Despite the fact that the handheld belt sander does not work as quickly as a heavy-duty sanding machine, it still gets the job done at a reasonable speed and ensures great results and a very smooth floor.
Sanding a floor by hand is like everything in life – the better the tools the easier the job. We have the best Lagler floor sanders, Edgers, Festool sanders and dust extractors money can buy which makes the job far less laborious and produces a far better finish.
Belt sander uses and advantages
These machines are best for floors with deep scratches, gouges, warped boards or old paint and stains — floors that need a lot of help to get back to their former glory. Belt sanders are also effective at flattening and sanding rough-hewn lumber and other wide, flat surfaces.
So how long does it take to sand a floor? If you're using both the electric sander and the edger in 140 square-foot floor space, it will take you roughly 5 hours to do three sanding passes. Another thing you must take into account is how old your house is.
DON'T: sand against the grain, UNLESS you feel skilled enough to sand diagonally or across the grain. DO: start with 20 grit paper and work your way up to 120 grit paper. DON'T: Go too high in grit or it can cause you to over sand your floors leaving them unable to absorb stain or poly adequately.
By sanding your floors yourself, you could potentially save hundreds or even thousands of dollars—so long as you do it right.
Is sanding your floors a DIY job or would I be better off getting a professional to do it? It's totally DIY-able, but be warned, it's really, really hard work. The sanders are really heavy and I just wouldn't have been able to lift the machine out of the car and into the house on my own.
Skill level. If you consider yourself handy and have a lot of patience to do the job right, then you will likely have all the skills you need to achieve a great result. Sanding hardwood floors isn't too physically demanding or difficult, but it can be repetitive and time consuming.
However, when it comes to larger surface areas such as flooring, hand sanders can make your task much tougher. Even though it's possible to use a hand sander to remove varnish from wooden flooring, you will typically not be able to achieve the same quality as you would using a floor sander.
How Many Sandpaper Sheets Will I Need for Sanding Floorboards? The amount of sanding paper you'll require will depend on the size of your room. However, as a guide, for the 3m x 4m room I sanded, I used around 6-7 sheets at the roughest grit and 2 or 3 of the finest, and the same again for the edging sander.
A standard estimate is that a DIYer will need about 48 hours to sand down a room, while a professional will need one.
Sanding your hardwood floors takes three sessions with progressively lighter grit sandpaper. To begin, use a coarse 30-40 grit, then a medium 50-60 grit, and finally a fine 80-100 grit.
You need a pristinely clean floor before sanding, so sweep it and then dust mop it to get up all debris and dust. Make any necessary repairs to gouges and cracks in the floor before sanding.
An average-sized room (bedroom, lounge or hallway for instance) should take a day to sand and a further day to hand finish and varnish/wax or oil. However unforeseen circumstances such as repairs to the main body of the floor or the replacement of some boards may mean the job will take longer.
After you are done refinishing your hardwood floors, you must wait before walking or putting furniture onto the flooring. You should wait at least 24 hours before walking on the floors with no shoes on. If you have a dog, try to keep them off the floors for at least 24 hours, too.
If you don't fully sand the floors down, neither the stain nor polyurethane will properly adhere to the floors. If you attempt this, your floors will peel. Now, if your floors are in relatively good condition, there is an alternative called a screen and recoat. Some consumers mistakenly call this a light sanding.
Hardwood flooring can be re-sanded up to 10 times, depending on how bad the floor is and how skilled the person doing the sanding is. It costs about $2.50 per square foot to refinish a floor, plus $50 an hour for patching and thresholds.
Sanding creates clouds of particles that are harmful when breathed in large quantities. You should always wear a mask, even for short projects.
The basic rule of thumb is that you need to have your floors sanded back every 10 to 15 years but it really depends on the look of the floors themselves. If they still look immaculate, leave them be!
Use a Tack Cloth
Tack cloth is a type of cheesecloth coated with beeswax that you can use to pick up fine dust particles left behind from sanding. It has a sticky quality that attracts dust that other methods may have missed. Just apply pressure and swipe to pick up any of the fine dust left behind.