There are plenty of home jobs where a homeowner relies upon professionals to get the work done, but in reality, with the required time, patience, tools and understanding, many of these jobs can be carried out to a great standard by yourself, saving you a lot of money in the long run. One of the more straightforward home reno jobs that even the most inexperienced of homeowners’ can take on themselves, is sanding wooden floors.
By following this simple and easy guide, you will first become familiar with what equipment you need to carry out the job, how to prepare your hardwood floors before sanding, and the process and techniques to confidently have a crack at sanding your own wooden floors.
So get stuck into this guide, and when you’re ready to give sanding your own wooden floors at home a go, come and see the team at Hirepool for some quality friendly advice. We can fit you out with the right electric sanders you’ll need for the job and you’ll be good as gold! Once you’ve nailed your floor sanding job, check our comprehensive guide on polishing a wooden floor to complete your project.
Preparing to sand the floors
Like any good DIY job, achieving the best result is contingent on proper preparation.
Know the floor you’re about to sand
Firstly, you should identify whether the type of flooring you have is suitable to be sanded. For example, flooring types such as parquet flooring may not be suitable because they are made up of many layers, with the top layer being solid timber. If you have parquet flooring at home, it can only be sanded a certain amount of times before this top layer wears away.
Remove old flooring
To prepare your floor before sanding, you must first remove the flooring material atop the hardwood floor with the floor stripper. The walk-behind floor strippers from Hirepool are easy to use. With a sharp blade which can be adjusted to find the perfect angle to remove a range of flooring materials. After this, you can manually scrape off any old glue or polish that remains on the floor. Using floor wax remover will make removing old, stubborn wax a lot easier.
Prepare the sanding area
Once you have removed old floor coverings, we highly recommend that you seal off the room in which you are working in from the rest of your home with drop sheets. This will prevent any dust from travelling through your house and settling on any surfaces.
Choose your sanding belts or discs
Before you begin sanding, make sure you have an appropriate number of sanding belts. This will depend upon the size of the floor that you are sanding. It is also important that you choose the right sandpaper grit for the job at hand. The more coarse sandpaper you use, the more effective it will be at removing material. However, if the sandpaper you choose is too coarse, it can leave scratches when sanding floorboards. You also want to make sure you don’t choose sandpaper that is too fine and removes too little material or you could find yourself sanding away at your floors until the cows come home! Check out this handy guide on choosing the right sandpaper grit for your home reno job.
Remove any nails or staples and repair floorboards
A handy tip to check for nails and staples that must first be removed, is to grab a one-metre ruler and run it across the floor. If the ruler scratches over any part of the floor, you will need to remove the nails/staples that are located here before continuing. This is also a good time to identify and repair any damaged or loose floorboards before moving on.
Punch in the floorboard nails
You must first make sure to punch the floorboard nails so they are firmly embedded in the wood below the surface. You can do this by using a hammer and nail punch on every floorboard nail. This needs to be done to prevent the nails from catching and ripping the sanding belt.
