Cleaning engineered wooden floor?

[namechangedtoday15]

Can anyone tell me what you use (not necessarily products but gadgets too). We have a big open plan diner and the kitchen part in particular needs cleaning quite a lot! Any tips welcome!

I vacuum mine pretty much daily (Dyson cordless) and mop when needed using an e-cloth mop (you can chuck the mop cloth in the washing machine, which I like). I use Flash for full on wet mopping and Method wood floor cleaner for quicker wipe down.

How does the vacuum work? Other than the fact it's cordless, is it a normal Dyson?

As far as I know it’s a normal dyson. It’s my first Dyson. Had a heavy old Bosch until about a year ago. Like most vacuums it comes with different fittings. The hard floor head does a reasonably decent job of getting crumbs up (my children are horribly messy eaters). It looks best after a mop though, even a quick “cheat” mop with the Method squirty Stuff.

Are you supposed to do full on wet mopping on engineered wood?

I really have to wet mop - it gets so filthy with the children & pets. It’s fine to mop though. As I said I use an ecloth mop. You can wring it out so that it isn’t soaking wet.

I have washable door mats at front & back doors to try & reduce the muddy footprint situation. Had Turtle mats until recently and replaced with Hug A Rug which seem to take longer to dry after washing)

We do treat it with a floor wax every couple of years which makes a difference.

It’s coming up for 9 years since the floor was put down and it’s survived all the mopping so far!

That's excellent news, I'm going for an engineered wooden floor in the next couple of months! Is yours oiled or lacquered? I'm leaning towards oiled as I prefer the non-shiny look and I like that you can re-sand any scratches.

It is oiled. Lovely matt finish! But you do need to treat it every now and again. We are supposed to do it annually I think, but as it’s the kitchen and we use it all the time and the oil takes 12 hours to dry, it usually gets treated more like once every 2 years. We last did it in July and decided to use a slightly lighter oil than the previous time - it looks great! Obviously your going to choose one you love when it goes down but it’s good to know you can tweak the colour slightly by re-oiling it if you feel like it. We repainted the walls this summer and felt the floor colour needed a freshen up too. (We also have underfloor heating and it feels fabulous underfoot on winter mornings).