How long sand floor

Get the App. Thumbtack Editors Answered Jan 21, It typically takes between two and five days to refinish hardwood floors, depending on the type of polyurethane you use oil or water-based , and the size and condition of your floors.

For example, some flooring businesses may be able to sand approximately 1, to 2, square feet in one day or several hundred square feet in a few hours. Re-sanding floors with old finishes will usually take longer than sanding unfinished hardwood. It might also take longer to sand floors in older homes, floors that have sustained water damage or floors located in humid environments.

Contact the best hardwood floor refinishers near you to find out how long it will take to sand and finish your floors. Join as a pro. See all. Events and more. This makes it more suitable for people suffering from allergies.

However, before you begin doing the sanding job on your floor, ask yourself the following questions. The answers will help inform you on whether to go ahead or not:. This is a vital preparation requirement. There are places where you can find the lessons and be able to equip yourself with the necessary knowledge. Of course, you may not be able to do the sanding as good as a professional would, but you can ensure that you'll cause no damage to your floor. The cost of sanding a square foot of your floor is relatively cheaper than that of hiring a professional.

This is after taking things like finish, rental charges, abrasive, and other necessary tools into account. However, if the amount of floor space you want to sand it small, then it would generally be a little costly.

This is due to the fact that when hiring a machine, the cost will remain the same whether your floor is small or large. We also have a smaller edger for sanding stair treads. Unfortunately, there is no machine for doing the stair risers. We limit the areas we fill to nail holes, dents, splintered board corners, and the short 'board-end' cracks.

The cracks that run along the long edges of the board just aren't worth filling; boards continue to swell and shrink along that dimension and any filler will quickly be reduced to kitty litter. Look at the photo at right—that is one ugly line of old, broken filler. We would rather see an honest gap between the boards than this half-baked mess.

If you use filler, don't choose the kind that is applied after the job is done - this stays soft and comes out easily. Choose a hardening wood putty like the Timbermate that we love - buy it here that matches the species of wood you have and apply it before you finish sanding. We usually sand through the grit stage, fill all our holes and gaps, and have lunch; by the time lunch is over, the filler is dry and ready to sand.

Sorry, but no. Floor finishes and designed to be runny so they flow level into a film. Excess will flow into the gaps between your floor boards Don't try to put it on extra-thick, hoping it will fill up your nail holes with a neat, clear plastic plug, because it won't work, and will stay uncured and milky-looking in spots where it is applied with any thickness.

Use a hardening filler as decribed above and use it sparingly. Read more of our rather strong opinions on woodfiller here! Be careful with the word 'stain'—it's the most abused word in the wood flooring industry. Most people use it to describe any coating that goes on the wood, but when we say 'stain' we mean a product that is applied to the floor to change its color, but is translucent enough to allow the wood grain to show through. Stain alone is not a protective layer—it would scuff right off in a week!

Check out our arguments against staining your floor. When most people say stain, what they really mean is the process of applying a protective finish to prevent damage to the floor from wear, water and dirt. The most common protective layer is polyurethane, but penetrating finishes such as Waterlox are also growing in popularity.

All of the systems that we sell involve applying a minimum of three coats to the floor. Both waterborne and oil-modified finishes are available. Stain can be used as a base coat under polyurethane if a darker floor is desired.

Stain can be used with penetrating finishes as well, but is usually mixed with the finish before application. We will actively discourage most do-it-yourselfers from attempting to stain those floors.

It varies according to what type of finish you are applying. Penetrating finishes do not require abrasion between coats. Film-building finishes like polyurethanes or varnishes often require you to lightly sand between coats, but not always. For some products, as long as you apply the finish within a certain elapsed time since the prior coat was applied, you can avoid intercoat abrasion entirely.

If this appeals to you, check out the Pallmann line of finishes. Keep in mind that 'sanding' really isn't what you're doing if you are between coats - you don't have to go back and rent the drum sander or edger again. You need something much gentler. For a large area, this is best done with a low-speed flooring buffer like the one in the photo on the left and an abrasive screen. Small areas can be done just as effectively with a garden-variety pole sander the tool normally used for sanding drywall seams or a more fancy model.

Yes, sanding parallel to the grain significantly reduces the appearances of scratches. There is an exception to this rule, though. If you were to leave the drum on the floor as you transitioned from going forward to going backward, you would find a little stop mark at the point where you changed direction.

In order for the machine to change direction, it has to stop. If it stops, it digs. So, for that momentary change of direction, the sanding drum must be off the floor. The main reason is that you want to leave yourself plenty of room to maneuver the sander, especially when you're backing up and getting into position for the next pass. And you will quickly learn that doing a forward-backward pass over anything less than four feet is extremely tedious. The three wheels of the sander are positioned so that, if you move left to right, all three wheels are travelling level on already-sanded floor.

This keeps the sanding cut level across the entire width of the drum. If you move right to left, the left wheel is running on unsanded floor and so is higher than the other two wheels, causing the machine to cut more aggressively on the right side.

If you sand the center of your floor with grit, then you will immediately edge that room with grit. Sweep the floor, then change to a grit belt on the drum sander, sand the main part of the floor, then edge the perimeter at grit, and so on.

It will be easier to see exactly how much finish you have left to remove with the edger, which keeps the amount of edging you have to do to a minimum. You'll also get a better blend of the straight scratch from the drum machine and the curved scratch from the edger if you alternate them. If your abrasive fills with old finish called 'glazing' or 'loading' immediately into an initial cut, you need to switch to a coarser abrasive.

Otherwise, as long as the abrasive is cleaning the wood as you expect it to, continue with it—but not forever—see below for sandpaper limits. The abrasives we sell at Pete's have very distinct lifespans; drum sander belts should last between and square feet each and edger discs should be changed every 20 linear feet. If your paper is loading or glazing well before the paper's scheduled expiration, that is a sign that you have started with too fine a grit for your job - throw away that loaded sandpaper and start with a fresh piece at a lower grit.

Customers often tell us that they continued to use their paper beyond its lifespan because, "it still felt sharp" or "it was still producing dust. Remember that the sharper your paper, the more quickly and efficiently it cuts. Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom of the page! Back to top. Buy us a coffee Shop for products online. We love educating people, but it's expensive.

And we're uncomfortable taking questions about products you bought on Amazon. We've got everything you need for your project, and friendly people to answer your questions. Visit the store at Fairview Avenue North in St. Paul MN. Or, visit our online store from the comfort of your sofa. Like your mother, we worry about your hearing.

So we'll give you a free pair of earplugs with each sander rental. Are you sure I can do this myself? What does it cost? How much money will I save? How long will it take? What kind of sanders do you rent?

Will your machines fit in the trunk of my car? Your ad says you have "professional grade abrasives;" what does that mean? How do I know if I have enough floor left to sand? Do I really need to rent an edger? My belt sander can handle the edges… Can I sand off adhesive or backing from old linoleum?