How To Remove White and Dark Stains From Hardwood Floors?

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Our floors are one of the most valuable and delicate possessions we own, especially if we are talking about hardwood floors. Here and then white heat stains and dark stains will happen and we should know how to clean them fast. You don’t want them to sit for to long.

How to Remove White and Dark Stains From Hardwood floors

Removing White and Dark Stains From Hardwood Floors

Before starting to remove stains from our floors, we should know what kind of stains we are dealing with. There are few different types of stains and methods for removing them are different.

Knowing what type of floor do you own is equally important. Do you own prefinished type or you maybe bought unfinished hardwood floors and finished them after? When you identify your floor type, you should be able to remove stains more effectively.

3 most Common Types Of Stains That Can Happen to your hardwood floors:

White Rings Or Water Marks
Dark Greasy Stains
Animal Urine Stains

I think you would be interested also in my other related blog posts on how to clean are rug on Hardwood floors, cleaning old hardwood floors without refinishing and how to Remove mold from wood floors.

White Rings or Water Marks

White rings or watermarks usually happens when someone places a hot cup of coffee or hot plate on wood. This will leave a stain on the wood called “white ring” or heat stain.

Water and heat formed moisture underneeth hot cup of coffee and White ring or heat stain occured. This is basically moisture trapped inside hardwood floors, wooden table or some other peace of furniture. With help of very affordable and straightforward techniques we will get it out in no time.

4 most common methods are

Restor-A-Finish with Feed-N-Wax (only for finished hardwood floors)
Using Iron
Cleaning white rings with hairdryer
Cleaning with mayonnaise

Restor-A-Finish with Feed-N-Wax

Using this Restore Finish is fast, straightforward and effective way of getting rid of heat stains, with just simple wipe on, wipe-off process. The product comes in many colors so you won’t face a problem finding right one for you. This method should be used only on finished hardwood floors. If you bought prefinished version with guarantee try second option.

Step by step Process:

Take Restore-A-Finish and put it on 00 Steel Wool
Wipe it on the over the stain and rub aggressively for a minute.
Then immediately wipe it off with a clean paper towel.
About a half-hour later, Apply Feed-N-Wax which is basically mixture of waxes and orange oil. It will blend in and provide a protective layer over the top of your Restore A Finish.

Using Iron to Remove White Rings or Water Marks

In this method, you will use an Iron to remove the stain on the wooden floors or furniture. Using Iron works in most of the cases. It is very easy method and requires no money. If your floors are not in bad shape and require new finish I recommend trying this method first.

Steps when removing white heat ring stains with iron:

Place dry cotton cloth or cotton Tee Shirt on the stain
In the beginning, Keep Iron on Medium heat.
Don’t use steam and keep it moving on the fabric all the time
If you see medium heat not working well, slightly increase the temperature.
Keep in mind more heat comes with more risk, so make sure you aren’t increasing temperature too much.
Keep checking your progress and surface temperature. Make sure it is not hot.
In many cases using Iron will be very effective and remove all the stain off.

Don’t move too slowly, or you will soften the finish, and your rag will stick to the surface, ruining the finish.

Cleaning white rings with hairdryer

Similar to iron, hairdryer can be effective when removing white rings as well.

turn it on and start moving above white rings on your hardwood floors or furniture.
By slowly heating wooden surface, stains will disappear.

Be careful to move our hairdryer all the time nigvgo ruin your surface. See Below video for easier visualization:

Cleaning white stain rings with Mayonnaise

Cleaning with mayonnaise is also straightforward process. We need paper towel, soft cloth and some mayonnaise

Do as follows:

Apply thick layer of mayonnaise onto the paper towel and press it on the white stain surface
it depends how big is your stain, leave it sit for hour or two to do its job.
Take soft cloth and remove excess of the mayonnaise off.
Clean whole surface with some wood cleaner or water to remove that sticky feel.

How To Remove Dark Greasy stains

Removing Dark greasy stains can be more challenging to remove. It depends on the stains how bad are they, but some methods work very well removing them.

Methods removing removing dark greasy stains are:

Toothpaste
Vinegar
3% Hydrogen Peroxide

Using Toothpaste

Using toothpaste to remove stains works most of the time. I recommend using this method if the stains are not to extreme.

Follow these steps:

Dry the stain first using a hairdryer
Put some toothpaste on the stain rub it with a sponge
Leave it for a couple of minutes
If it is working but you still see some stain left, repeat the process.

Using this method, wood can get a little bit whiter. If you own finished hardwood floors, you can apply Restor-A-Finish to bring original color back to life.

Use vinegar

Using vinegar to remove dark greasy stains can be effective most of the time. This method is affordable and straightforward. Just take soft towel or cloth and soak it in white vinegar. Rub your stain with it and hopefully it will start to disappear.

Use 3% Hydrogen Peroxide

You can use 3% hydrogen peroxide for this kind of stains as well. Follow below easy steps:

Take a toothbrush
Dip it in the hydrogen
Rub the dark stain and leave hydrogen peroxide on the stain for several minutes
Repeat procces every day
The dark stain will slowly disappear within a week

How do you get black animal urine stains out of hardwood floors?

Our precious pet doesn’t how precious are our floors. When they pee, we need to act fast. If we don’t clean it immediately, stain will occur that can’t be removed with water or paper.

Two methods are most popular for removing animal urine:

Cat litter
3% hydrogen peroxide

Using Cat litter

If you own a cat, you can use cat litter to remove any sort of animal urine stains. Process is very simple just place cat litter on the stain for 24 hours and it should suck it out of your wood. It works lfr not extreme stains only.

Using 3% hydrogen peroxide when removing animal urin

Using 3% hydrogen peroxide will work when removing stain from the wood completely but it takes time. The more extreme the stain is, more time it needs. Process can take up to 14 days in some cases, but overall it is very effective method.

Take tissue papers to place them on the stain. They will help keep the floor wet longer
Pour 3% hydrogen peroxide on the paper and leave it for one day
If it generate some results, then keep on repeating process over and over again.
It will take time according to the situation of a stain.

I wrote extensive Hardwood flooring guide so might find it interesting.