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How to sand hardwood floor

How to sand hardwood

Sanding is a first step has to be performed to refinish solid hardwood floor. We are not considering this work as do it yourself project. Without experience it will be very hard to operate sanding machine (belt sander). Also it is a very expensive if you want to buy and will not use it often. Most likely, for the average homeowner it will not paid off. It is definitely a possibility to rent it for a few days, but still it is heavy and require experience to operate. In any case, whether you will decide to do sanding by yourself, or hire experienced professional, we will show and explain how sanding of hardwood floor should be done.

First of all, depend on a quality of the floor use a coarse sand paper and sand out solid hardwood floor finish to the bare wood. Run sanding machine in the direction of a wood grain. After that fill all holes and possible splits in the wood with a wood filler. Let it dry and sand it again using fine sand paper. Try to sand as close as possible to the walls.

Another step is to use hardwood floor edge sander (edger) and sand out all finish from the edges of the room or in the places where it cannot be done with belt sander due to limited space area - such as closets. Depend on the condition of the floor sanding also should be performed 2-3 times with a different sand paper from coarse to fine.

For the corners or hard to reach spots use a power sanders. There are different types of them available at any home improvement store.

After sanding use a hardwood floor buffer and make the bare wood more smooth. It will also help to hide possible marks left after sanding.

How many times solid hardwood floor can be refinished?

Everything is depend on two factors.

- The condition of your floor. If there are no deep dents, or major damages the number will increase.

- How professionally sanding will be done. Let say there are two floors in the same condition. One floor can be sanded 4-5 times by professional and in another nails or staples will show up after third sanding, because of too much of a wood will be sanded out. Learn more about refinishing of hardwood floor.