Cleaning Old Floor Wax Off Pine

Wax can penetrate the wood making future paint or stain finishes or touch ups difficult or impossible.

Cleaning old floor wax off pine.

Applying more wax only makes the problem worse. If you have an old untreated pine floor start by dusting and vacuuming the floor as above. The original wax must be removed first. Spray the floor with a small amount of hardwood floor cleaner.

If you have laminate floors you should have a good vacuum with a soft floor cleaning attachment that doesn t have a spinning rotor. When wax builds up on vinyl and linoleum flooring it can result in a discolored yellow tone. Clean a sound finish with a hardwood cleaner. If your old flooring doesn t have any serious damage it might just require a simple cleaning buffing and resealing.

You need to use special techniques for cleaning heavily soiled hardwood floors without a finish. Going over an area of about 3 x 3 apply the linoleum floor wax remover to the surface of the floor. Leave the floor wax removing chemicals on the surface of the floor for as long as the directions on the bottle label indicate. Once it is time to remove the wax removing chemicals do so according to manufacturer s instructions.

How to remove old wax from floors without chemicals. Many floor cleaning products have a wax that adds shine and gloss to a vinyl or linoleum floor. Nothing adheres well to wax and even after cleaning the wood grain can become contaminated. The softness of pine will be an advantage and a flight grit on your floor sander 100 or 120 grit will quickly wear off the surface and remove surface blemishes.

Even freshly washed and waxed floors. You ll have to clean the wax and oil soap off the floor before you sand or they ll gum up the sandpaper which is one reason why you shouldn t use these products. Sanding down the finish can drive the wax even deeper because the friction of sanding heats up the wax. Waxed floors such as linoleum or vinyl can flake or become yellow due to age or too many layers of wax.

The mop should be entirely wrung out before being applied to the flooring. Remove all furniture and floor coverings and take off your shoes or cover them with booties. These products protect the floor from stains by putting a nearly impenetrable layer of wax on top of the floor so that substances that would stain the floor cannot come into contact with the actual floor. Then a fresh layer of wax can be applied to the clean floor to give a fresh clean start.

Unfinished wood or floors with worn down finish are a very different story and require another approach. Then use plain water but as little of it as possible so the floor doesn t absorb much if any. This section looks at the best methods of cleaning old wood floors that need a new coat of finish.