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Cold weather means more salt on the roads and sidewalks—but also on your floors as it gets tracked in on your shoes and boots and leaves salty streaks behind. Salt is great for dealing with ice outside but it is terrible for your flooring. Even if you’re on top of making people remove their shoes when they enter your home, salty dust can still find a way onto your hardwood and other floor surfaces and could lead to permanent damage if you don’t deal with it quickly and correctly. Here’s what you need to do to get rid of it the right way.
Remove salt with something acidic
Salt deposits don’t emulsify with soap and water, so don’t waste your time with your usual mopping routine. What you really need is a weak acid of some kind. Here’s where our old friend vinegar comes in.
First, you need to get rid of any salt crystals by vacuuming or sweeping them up. You also need to wipe up any melted snow or moisture, so grab an old towel and do a quick dab. Be careful, though: Don’t push it around, as any big crystals inside could scratch the floor (and you could push the water into the cracks in the floorboards, which could result in damage underneath). Dab that moisture with a cloth.
Next, mix vinegar and warm water at a ratio of a half a cup of vinegar per gallon of water. (If the salty streaks and stains are really bad, you can double the amount of vinegar.) This is what you’ll use to clean once the solids and liquids are removed and all that’s left are those streaks.
How to apply the salt cleaning mixture
Spread your vinegar-and-water mixture in the same way you would when washing the floor as you usually would, which will differ depending on what it’s made of. If it’s tile or vinyl, for instance, you should coat it with a mop and leave it there a few minutes to dissolve the salt. If you’re dealing with wood, use a spray bottle to mist the streaks, then dab up the moisture with a towel after a few minutes.
To prevent the streaks from coming back, keep a spray bottle of the mixture handy so you can tackle them as they pop up. Be vigilant about melting snow, too. Check under your door mat for any leaks, wipe up wetness as soon as it happens, and spray the area with your bottle for good measure.
The smell of vinegar usually dissipates after a while, but if you really hate it, you can go back through the room with your usual floor-cleaning supplies again after it’s dried.
The best salt-busting cleaning tools
When you’re spreading that solution around, you need something soft. This isn’t the time to scrape, push, or otherwise get too abrasive. Microfiber is the answer. You can use microfiber cloths, which are inexpensive and delicate, but I also understand if you don’t want to be kneeling on salty, crusty, dirty floors to gently wipe with a rag. In that case, I recommend a dedicated microfiber mop. You’ll want a mop designated for winter entryway and floor cleaning because you don’t want to drag salt all around the house when you’re cleaning non-salty areas. Instead of spending a bunch of money on a new microfiber mop that you’ll only use a few months out of the year, I have a better idea: Pick up this pack of two microfiber mop pads that are designed to fit around the head of a standard Swiffer Sweeper.
For about $10, you get two stretchy covers so one can be used for dabbing up wetness and another can be used for applying your diluted vinegar. They’re easy to remove from the Swiffer, so you can pop them in the laundry with ease so you can use a fresh pad every time you need one.
