Order of Operations for Refinishing Floors

10 years ago

My partner and I recently bought a house which we are remodeling before moving in. I'm a bit handy, so I've been taking care of the small stuff, but we've hired a general contractor to put an addition on the master bedroom. This will include roughly 75 sq. ft. of new hardwood tied into the old. The house has it's original hardwood floors that are in decent shape, but demand minor repairs and refinishing throughout. Our contractor is very clearly not interested in refinishing all of our floors, and I'm happy not to pay him a marked up price when I can hire a flooring guy directly or possibly do the sanding and refinishing myself.

What has really thrown me off guard is the contractor seems pretty adamant about having the floors in the rest of the house sanded before construction starts in order to mitigate the amount of dust on new materials. When I pointed out how difficult it would be to sand a floor that has yet to be installed, he proposed:

1 - rough sand the existing floors
2 - construction
3 - install new floor
4 - rough sand new floor
5 - fine sand entire house and refinish

The only new materials in rooms with hardwood flooring are walls and trim. It seems to me less effort to leave all the floor sanding for last, rather than seal everything with plastic, sand, and cleanup twice. If I sand myself, I have to rent the machine twice. If I hire a floor guy, he's got to come back twice. Maybe that's a non issue?

I was initially concerned about scuffs from construction, but the contractor says he will be laying out ram board to protect the existing floor.

So which one of us is crazy? Also, I would like to hear more than two opinions; internet, do your best.

Comments (4)

PRO
Joseph Corlett, LLC
10 years ago
Your contractor is looking out for what is easiest/most profitable for him. Don't sand your own floors; it isn't a job for most DIYers. You can really screw things up.
rwiegand
10 years ago
Don't sand and finish until after the contractor is done-- might as well protect the old floors as much as possible during the construction. If you sand first and then get mud etc tracked across it there could be stains. Plus you can plaster or paint without as much concern if you're going to sand and refinish later. Floor refinishing is routinely done in occupied houses, you just vacuum up the dust, either with a good machine at the source or from all the surfaces later on. Works either way, getting it at the source is better.

Sanding and refinishing is a completely reasonable DIY job if you have any mechanical skills/sense. If you always keep the sander in motion and can quickly figure out how to raise and lower the drum gently as you change direction or start and stop you can easily refinish a floor without issues. It probably won't be perfect the first time you do it, but you will save thousands. By the second or third time it will start to look pretty good. Or you can use a random orbit sander, which is painfully slow, but foolproof (well, mostly). The hardest part seems to be renting decent equipment. If you get a sander with an egg-shaped drum you are sunk! I've never been able to find a place that would rent a 220v machine with good dust extraction like the pros use, so invest in a good HEPA respirator (dust masks are basically useless against the most problematic small dust particles).
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User
10 years ago
Look up a sander called U Sand. Rental stores carry them(my local Home Depot also rents them).

It is slower than a drum sander, but almost impossible to use wrong---and screw up the flooring.
worthy
10 years ago
Sanding and refinishing is a completely reasonable DIY job if you have any mechanical skills/sense.

I can spot a diy hardwood refinish a mile off based on the gouges, scratches and general unevenness. And though I can do most other work, albeit very slowly, in a new or reno home, I'll never tackle floor refinishing. The times I've tried with an orbital sander the results were less than satisfactory. Maybe the new smaller machines are easier to handle. Not everyone is ecstatic over U-Sand.

This post was edited by worthy on Fri, Feb 7, 14 at 12:19