Sanding Floorboards......is it worth the effort???

[Dulux]

Wandering if anyone could tell me the negatives and positives of sanding floorboards. It's just that iv'e heard some real horror stories about the amount of effort you have to put in and the cost can spiral upwards. The room i'd like to sand is approx 10ftx17ft, could someone tell me how long this is likely to take and what's the best method of applying the varnish. Thankyou in advance.

 

[breezer]

dont bother, much easier.

you have to remove all nails / sharp objetcs, sand floor, rip various sheets of sand paper, fill gaps between boards, then varnish floor, sand floor and varnish

like most things the job is very rewarding if done well, and time taken, it will take a long time to do, this job i feel is not for you

 

[Tom.]

I've done most of the rooms in my house.

1) With a punch, recess all the nails in the boards
2) Seal the room
3) Start sanding with the coarsest sanding belt

You may have to sand across the grain of the wood, as old floorboards don't stay flat, but become n or u shaped.

4) When you've done the whole room, put a smoother belt on and sand them again

Because until you varnish/stain them, you don't see the patterns left by bits of the belt not reaching the wood. Very important this.

5) If required, get on your hands and knees and sand the bits the machine can't quite get too
6) Sand the edges with a small belt sander, or a sanding disc on your drill (if the latter, make sure you clean up with smooth sandpaper to avoid circular marks)
7) Hoover the room up
8) Stain whatever colour


Its a big, messy, noisy job, but if your boards are in decent condition its well worth it. Be warned though, the room can get colder with a draft coming through the boards. You can stop this by insulating the undersides of the boards.

 

[shaggy]

That's good advice from Tom but before sanding, the way to get the best job is to lift all the boards and clean the edges, replacing any from a reclaim yard that are beyond repair. You then use floorboard cramps to force the boards together tightly while you nail them. I've only done one floor, so I'm no expert, but it was about 28'x13' and the final result was good.

 

[MatlockMark]

If the house is old then my advice is not to sand the floor.

I sanded one of the floors in my house but I won't now do any of the others. The problem for me is that it left the floor looking too new. With all that effort punching in the nails, breathing in dust, punching in the nails again - the boards were so bowed that I had to sand loads off to remove dark stripes down the edges - it would have been easier just to rip the whole lot out and replace with new boards if I'd wanted a new-looking floor.

My preferred treatment on subsequent rooms has been to carefully scrape off any blobs of paint with a sharp chisel, apply Liberon wood floor cleaner (or something similar) with wire wool then rub on a wax-based floor sealer. Although this takes much longer than sanding, it is a more pleasant job and results in a much more attractive result.


I forgot to mention, all that hammering to punch in the nails cracked the lounge ceiling below

 

[Dulux]

Cheers guys! Iv'e weighed up the time, money, effort, and have since found out that it's actually not that more expensive to hire someone to do the job for me! Probably an extra 100 pound but that's a price i'm willing to pay for a proffesional finish.

 

[turbine]

Dulux, right decision mate get the guys in who have the gear, like they say horses for courses, I've gone in and done several jobs that have been started and not finished, cheers