black staining, and any floor that has been sanded until the nail heads sit proud of the surface are all past the point of a cleaning decision. Sanding an old floor and re-staining it is work for a refinishing outfit and we do not take it on, and on a floor this thin it may not be available to them either.
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 Saint Hedwig
If you have a family floor here, get somebody to look at it before you decide anything. Knowing what you have is worth more than any product.
Saint Hedwig: 726-245-5090, or send it through this page. Fifty dollars off if you go ahead.
Areas we cover around Saint Hedwig
Zip codes: 78152
Hardwood questions from Saint Hedwig homeowners
Is it worth doing anything at all to a floor like this?
Frequently yes, and occasionally no. We will look at it and tell you which, and there is no charge either way.
Should we fill the gaps between the boards?
No. On an old floor the gaps move seasonally, filler gets crushed and falls out, and you end up with wider gaps and a mess of loose material.
What is the best routine for an old floor?
Sweep or dust mop often, keep grit at the door, wipe spills immediately, and put felt under everything with a leg. That covers almost all of it.
Will a maintenance coat change how it looks?
It evens the sheen, which reads as cared for. On a historic floor we will show you a test area first so you can decide before we commit to a room.
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Schedule your Saint Hedwig hardwood floor cleaning
Prefer to talk it through first? Call 726-245-5090. Otherwise, pick a time below.
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