When it comes to cleaning floors, not many things beat a good mop with a disinfectant to remove dirt, spills, germs, and dust. It may require extra effort and additional time for drying, but it’s an effective way to clean and maintain good-looking floors. But the question remains: how often should floors be mopped?
For most homeowners without kids, it’s a good idea to mop floors at least once per week, whether you live alone or with a partner. In high-traffic areas or in homes with kids and pets, it’s a good idea to mop floors two or three times per week, depending on how messy they are.
As much as we make an effort to sweep my home on a daily basis, the amount of dirt and dust that builds up is ridiculous.
And because we have a garden around most of the house and a few of us live together, it’s easy for dirt to build up.
Before sweeping and vacuuming regularly, we were forced to mop the house at least twice per week, even though there aren’t any pets or kids in the home anymore.
Tips For Reducing How Often You Need To Mop Floors
1. Vacuum regularly
We found that vacuuming tended to push back the time needed for us to mop the floors because we were being proactive to reduce the amount of dirt and dust that could be spread from foot traffic throughout the week.
Setting aside 15 minutes twice a week to vacuum and sweep tended to get rid of the regular dust and dirt that accumulated.
So, if you need to wipe, it’s only to disinfect and thoroughly clean floors once per week.
Additionally, you may only need to wipe certain rooms or spots that have been severely messed up, skipping other parts of the floors that remain clean and dirt-free.
The Bissel 2254 CleanView Vacuum is my go-to choice. It can easily suck up most dirt, dust, spills, and grime. It has an automatic cord rewind, a triple-action brush roll, edge-to-edge cleaning, and special pet cleaning tools. It’s a must-have for any home owner and is highly reviewed on Amazon.
2. Remove shoes before entering the house
If you observe Asian etiquette, you’ll find that it’s a regular practice for anyone to remove their shoes before entering a home.
Either they walk around with socks on or they slip into sandals that are only used indoors.
By doing this, you can prevent people from spreading dirt from under their shoes onto your floors whenever they enter the house.
This little habit can reduce the time needed to mop floors.
3. Clean up spills as soon as possible
What I’ve realized is that spills that have time to sit on the floor tend to require deeper cleaning than if they were wiped up immediately.
This seems to be the case with most types of dirt and mess.
By getting in the habit of addressing issues like this immediately, you can extend the time between each session of mopping the floor.
5 Useful Tips For Mopping Floors
1. Start by sweeping or vacuuming
By removing light dust and dirt, you make it simpler and quicker to mop floors.
Also, you can focus on those areas that require more attention rather than exerting yourself from one corner of the home to the other.
If you don’t do this, the amount of dust and dirt that gets soaked up or stuck in the mop will require you to change the cleaning water after each room or two.
2. Use a cleaning mixture on spills and stains before mopping
By allowing these mixtures to sit for a few minutes, they have more time to break down and disintegrate stains.
When you mop the floors afterwards, these stains and spills will clean up easily and quickly.
Also, it will remove any odors that may have been caused by these stains and spills on the floor.
3. Use warm water and a detergent to clean the floors
Warm water and a detergent will break down dirt faster and remove any smells that may remain. It ensures that your floors will be as clean and disinfected as possible after mopping.
Check out this floor detergent recipe by Houselogic.
4. Wring out the mop when needed
As you wipe, your mop will soak up dirt from the floors and dirty the water within the material.
By wringing it out in a separate bucket, you can immerse it in the warm, clean water to continue cleaning the rest of the room. It’s a simple way to avoid spilling dirty water on the floors, which defeats the purpose of mopping in the first place.
Change the water if you notice it turning murky or dirty.
5. Wipe once more with plain water
To finish off, run through the floors with your mop using just clean water. This will remove any of the detergent water that you used early on.
Once dried, your floors should appear to be clean and shiny. Any odors or nasty smells should have disappeared as well.
Final Thoughts
By following the advice in this article on how often floors should be mopped, I’m certain that you will only need to mop once or twice per week at most.
If you take preventative measures, you can reduce the amount of work needed to keep your floors clean and pristine.
High-traffic areas or homes with kids and pets may require frequent mopping, but with the tips mentioned above, you should be able to clean up, disinfect, and maintain your floors with relative ease.
With that being said, I hope you found this article on how often floors should be mopped to be helpful and insightful. If you would like to read more articles like this one, check out these links: