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.
Sanding will likely take only a day or two, but the stain (if you use one) and each of the three coats of finish will need to dry before the next coat can go on. Depending on the product used, and the current weather conditions, each coat could take either hours or days.
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. If yours is 50 years old or more, you'll need extra time to complete it.
There's really no getting around it – sanding your floors is hard work and physically tiring. What is this? When you first start sanding you'll almost instantly see a huge difference in your floor but once you've removed most of the varnish and dirt progress will seem so much slower.
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.
However, for some reason, some people still prefer sanding their floors by hand. They swear that sanding the floor by hand will provide you with flawless results. They consider sanding the floor by hand as a true form of craftsmanship, considering how detailed and more complex the whole job is.
You want to give the new finish time to harden and cure. We recommend waiting a minimum of 24 hours before you walk on your floors– and 48 hours is even better. Start with socks only and keep pets off the floors for a few days.
Sanding jobs can be completed in either three or four passes with different abrasive grits, depending on the condition of the floor being refinished. For old floors, the first pass is to remove the old finish and level the floor. This will be the heaviest sanding and will make heavy scratch marks.
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.
Sanding wood floors & refinishing yourself will definitely save money, and even an inexperienced homeowner can likely do a better job than the lowest bidding handyperson who quotes on it. Once you understand the basics, a quality final result on your wood floor is more about patience than anything else.
Sanding solid hardwood normally costs $20 to $30 per square meter, without the application of a sealer or finish, while sanding engineered hardwood ranges around the $25 to $35 per square meter mark, without the application of a sealer or finish.
Never use water to clean your newly-sanded hardwood floor. In fact, once they've been sanded, don't use any cleaning products for about 10 to 14 days. Once that time has passed, just use a soft brush to sweep them daily to keep on top of the dirt and dust that naturally occurs.
If you're sanding by hand, it shouldn't take more than probably 15 minutes to lightly scuff sand a large dresser. If you're using an electric sander, it'll go faster. But with an electric sander, like an orbital sander, you'll need to pay close attention not to sand for too long or push too hard in any one spot.
The process for sanding a floor by hand would be, as a general rule, to start on a 40 grit sandpaper and work your way up to 100 or 120 grit paper to leave a fine finish. It is important to keep any sander moving so it does not dig into or burn the floor.
Do not live in the home during refinishing. The sanding will cause harmful lung damaging particulate matter to stay in the air for days. Children, pregnant women and the elderly will be most impacted by floor finishing.
The Golden Rule of Sanding
The golden rule for choosing your sequence is to never skip more than 1 grit. For example, if you start with P80, and need to finish at P240, rather than using every grit from P80 – P220, you can do P80 – P120 – P180 – P240. This sequence cuts out P100, P150 and P220.
When the pencil marks in the divot begin to disappear, it's time to stop sanding. You should only need to use a moderate amount of pressure to get the job done—if you're pressing down too hard, you're not doing it right. Also, avoid attempting to force the hand block into the divots in the over-sanded area.
Sanding creates clouds of particles that are harmful when breathed in large quantities. You should always wear a mask, even for short projects.
You can leave the baseboards in place unless you're planning to replace them. 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.
This is recommended when the surface imperfections penetrate the finish and affect the bare wood underneath. Once you sand the surface of the floor too many times, you will reach out to the point when the floor is beyond sanding and it is already too thin. Continuing to sand the floor at this point is not recommended.
Anytime you need to sand your hardwood floor down to the base, you will be creating a lot of noise and dust. The amount of dust that makes it into the air and on all of your furniture will largely depend on the machine you are using.
Orbital sander uses and advantages
Orbital sanders are best for floors that require a light to medium sanding. If you need to prep a floor for a new top coat of clear finish, an orbital sander is the right machine.
It is important to overlap each "pass", and to never stop moving the sander forward or backward when the drum is in contact with the floor, otherwise you will leave sand marks on the floor which may be difficult to remove, as excess material will have been removed.
Well the simple fact is that hand sanding has many benefits over power sanding that can often be overlooked. Firstly, a final hand sand before finishing will always give a better finish than ending with a power sander as, no matter how fine a grit you use, there will always be scratch marks left by the power tool.