best floor pad for wood floor cleaning?

I took the wood floor cleaning class at the New Magic Wand here in Rahway NJ yesterday. Very eye opening. I know some of you guys offer this service. In your opinion whats the best pad color/type for this task. It was mentioned that a red floor pad works well to clean wood floors if you are using a 175 rpm rotary. I don't know a lot about floor pads, bonnets, micro fiber pads? Advice? Procedures? The instructor used a really cool lindhaus german manufactured unit to clean and rinse the floor. Liker a vacuum with water recovery, much better and more compact than the dirt dragon.
PS. Taf and Didi couldn't have been nicer, trying out some of their products/. I will report back on how the products performed.

I keep thinking about taking that class, I have wood floors and would like to be confident in cleaning them.

Right now, I hire a guy to come in and take care of my wood floors. He uses the red floor pads....results are good.

They use moisture when doing wood?...I try and imagine it being done dry and all I can do is sneeze. my sister asked me if I could do wood floors and told her I only know how to burn wood...lol

The most aggressive pad I have use is a white pad. Most of the time I just use a cotton pad. Watch out for the mop and glow cause then you'll be using a more aggressive pad.

One of the things I have noticed is that a cleaned floor looks a little duller than before because of all the gunk that you removed gave it a shiny appearance.

I've always used white pads, but that doesn't mean it's right because I'm a self taught wood floor cleaner.

Are the pads used dry?

Ive used white pads with basic coatings cleaner...

then apply basic coatings finish to give it a really nice basketball court shine

I like the satin because the before/after results are really drastic

I find that most people do not like the Gloss and prefer the matte.

Devon I spray my pad with the cleaner too.

ya the matte is nice too, main thing we tell the customer is this isnt a fancy swedish finish but a very durable more basketball court type finish and they usually like hearing that

ACpower1 wrote:ya the matte is nice too,    main thing we tell the customer is this isnt a fancy swedish finish but a very durable more basketball court type finish and they usually like hearing that

SO you're applying a Urethane finish for that "very durable more basketball court type finish"?...Please explain.

Devon, I do a 'wet' or more like a VLM cleaning on wood floors. I basically Spray a light mist of neutral floor cleaner on, agitate it with white pad, then rinse and extract.

ya it leaves a good coating Dave, but this is obviously not full sanding and refinishing the customers have common sense so they understnad that

I don't understand, is it Urethane you're applying or something else that's real durable?

Thanks Davey! I may try and do my sisters house and the floors are in serious need of help. Im not going to do them for a living and certainly dont want to go to school just for her floors...so, whats the low down....What cleaners for VLM and then what matte material?



Thanks for the input you guys!

its the basic coatings satin or matte finish like stated above ... Davey

yes that is what it is... comparing to a very thin swedish finish its more durable


many people like the look of swedish finishes because they keep the natural wood color.


this is more of a shiny coat that has a wet look. its pretty durable, did it at my parents house

Wow, wooden floor cleaning class. I currently use micro fibre pads to do the same, but facing issues as some threads or dust do leave back on the floor. Thanks for the red and white floor pad suggestion, I will purchase this one by one and use them as per their results.

Any idea, which is the best place in Canada to buy these? I don't mind with the price if the quality of floor pad is good.

James...I suspect any janitorial supply would carry them...they are common.

Yeah you can get at home depot here in the US.

I did a $200 upsell wood floor today. It took less than an hour. I put water/cleaner in a bucket. Then dipped a glad pad (I don't reccommend these as they don't hold up well at all but it is what I have) in the water chem mix and wrung it out by hand. I set it on the floor and then a red floor pad on it then the 175 rpm machine over it and went at it. I get about 150sf per side if its not to dirty and as little as 50sf if it is. Then get a clean pad wet and keep going until complete. I made a wood floor cleaning video and put it on youtube if you type in "Ken Raddon wood floor cleaning" you'll find my video.

I did a $200 upsell wood floor today. It took less than an hour. I put water/cleaner in a bucket. Then dipped a glad pad (I don't reccommend these as they don't hold up well at all but it is what I have) in the water chem mix and wrung it out by hand. I set it on the floor and then a red floor pad on it then the 175 rpm machine over it and went at it. I get about 150sf per side if its not to dirty and as little as 50sf if it is. Then get a clean pad wet and keep going until complete. I made a wood floor cleaning video and put it on youtube if you type in "Ken Raddon wood floor cleaning" you'll find my video.

Watched your video....pretty cool stuff. The cleaning I will need to do on my sisters will need to be much more aggressive.

Here is kens link to simplify. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCuFkDwTdEs

Good video ken.

I prefer to clean/scrub with white pad, then mist with plain water to rinse followed by extracting using aluminum wand with squiggle head.......so the soil and moisture is actually being extracted.
Then you don't have to be considered with moisture damage to floor, and you know soil is extracted.

so you guys take the coat down but dont re apply? I dont understand

I don't remove any urethane coating when cleaning....just cleaning only, not stripping or sanding...

I dont understand either

One is doing a cleaning and one is a light finishing.....some of these guys really take it down and restore it....I watched a video where they actually sand deep then add wood filler and then sand again....stain and apply top coat finish like the urethanes etc

I think when you run red pads with any neutral floor cleaner and a 175 your taking down some of the coating


We do dustless refinishing, which is a deep clean takes down the top layer of the coating a bit.. removes light scratches then reapply basic coatings