Fixing a Sticky Wood Floor

If you’re struggling to get rid of a sticky spot on your wooden floor, there are several possible ways you could fix it.  How you fix it really depends on the cause and the extent of the stickiness of course, but we’d like to share with you a few tips and hints on getting shot of stickiness on your floor.   There are few things worse than feeling the soles of your shoes sticking to your lovely wooden floor, so we want to help.

The likes of fruit juice and any sugar-based drinks are the worst culprits when it comes to sticky floors.  An ideal store cupboard solution to get rid of this sort of stickiness is to mix up 2 cups of water, half a cup of white vinegar and a tablespoon of washing up liquid in a spray bottle and apply a light misting of the solution to your floor.  When you’ve done this, wipe the solution off with a damp cloth and dry the floor thoroughly.  For recent and non-ingrained spills, this should remove any residual stickiness.

If however, your spill has been allowed to penetrate a bit and cleaning the surface isn’t sufficient to remove the lingering sticky feeling, you could try a more aggressive floor cleaner such as one of the Blanchon or Bona products.  When you’re choosing from these ranges of products, do make sure that the product you choose is suitable for the floor and finish you have.  Depending upon the finish and the grade of the wood there may well be some products that are better suited to the job than others.  Like all things wood floor related, if you’re in any doubt, either your own, or a reputed supplier will be able to advise you.  When using products such as Blanchon Heavy Duty Cleaner or Bona Cleaner, always be sure to follow the instructions on the packaging and respect any required Health and Safety precautions that are recommended.

If you’ve tried both the homemade solution and the more heavy-duty cleaning solution, and neither has worked, then it could be that the stickiness is being caused by damage to the finish on your floor.  Certain substances, and fruit juice in particular, can play havoc with wood floor finishes.  Even if you wipe up the spill pretty much straight away, the acid in the juice can cause the finish on the floor to become damaged.  The result of that damage can be a sticky feeling.  If this is the case, then you’ll need to either get a professional in to remove the finish and replace it or you could do it yourself.  Which course of action you decide upon will depend, to a large extent on how confident you are about doing the job yourself and the size of the problem.

If you decide to do it yourself, you should carefully remove the finish on the floor by sanding it lightly until you detect that the stickiness has gone.  Once you are confident that the stickiness has completely gone, you should vacuum up any dust and refinish the floor with some of your existing floor finish.  If neither this, nor the professionals succeed in removing the problem, then the worst-case scenario is that you may have to remove and replace the boards.