Sanding your hardwood floors is an extremely necessary procedure but hiring professional services for this task can easily cost thousands of dollars.
However, you can easily take up this as a DIY task and sand the floors yourself to save both time and money.
By using the three-phase sanding procedure, which involves coarse, medium, and final sanding, you can easily sand your floors without having to worry about spending extra money on the project.
Tag along to find out more about the process.
Table of Contents
Why Do You Need To Sand Your Hardwood Floors?
Hardwood floors take a lot of damage and rough treatment throughout the years. This can increase the wear and tear factor on the wooden surface and make the look appear wearier over time.
Moreover, spills and stains throughout the year can be a dark spot on the hardwood floors.
Sanding is an easy way to restore the original appearance of your hardwood floors and ensure you don’t have to be ashamed of how your floors look.
Sanding involves grinding the wood’s surface with a specific rating sandpaper to remove all the stains, spots, and weary texture, and a new, fresher grain comes out from underneath.
Every hardwood floor needs to be sanded once in a few years to have that lush appearance renewed, which was present at the time of the initial installation.
While many people do not opt for sanding due to the extremely high service costs, we’ve brought you an easy DIY method.
Using this, you can easily sand your hardwood floors without hiring professional teams and spending thousands of dollars.
Sanding Hardwood Floors DIY | Ultimate Guide
Sanding is a three-step procedure, but you might have to increase a step or two depending on the condition of your floors.
The main three steps are:
- Coarse sanding
- Medium sanding
- Final sanding
Even if you are not hiring a professional team to sand your floors, getting a sanding recommendation and an analysis from your manufacturer or any professional service is better.
This would allow you to determine the condition of your floors and the amount of sanding required so you don’t end up sanding your hardwood floors excessively.
Below is a complete process of sanding your floors with a DIY method.
Coarse Sanding
Whether using a drum sander or a hand-held tool, you must start with coarse sanding. While drum sanders can cover many areas, hand-held sanders can provide more control and give you the precision required for each area.
You can either choose one or use a combination.
Whichever machine you are using, you will need to ensure that the floors are clean dn do not have any objects placed on them.
Once this is done, you must load the sandpaper into the machine (different machines have different loading methods, so check the instructions first).
For coarse sanding, you can start somewhere around 80-grit.
Before you start, it is better to have a few dry runs to practice the movement and momentum of the sanding process so you can get accustomed to it.
Once this is done, you need to turn on the machine and lower it slowly so it starts sanding the hardwood floors.
However, please ensure that the machine is always moving whenever it is turned on and never static on point while it is turned on.
A static sander on hardwood floors can ruin the area just as a hot iron would burn clothes if placed on them for too long.
Start from one end of the room and move to the next. While it is also possible to start from the center, beginning at the end is a more organized approach.
Once you reach the other end of the room, you must turn around and change your lane.
If you are confused about choosing the right width for your lane, you need to check the coverage area of your sander.
However, it is recommended to create lanes ranging from 5-10 cm each on your hardwood floors depending upon the size of your sander and lay them out to overlap.
This will ensure that no gap is left between the lanes of your hardwood floors. Furthermore, moving in the direction of the wood and not against it is always necessary to ensure smooth sanding.
In the case of drum sanders, you will empty the dust bag before changing each lane; if you use hand-held machines, ensure there is no dust on the next lane.
If you see dust particles, sweep them out before changing the lane.
Targeting the edges of the floors can be difficult if you have a large machine. While many homeowners revert to smaller versions due to this reason, you can sand the edges with your chosen machine if you know the right way to do so.
Go over the floors with the same technique 2-3 times, and then you can move towards the next step.
Medium Sanding
After completing the first process, you must move towards medium sanding of your hardwood floors.
The process would remain the same, but the only difference will be that you will move to a higher grit sandpaper.
A recommended rating is around 100, but you can adjust or change it according to your sander and the condition of your hardwood floors.
Repeat the same method as earlier and give the floors 1-2 laps depending upon the condition and how much they can take.
After doing this, it is time to take care of the edges. You would want the same amount of sanding on the edges to make them blend in.
However, to make the process faster, you can start sanding the edges with 100-grit and sand them diagonally.
This will reduce both the effort and the time required to sand your hardwood floors.
Moreover, if there are any gaps in your hardwood floors and you want to fill them up using wood fillers, now is the time to do so.
However, we won’t get into the details as it is not part of the sanding process. Therefore, let us move on to the next step.
Final Sanding
Whether you use fillers or not, you need this step to achieve a smooth texture on your hardwood floors.
It is not time to start sanding the floors again with the highest grit. Opt for something around 120-grit and start sanding your floors using the same procedure.
However, you will only need 1 lap of this on your hardwood floors but make sure not to go as fast as before.
This process will smoothen the wood grain and make the floors much softer and palatable to the eye.
Once done, sweep all the dust away or use a vacuum cleaner to collect it so your floors are clean.
With this, your sanding process has been completed, and you can move on to any other process you might want to do on your hardwood floors.
Conclusion
Hardwood floors can be sanded by any homeowner who has some basic knowledge of sanding. If you also have a sanding session due and do not want to spend hefty sums on the process, use the method above and sand your floors today!
John Henry is a passionate co-creator of FlooringFlow.com. a website dedicated to answer all of your flooring related questions. After taking the challenges of flooring DIYs while learning skills for years, John is now ready to share his knowledge related to floor remodeling and projects with you.
