what machine do i use to clean grubby wood floors from contractor?

Moving into a new place in a few days, and the bathroom contractor has left it a dusty mess.  What machine that I could rent from a Home Depot or Lowes would best clean up the wooden floors?  I was thinking of vacuuming it and then using…. what?  There must be something that is a very strong cleaner of wood floors.   A buffer?   Thanks.

Suzanne

in Cleaning and Maid Services 12 years and 9 months ago

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Springs | 12 years and 9 months ago

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The contractor should clean the whole mess up…..he made it

stevecym | 12 years and 9 months ago

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Bruce, I did not suggest screening to this person becuase a customer should not have to screen and coat a floor after a contractor has been in their house. the customer should have the contractor clean it. if the floor is damaged, the customer has to have a conversation with the contractor and he should screen it. I am not sure a customer should be told how to screen a floor as that is best left to others (though I often tell people how to do this when they call me). We just repaired and refinished a floor during a reno. Now, I tried to get the customer to hold off in the final coat of finish so I can screen and apply it on the very last day, but they were pushed. we put the final coat down and one of my guys marked it and now I have to rescreen and recoat; it is not homeowner work and I am cautious about who I let do it on a job (usually me). No way would I let the homeowner do something like this even if they wanted to. They can watch. Steve

brucef | 12 years and 9 months ago

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If what Steve says is not near enough, and the onus is certainly on the contractor, you will have to make a choice. You don’t say what shape the wood floor finish was in before the contractor made his mess? The next step up before calling in the big guns would be to rent a buffer and a purchase very fine screen pad. Screening will actually grind off the finish’s high spots and scratchs (on a magnifying glass scale). It will leave a whited out surface that has a zillion shallow scratches in the existing urethane finish. You would then need to apply a finish coat of urethane that will fill those tiny valleys and give you a flat surface that your eye sees as gloss. Less painful than a full scrape and re-finish, but a bit of a job. If you try this yourself, getting the hang of a bufer is a steep learning curve. Like riding a bicycle, but you have to be prepared for it to hae a mind of its own. If the edges and less worn areas are still pretty good, I wouldn’t go crazy trying to screen the edges.

stevecym | 12 years and 9 months ago

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If this is just dust, I would sweep it up and then use a well rung wet mop.  You may have to mop the floors several times and keep changing the water.  If there is drywall compound in the mix, the water will remove that.  Keep the mop on the dryer side as you do not want to soak the wood floors.  If you put to much water down, run the a/c, it will dry it out in there.  If you start using buffing machines on the finished floors, you will scratch them (buffing machines are for waxed floors, generally lino and that sort of stuff; wax is softer and will not scratch like poly.   Steve