Cleaning Floors Quickly

There come times when every homeowner needs to clean their floors quickly. Often this happens when some other kind of emergency comes along. Some examples of these emergencies would include such things as a water heater breaking, washing machine leaking, your kids spilling Kool-Aid on the carpet, and many others. While many strategies can be used for any type of flooring, there are some that only work for specific types. If you know what those specific types are, then you can quickly and easily clean your floors, and avoid the stain build up that is common to many homes.

Below are some of the most common household flooring materials and the best ways to quickly clean the spills, stains, and messes that generally seem to crop up in our life. Listed next to each type of flooring is the most common type of stain or mess that can be associated with that flooring.

• Carpet. By far the most difficult stain to remove from carpeting has got to be wax. Whether the wax comes from a spilled candle or melted crayon it seems like once you have wax melted into the carpet you are never really able to get it out. Here's what you do—if the wax is still wet, then use an ice cube to help make the wax cold and hard. Next use a soft-edged plastic spatula or a credit card to scrape up as much of the wax as you can. Now, you need to get an iron and a bunch of paper towels. Place a couple of towels over the affected area, turn your iron on to a low heat setting, and place it on the towels. As the wax softens up because of the heat, the paper towels will become saturated. Periodically lift up your iron to make sure that the wax has not soaked all the way through so that there is no damage to the iron. Repeat this process until the wax has been removed.
• Hardwood/Laminate. Hardwood and laminate floors are becoming common in kitchens across the United States. As a result it is usually a kitchen type of spill or mess that most frequently needs to be cleaned up. The biggest thing to remember is that when you are taking care of hardwood and laminate flooring, water and liquids are extremely harmful to them. If you are faced with a liquid spill, you need to clean it up as quickly as possible. If you happen to drop an egg on your hardwood floor, sprinkle a little salt on it to help absorb the yolk and whites, then use a damp mop to wipe it up.
• Tile. When you are faced with a wet mess on your tile floor, the best way to get rid of the mess is to use a squeegee and some towels. Simply lay down some of your towels to get the majority of the wet stuff up. Then use the squeegee to pull the remaining liquid into pools that you can use the rest of your towels to clean up. Using this method to clean up large spills can reduce the amount of time that it takes to get your floor dry once again.