As it ages, your hardwood flooring will most likely get scratched and begin to dull. Hardwood floors are however not like other types of flooring, and can often make a comeback. All you need to do is refinish. During its lifetime, your hardwood floor will take 10-12 complete sanding and refinishing jobs while engineered wood floors generally allow one or two refinishing jobs depending on the thickness of the featured veneer.
If you are the do-it-yourself type, you should know that although you will most likely save money by refinishing on your own, mistakes can happen. Handling a drum sander might prove challenging. While a properly handled drum sander will produce a spectacular finish, you can carve a divot that will stare back at you for years if you linger in one spot for too long.
Do-it-yourself hardwood floor refinishing
Because refinishing hardwood floors is a dusty and noisy job, you should always wear protective gear like a good respirator or dust mask, goggles, and ear protection. To keep the dust from circulating throughout the house, turn off any forced-air HVAC and use plastic sheeting to seal off every doorway. Refinishing hardwood floors involves two different levels
• Buffing
• Sanding and refinishing
Buffing
Also known as screening, buffing is the easiest form of refinishing hardwood floors. If you floor shows signs of wear and scratches on the surface finishing only and the wood underneath is still in good shape, buffing is often enough to restore the topcoat.
To restore luster to the topcoat of your hardwood flooring, you will need a buffing tool and a series of screen grits. Compared to a drum sander, a buffing tool is significantly less aggressive and easier to use. Between every grit, make sure you sweep and vacuum up all the dust. For hardwood floors, using a polyurethane floor finish or low-VOC water based finish is recommended.
Unless you start by removing any residue, you cannot buff your hardwood floor successfully if it has been waxed or cleaned using an oil-based soap. You will most certainly end up with a blotchy finish if you do not remove the old wax or oil-based soap residue. Before you begin, use a wax remover or mineral spirits to remove all the oil soap residue or old wax.
Sanding and refinishing
By sanding and refinishing, you can completely restore your old and damaged hardwood flooring NYC. This refinishing technique also gives you the chance to alter the color of your floor using stain.
Before you remove the baseboards, get a drum sander as well as a progression of grits. Experts recommend the 40, 60, 100 grits. You should keep the sander moving as you sand so that you don’t gouge the floor. Since getting too close to the walls is difficult, using a hand-held orbital sander to remove the finish along the edges is recommended. Use color-matched wood filler to fill in all the cracks once you have sanded down to bare wood. After you have applied the stain and allowed it to dry thoroughly, apply two or three coats of finish.