There's a good reason why homeowners have prioritized hardwood flooring for so long. It's a fantastic flooring option that gives you a lot of creative versatility. It works well bringing warmth and natural design aesthetics in almost every other room except for rooms with a lot of moisture like bathrooms or laundry rooms. Many households enjoy having hardwood floors throughout the house, from the living room to the bedrooms. However, hardwood floors do need a regular cleaning and care and also might need a little extra care when it comes to or before dings and scratches.
Get in a routine and help protect your investment
Cleaning your hardwood floor is not a once-and-for-all deal. Seasonal changes bring a multitude of things that might dull your hardwood floor, including rain, mud, snow, salt, leaves, dirt, and more. Setting up a regular cleaning and maintenance schedule is the first step in maintaining hardwood floors and keeping them looking fabulous. Also, here are the tips on maintaining the floors:
- To maintain your hardwood floor appearing new, dust and clean it on a regular basis
- On your hardwood floor, avoid using water and vinegar, soap-based cleaners, wax, or steam cleaners
- In high-traffic areas, use a natural rubber rug underlayment with a waffle pattern
- Felt floor coverings and chair leg coverings help to reduce scrapes and scuffs in the wood
- Add furniture pads to the legs of your chairs, sofas, tables etc
- High heels should be avoided since they might cause scratches or gouges on hardwood
- Keep your pet's nails clipped
- Maintain a pleasant environment and temperature at home
- Avoid using oil-based polish, which not only dulls the sheen of the wood but can also make the floor slippery and cause damage
- Polishing helps to extend the life of your hardwood floors and adds shine
- Vacuum weekly to keep your home clean and clean up any crumbs and dirt more efficiently and effectively
Why do people have to take good care of the flooring? Well, financially, the cost of hardwood flooring for a 2,500 square feet house in US could be up to $45,000 if the total cost per square foot is $18 (materials and labor). So as to protect your own investment on the flooring, the tips above matter.
Speaking of the tips, the vacuuming on the list is also one of the important and efficient ways to do in daily care, though the robot vacuums are only friendly with a few certain types of floors. Therefore, picking a floor- and user-friendly robot vacuum with no damage to your flooring in cleaning becomes a hard-to-choose problem among a great variety of dazzling robots in the market. But we’re sorting this out for you.
A buying guide: protect your hardwood floors using a right robot vacuum in cleaning
It is vital to check whether your vacuum cleaner is acceptable for this job before vacuuming your wooden floors. Scratches and streaks can readily form on the floors and may not be removed during or after vacuuming. So, here are some things to consider carefully while selecting a robot vacuum for them:
- Cleaning performance
Although hardwood floors are the simplest to vacuum, strong suction performance is still required to clean them fully and fast using a main brush with bristles. Strong suction and airflow are essential for doing a fantastic job clearing away food crumbs, dirt and debris.
- Navigation skills
Not all robot vacuums are adept at navigating dark flooring. Do you have a dark wooden or laminate floor? Then consider whether the robot vacuum cleaners are appropriate for this, as some cannot clean dark hardwood floors, thinking the dark flooring could be stairs ahead. Furthermore, with every robot vacuum cleaner, there is a maximum threshold height. Measure your thresholds and compare them to the maximum threshold height of the applicable robot vacuum cleaner.
- Maintenance of wheels and brushes
Maintenance of brushes and wheels is important to prevent scratches. It'd always be great if the accessories of the robots are easy to detached from themselves. This way, you can easily check and replace in your daily care for your robots.
The best robot vacuum for hardwood floors we recommend
The AIRROBO P20 has been our pick for the best vacuum for hardwood floors because of its high cleaning efficiency and cost effectiveness that break most of the people's stereotype on budget robot vacuums since its launch in just September this year.
- Cleaning performance
The P20 thoroughly picks up granular waste at high suction power 2800Pa with the pickup rate of 99.2%, combined with ScraperTM Technology empowered by elite teams of UBTECH Robotics. This technology is designed for ultimate dust extermination and can enable itself to sweep, vacuum, and scrape - in one go - without hurting the flooring, using floor-protecting cushions. Also, the AIRROBO app features Quick Clean and Meticulous Clean for the P20 upon your needs in cleaning to maximize its cleaning effect.
- Navigation
Packed with finest cliff sensors, IR anti-collision sensors and more robust algorithms, the P20 can navigate in complex scenarios such as around furniture legs, at stairway entrances, on dark carpets and flooring and even on balconies under strong sunlight. 20mm threshold-crossing height has also been one of its advantages when it comes to navigating around the house, as 19mm was the highest among robot vacuums back in 2021, according to statistics.
- User-friendly maintenance
All accessories such as a caster wheel, a rolling brush, and side brushes on the P20 can be manually and easily installed and detached, requiring less hassles for you to maintain daily, in contrast to those that cannot be detached and that get stuck with hair and dirt inside.
Conclusion
If you select the proper robot vacuum and are aware of the best practices for cleaning your hardwood floors, neither of which should be a big challenge, however using the improper methods of maintenance will undoubtedly harm the flooring rather than preserve it in good condition. For those of you who may wonder the price of the AIRROBO P20, it retails for US$199.99 and is offered on the official website. A mega discount even appears sometime when you browse around on that page. Or join the AIRROBO newsletter as we'll keep you up to date on the newest offers and deals.
