Hardwood flooring is a classic option when it comes to flooring for your home. Since hardwood flooring is both durable and beautiful, they instantly increase the charm of any home. The hardwood floors aren’t something that you want to damage, so you must take good care of them. The best way to do this is to mop up the spill or clean up the dirt as soon as you see it.

Sometimes, your floors can become sticky and it proves a challenge to clean them up. When the protective coating on your floor becomes damaged, it can feel sticky, even if nothing was spilt there. This is a sign that the existing protective coating needs to be stripped and a new coat needs to be applied.

When your wood floors feel sticky for whatever reason, they need to be cleaned. Here are the six ways on how to clean sticky wood floors:

1. Clean with vinegar & warm water

One of the most effective ways on how to clean sticky wood floors is by using vinegar and warm water. If you notice larger pieces of debris or dirt on your floors, make sure you use your vacuum to get those all out of the way first. Then, take one cup of vinegar and mix it with one gallon (almost four litres) of warm water. You can do this in a bucket.

Next up, put your mop in the solution and get it nice and wet before you wring it out. Use your mop with moderate pressure so you can scrub away at those sticky areas. If it’s still sticky after your first go around, put the mop back in the solution, wring it out, and mop up the area again.

2. Use floor cleaner & hot water

This next option is similar, but uses floor cleaner rather than vinegar. A word of caution: make sure the floor cleaner is recommended for use on hardwood flooring.

In order to clean sticky wood floors with this method, fill up a bucket with hot water and add in the floor cleaner. Put the mop into the solution and then wring it out. Use the mop to tackle the sticky areas. Keep wetting and rinsing the mop until the area is no longer sticky. You may need to do this a few times depending on the severity of the sticky mess.

3. Clean with household ammonia & hot water

If you need to clean sticky wood floors with a stronger solution, we recommend using household ammonia and hot water. The process is pretty much the same. All you need to do is fill a bucket with hot water and add half a cup of household ammonia to the bucket. Then place your mop in, get it wet, wring it out, and scrub the floors.

As an extra step, you’ll need to rinse the ammonia off of the floor. To do this, empty the bucket then fill it with hot water again and this time add one cup of white vinegar. Use this solution to thoroughly rinse the floor. You should always allow sufficient time for the floor to air dry after doing this. If you still find that your floors are sticky, repeat the process until there is no stickiness left.

4. Clean sticky residue on wood floors

Now that you’ve scrubbed and scrubbed, and you still see bits of flooring that have some sticky residue left on it, we have another solution. Rather than going through the above-mentioned solution 10 times, try using a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to remove any remaining residue that the mop missed. This is a good solution for how to clean sticky wood floors when nothing else works.

5. Clean with a steam mop

Not everyone owns a steam mop, but they are pretty easy to find, and you can even rent one. This is a great way to get all of the sticky residues off of your floors without damaging them.

These mops have many beneficial features. They have three different settings. The heavy-duty option allows you to tackle stuck-on messes, like what we’ve been discussing here. The steam from the mop kills 99.9% of household germs and bacteria. It’s also easy to move around and store. The great thing about this is you can use it for everyday messes or hard to clean messes like stickiness.

If you find yourself needing one of these, it may be worth the investment and they’re not that expensive either.

6. Use mild soap & warm water

With this solution, add ¼ of a cup of mild soap to a bucket of hot water. You’ll want to make sure you clear any debris or dirt with a vacuum cleaner or broom first. Put the mop in the solution, wring it out, and start tackling the sticky area. After a while, you should be able to clean the sticky wood floors with visible success.

When you are cleaning a sticky wood floor, make sure that you don’t use too much water. You don’t want to risk damaging it.