I hate mopping the floor. Hate, hate, hate it. So every time I have to do it, I spend the whole time fuming, scrubbing furiously, and thinking about ways I might make the chore faster, easier, less frequent, less odious, or (ideally) obsolete. So I never seem to do it the same way twice.
Some of my experimental mopping methods, like the one described in this post, are more fun than others. But after exhausting a dozen different ideas, ranging from schemes where I mop a tiny section of my floor every day to gadgets like the Swiffer WetJet, I think I've come to the following conclusion:
The best way to clean a floor is on hands and knees.
I know. I know. Yuck. But bear with me.
Here's the specific technique:
How to really mop a floor clean
- Obtain supplies: broom and dustpan, large bowl, detergent that is compatible with the flooring (dish soap is fine), rubber gloves (optional), edged tool such as putty knife or butter knife, and a supply of clean towels or rags.
- Sweep well the section of floor to be cleaned.
- Fill a large bowl with hot, soapy water.
- Pick a section of the floor. Put your bowl near it and grab three towels. Fold one up and kneel on the towel within reach of the bowl. Put on your gloves if you've got 'em.
- Wet the second towel and wring lightly.
- Scrub a two-foot-square section of floor with the wet towel. Rinse and wring out wet towel as necessary. Use knife to scrape up any stubborn debris.
- Wipe dry and clean with the dry towel.
- Move to the next two-foot-square section of floor and repeat.
- When the water gets dirty, change it. When the dry towel gets wet, demote it to "wet towel" and discard the old wet towel.
- Stop when you finish your section or when you get tired.
I know it sounds regressive, but bear with me. There are several very good reasons why this method is superior to the "standard" methods of mopping a floor, such as this one, or this one (pdf); or to methods advocated by gadget/detergent peddlers.
- It requires no special equipment. Not only does this mean you don't have to buy a gadget; it means that every kid or adult in the house can help "mop" at the same time, even if you don't own enough mops for everyone.
- You can scrub harder with your arm and hand than with a mop.
- Because you're not swabbing from the end of a long stick, you can see when you've gotten all the dirt. It's more like washing a countertop. Also, you don't have to bend down repeatedly to scratch at stubborn bits; you're already down there.
- Because dirty water is immediately wiped away with a clean, dry towel, you won't push dirty water all over the floor, nor splash it on your walls and baseboards.
- You can interrupt your work or stop altogether, at any moment, and anyone can walk on the floor immediately. If the baby wakes up when you're half done, you'll have half a floor clean and dry and another half that you easily get to later --- not a floor slick with soapy, dirty puddles that will slowly dry in place.
- It's simple and easy to clean a small section of floor. You don't have to feel that you should do the whole house while you've got the mop and bucket out.
- When you're done, towels go straight into the washing machine. Some kinds of mop heads do, but not all --- and most of those don't last too long. Other kinds of mop heads are disposable, which means that you have to keep buying them. And traditional string mops become pretty nasty after a while.
The major downside to this method is that it is hard on the knees. You can solve that with a good cushion --- such as those sold in gardening supply catalogs --- or by squatting or sitting instead of kneeling. Mopping, on the other hand, can be hard on the back; so perhaps it's a tradeoff.
Ever optimizing, today (since mopping the kitchen and dining area was on my to-do list) I divided the kitchen floor into several areas and timed myself from start to finish as I swept, scrubbed, and dried each one. Here's what I found:
Behind peninsula - 6 min
End of peninsula - 6 min
Bar stool area - 4 min
Around dining table - 11 min
TOTAL - 27 min
Surprise! Not only is the whole thing cleanable in less than half an hour, it sounds much less odious to clean the floor for six minutes here and four minutes there. Maybe instead of doing the whole thing once a week, I should do one piece each day? Now that I know it never takes more than 11 minutes to do any one piece, it sounds --- well, not so bad.
(I told Mark about this when he got home and he said I was far behind the times when it came to industrial-engineering fads like figuring out exactly how much time it should take to do every regularly scheduled task. Well, what did he expect? I wrote the code for my thesis in FORTRAN 77, for pete's sake. I do "behind the times" pretty well.)
Darn, that's the way I mop mine. I was hoping you'd discovered something better. Sigh. At least my kids think it's fun -- they pretend to be Cinderella.
The problem with dividing it into bitsy pieces over several days is that it takes me at least an hour of psyching myself up to mop each little section. Better to stick it out for the half hour it takes to do the entire floor.
Posted by: GailV | 08 March 2006 at 09:24 AM
I tried this yesterday, and my floor does look very nice (except for that patch under the table that I didn't have time to get to, although you're right that the method allows for interruptions). Instead of scrubbing with a towel, however, I used an old dish sponge with an abrasive side, which took up most of the narsty bits nicely. And my floor hasn't been scrubbed in a good six weeks...
But I blame you for getting me charged up to scrub my floor a week and a half after having a baby! I'm all sore today...
Posted by: mrsdarwin | 11 March 2006 at 07:43 AM
Mrs. Darwin,
Nobody can make you scrub your floor but yourself.
Regards, Erin
Posted by: bearing | 11 March 2006 at 08:02 PM