If you’re an active household, accidents are bound to happen. When basic household products and oils are spilt on wood floors, these spills can be easily cleaned up with the right products and techniques. But sometimes a spill can’t be completely removed from a wood floor, even if you know what you’re doing. Under those circumstances, it helps to have some tricks that might help minimize the damage.
To remove wood floor stains, first determine what the ring looks like. Its appearance is important to help you figure out how to best address the wood floor stain. White stains, for example, indicate a type of water stain that can be easy to remove. The colour indicates whether the stain is located in the floor’s finish or the waxy surface layer of the floor.
For White Rings and Water Marks from Wood Floors: If you have waxed floors, try using steel wool on any water stains. If that fails, use sandpaper to remove the stain, and clean the area with a wood floor cleaner or mineral spirits. Stain, then wax and buff to finish, if this doesn’t work A cleaner especially made for urethane finishes will provide the best results for floors with a surface finish.
If you have particularly tricky spots try using a cleaner and scrub pad made for urethane floors. If both of the methods above fail, you can try the following ideas for how to remove watermarks from wood floors. Cover the stain with a dry cotton cloth and rub with a hot iron (set to no steam) for two to three seconds.
For Dark Water Stains from Wood Floors: Water rings or dark stains are water stains that have penetrated the finish of the wood floor. To remove dark stains from wood floors, you have two options: Dip a small brush into a small amount of bleach and rub it onto the stain. Do a second round after several hours and let the area rest until the next day. Alternatively, strip, sand, and reseal the area.
For Other Stains Out of Wood Floors: Try soaking a cotton ball or rag with hydrogen peroxide and placing it over the stain. Then saturate another layer of cotton with ammonia and layering on top of the first piece of cotton. Repeat this process until the stain is gone. Let the spot dry, then buff by hand. Treat greasy stains on surface-finished floors using the steps above for how to remove watermarks from wood floors.
For greasy stains, such as oil and butter, on wax or penetrating finished floors, rub the area with kitchen soap that has a high lye content.