Both general and everyday cleaning of the house usually ends with washing the floor. Regular cleaning of floor coverings is a labor-intensive task, but this is the only way to rid your home of dust and germs and create a healthy atmosphere. Many housewives are interested in the question of what is better to do first - vacuuming or washing the floor. Or maybe you can do without a vacuum cleaner altogether? To prevent cleaning from taking up all your free time, it would be useful to learn some secrets used by cleaning service professionals.
Feather duster removes dust
The bright, fluffy feather dusters that maids are often depicted with in movies look picturesque, but are of little use.
They scatter dust around, but are not able to retain its particles, and therefore do not collect dirt. It is best to use microfiber cloths for cleaning. They really collect dust, hold it, wash well, and therefore can be used repeatedly.
What to choose: washing or wiping?
If you don't mean a vacuum cleaner, there are two main ways to care for floors: washing and wiping. Wiping is much easier and faster, and the dust seems to disappear. So maybe you should completely forget about washing? In no case!
Do you want your home to be fresh and clean? Don't stop at one cleaning method!
Important! To ensure that the floor is not only clean, but also looks well-groomed, it is recommended to alternate between dry and wet cleaning.
Both methods are equally important!
- Washing (wet cleaning) is a more painstaking method; it allows you to thoroughly wash corners and hard-to-reach places.
- Wiping ( dry cleaning) - treating the surface with a damp cloth to maintain cleanliness.
For some surfaces, it is enough to clean with water a couple of times a month, and the rest of the time limit yourself to removing dust and minor external contaminants. There are floors for which it is worth carrying out such cleaning more often.
Vinegar is an all-purpose cleaner
Vinegar is often called an all-purpose household cleaner. They are offered to wash mold, scale from the kettle, soap deposits in the kitchen and bathroom, windows, mirrors and many other places. However, it is worth remembering that this product is not suitable for all surfaces.
Vinegar is an acid, which means it can both get rid of dirt and harm. It cannot be used on marble countertops, polishing furniture, cleaning silicone grout on tiles, rubber seals, laminate and parquet, stone floors and many other materials.
General rules for cleaning floor surfaces
Many of the following rules seem absolutely obvious, but they are the ones that will allow you to clean as best and quickly as possible - and this is exactly what every housewife strives for.
- Before washing the floor, first of all, you need to free its surface as much as possible: lift small things and interior items up, hide shoes in a cabinet, put chairs on the table or take them out of the room, remove rugs and rugs.
- Using a vacuum cleaner, you should collect dust from the floor and baseboards, looking into the most inaccessible corners. If you don’t have a vacuum cleaner, you can use a brush or broom, but you must collect debris and dust before starting work.
- To clean the floor, it is better to use special detergents suitable for the specific floor covering. With the help of such compositions, you can achieve special cleanliness and shine and at the same time protect the coating from damage.
- It is correct to start washing floors from the farthest corner, moving towards the exit. The work is done using a mop or manually. It should be borne in mind that only the first method is suitable for pregnant women.
- You should not trample on wet floorboards, so as not to leave marks that will certainly appear after drying.
- The water should be changed as often as possible to avoid spreading dirt and transferring bacteria from one room to another.
We recommend: Is cleaning an apartment or house harmful to health?
The dishwasher and washing machine do not need to be washed from the inside
The dishwasher and washing machine do not clean themselves and also require maintenance, although not too often.
Grease, limescale from water, and food debris accumulate in the dishwasher. Every month it needs to be thoroughly washed from the inside with a special product. The same goes for your washing machine, especially if it frequently washes at low temperatures. Without regular rinsing with detergent and hot water, your car can become a breeding ground for harmful bacteria, such as salmonella.
Useful tips
When cleaning the floor, you should take into account the following tips:
The frequency of cleaning depends on many factors, including the presence of pets and children in the house. If there are pets and children in the house, cleaning should be done more often.- In the warm season, floors need to be washed more often than in the cold season.
- The more people live in the house, the more often cleaning should be done.
- It is advisable to wash the floors in the hallway daily, and vacuum the rug.
- The floors in the nursery are wiped every 1-2 days.
- If allergy sufferers live in the house, then when choosing detergents, preference should be given to hypoallergenic ones, and surfaces should be wiped daily, preventing dust from accumulating.
- Having a vacuum cleaner in the house, it is important not to forget to vacuum upholstered furniture too.
- All work that is accompanied by the formation of dust should be performed before washing the floor. These include: changing the bed linen, sorting things in the closet, etc.
- Unsystematic actions lead to low processing efficiency, so cleaning must be done in stages.
After washing the floor, the rag should be washed and dried. This will prevent it from becoming a source of unpleasant odor and a breeding ground for pathogenic microorganisms.
First we vacuum, then we wipe off the dust.
The procedure for cleaning is also important.
The debate about which is better to do first - dusting or vacuuming - used to be no simpler than the dilemma about the order of origin of the chicken and the egg. Some believed that a vacuum cleaner raises some of the dust into the air and it settles on the surface, and therefore there is no point in wiping window sills and shelves in advance. Others are convinced that when wiping dust, we inevitably shake off particles of debris onto the floor, which negates the work of the vacuum cleaner. In fact, it all depends on what you vacuum with. High-quality modern equipment carefully collects garbage and does not raise its particles into the air. So it would be more effective to do wet cleaning first, and then take up the vacuum cleaner.
Cleaning depending on coverage
Each floor covering - and there are many of them today - has its own weaknesses. For this reason, the rules for cleaning linoleum differ from washing laminate or parquet. Detergents are also selected that are suitable for a specific coating.
- Tree. Wooden floors in a house or apartment are usually coated with paint or varnish. You can wash such surfaces in the usual way by dissolving liquid soap or a special product, such as Pronto, in water. At the end of the work, you need to wash off the soap traces with clean water.
- Parquet. Before washing, the parquet must be vacuumed. This will remove dust from the gaps between the coating boards and collect debris and sand that can damage the varnished surface. Parquet does not tolerate dampness, so you need to wipe it with a slightly damp cloth, dissolving a detergent in water, for example Pallmann Clean or Pallmann Finish Care.
- Linoleum. The practical floor covering is resistant to abrasive substances and chemical damage. Before wet cleaning, linoleum must be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner to remove small debris, grains of sand and pebbles that can spoil the surface. In addition, after such preliminary cleaning, dirty stains will not appear on the linoleum when washed. Special industrial compounds are used as detergents - Mr. Proper, Mr. Muscle, Glorix and others.
- Laminate. To clean the laminated board, first use a vacuum cleaner, and then wash the floor with a well-wrung out cloth soaked in a special detergent - Unicum, Ludwik, “Cinderella”, etc.
When is it better to vacuum the floors, before or after washing, and whether it is necessary at all, everyone decides for themselves. However, cleaning company professionals advise pre-cleaning the floor covering with a broom or vacuum cleaner and only then proceed with wet cleaning. For those who want to combine these two actions, there is only one way out - buy a washing vacuum cleaner.
We recommend: Why I don’t wash my carpets at the car wash – a sad experience served as a lesson
Ink can be removed from clothing or fabrics with hairspray.
This method can often be found in tips for removing difficult stains, but now it is losing its relevance. Modern varnishes contain much less alcohol or do without it at all, so as not to harm the hair. Without alcohol, they will not eat away at the stain. In addition, the varnish may harden and leave a stain on the fabric. It is better to blot ink stains with a cotton swab and alcohol, and then wash them off.
Processing order: pros and cons
When starting to clean the floor, it is advisable to use both wet cleaning and a vacuum cleaner, if available. This provides a comprehensive approach to maintaining cleanliness.
According to the classic cleaning scheme, the floors are first vacuumed and then washed. This sequence of actions allows you to increase the cleaning efficiency.
First, debris and dust are collected with a vacuum cleaner, and only then wet treatment is carried out . But there are situations when the washed floor really needs to be vacuumed. This need may arise if something was spilled on a clean floor.
The main rule: dry cleaning should be carried out before wet cleaning. Otherwise, the same work will have to be done several times.
When to wash, when to wipe?
The easiest way to maintain cleanliness on a daily basis is to wipe the floor. And when doing general cleaning, you can’t do without washing!
But not only the type of cleaning is important. You can't ignore what kind of material you have to keep clean.
Important! Not every coating is intended for washing in the classical sense.
What's mine
This option requires the presence of a large amount of water. And it requires a special mop or rag and detergent selected according to the type of material. See which surfaces are not afraid of water. They can be washed, moistened with plenty of water, and wiped with a damp cloth.
- Linoleum and stone coatings tolerate wet cleaning well and do not require additional cleaning products.
- Washing tiles usually does not take much time and is effective in removing any type of dirt.
Advice! If the floor is heavily soiled, you need to wash it twice. It is important to clean the surface in small sections, allowing them to dry.
What we wipe
Increasingly, surfaces appear in our homes that are undesirable to be abundantly wetted with water . They can be wiped with a damp cloth. It will collect dust and maintain the quality of the coating.
- Parquet and some types of wooden floors should not be cleaned with large amounts of water .
- Stone surfaces are wiped and then wiped with a dry cloth so that water does not leave stains on the surface.
- If laminate , then, in addition to removing dust, it is worth wiping it with a damp cloth and applying a special product that has a cleansing and antistatic effect. Sometimes for such wiping they take ordinary warm water and mix it with vinegar.
Important! The floor should not be wet! Due to too much water that gets into the joints during washing, the laminate may dry out.
- The same goes for wooden floors. They can only be removed using a quick cleaning method - wiping.
How many times should you clean a week?
How often should and can you clean the house? The general recommendation is once a week for serious cleaning. But you need to put things away in their places every day, immediately after use. It is better to eliminate stains and other surprises immediately, without waiting for them to dry out, eat in, become dusty, etc.
Interesting materials:
Which countries allow dual citizenship with Russia? Which body carries out military registration of citizens? What is my nationality? What place does Ukraine occupy in terms of the number of citizens with higher education? Which foreign citizen is temporarily residing in the Russian Federation? What is the fine for registering a foreign citizen? What is the penalty for late registration of a foreign citizen? What is the penalty for registering foreign citizens? What is the registration period for foreign citizens in Russia? What is the general procedure for conscripting citizens of the Russian Federation who are not in the reserves for military service?
