One sure way to ruin any hardwood floor is through over saturating your floor with moisture. The most common ways of this over saturation occurring are as a result of spills, floods and urine. Whilst spills are usually cleaned promptly and floods are not very common, many people have pets that might, on occasion, leave a puddle that goes unnoticed. So, if this happens to your floor, what should you do?
The polyurethane finish that is used on modern hardwood floors (finished within plus minus the last ten years) is specially configured to be resistant to the damage that can occur as a result of urine. For this reason, if you do come across a very recent pet accident that has not had time to soak into the floor, and you wipe it away quickly, you should be able to avert damage to your floors.
However, if you come across a pet stain that is not so recent, there may be reason for worry. These not so recent stains often go unnoticed in less frequented areas, such as behind furniture, or when the hardwood floor is covered by a carpet that prevents the floor from drying. As the urine sits on your hardwood floor, it soaks into the floor and decomposes over time, becoming increasingly alkaline and starts to eat away at both the finishing as well as the wood of the floor. If you come across a pet accident that you think might have been there for longer than three hours, you can neutralize the urine with vinegar. This will protect your floor from any further damage. Crisis averted, you should wait for the damaged area to dry completely before you take any steps towards correcting your hardwood floor.
There are many myths about removing pet stains from hardwood floors that you may come across on online platforms. Some of these myths include that they can be removed using bleach or light sanding. In most cases where the urine has soaked deep into the floorboards, sanding and bleach will not be sufficient as they only address the surface layer of damaged floor whilst ignoring the damaged underneath. To comprehensively repair damage from pet urine, hardwood floorboards that were damaged need be removed and replaced with new floorboards. For this job, it is best to consult your local flooring specialist.
