Hardwood floors have a long life, but after years (say 20 years) of rough use, even they start showing signs of aging. You will find abrasions, dullness, and discoloring as some of the most common symptoms that shriek out to you that the wood needs refinishing. Luckily, you can sand the usual ¾-inch-thick hardwood floor about six to eight times. So unless you have bought a house which has homed an aggressive refinisher, or live in a predominantly old house, you have good chances of breathing in life to your floors.
If you have at least 1/32 of an inch of wood on the top of the wooden floors, get professional floor sanding done without further delay.
Let’s see some of the things you need to be careful about when refinishing your flooring
Things to be mindful about before refinishing your floors
Dust control
The room will be ideally evacuated with no furniture in it, so you will not be able to use it for several days. In spite of that, you need to take extra care to avoid any scratches on the floors. You have to take all measures to ensure there is no dust. Even if the contractor tries his best preventive methods to avoid spilling into adjacent rooms, controlling dust is not entirely in his control. In case you have out any furniture from the room, protect it as you won’t want it to be covered with a film of dust.
Before starting with parquet floor sanding, buy rugs, but avoid the ones with rubberized bottoms for the entire room, and try to keep your pets away for a few days.
Before hiring the contractor
It’s not possible for you to be an expert in hardwood flooring, but it is always beneficial to be an informed customer. This will help you to evaluate the contractors appropriately before, during, and after the completion of the task. So, start with developing an eye for properly installed and well-maintained floors. It will make it more convenient for you to spot the flaws and differentiate the floor, which is not done correctly.
Visit showrooms, speak to more than one contractor, check out their previous work, and then only hire the most suitable one. It is an expensive and lengthy job, so take your time in hiring the right contractor.
During the hiring process
Once you zero down on a list of contractors, ask them for quotations. Show them the area that you want to be refinished as that will help in giving you a more close-to exact quote. Also, ask about the types of hidden costs.
Have a thorough discussion with the contractor from whom you finally decide to take your service. Ask him about every minute detail such as who will do the window treatments or relocate the items of the rooms? How do they carry out these relocations? Any extra work might cost you more, so include everything in the contract.
Vacate the house during floor refinishing process
There are many reasons why you should vacate the house during the process. Some of them being:
- The contractor might shift most of the items from room to room, or he may want to remove everything from the house until the job is completed.
- In spite of sealing the area, there will be loads of fine dust.
- The odor from the material, polyurethane, and stains remains in the air for quite a few days.
- While most of the floors can be used within one day of sealing, some others might take weeks for complete cure of the treatment.
However, in case you decide to stay back, know the following aspects before your work begins:
- During the treatment, the specific room has to be vacated entirely.
- Along with sanding, the contractor also repairs the damages, and he ensures that there is no dust left in the room, but he cannot remove it entirely.
- The noise made by the refinishing equipment is disturbing.
- You will have to bear with the strong odor of the stain and the polyure thane coating.
- You have to be very careful.
