If you’re looking at your wooden floor and thinking…I must either get round to sanding that floor in order to breathe some life into it, or I should really buy a new floor; you could maybe do with some help in weighing up the pros and cons of each option.
Sanding any wooden floor is, by its very nature, a disruptive and messy process. Your room has to be cleared of all furnishings, rugs, curtains etc and, unless you’re employing a professional to do the job, you’ll need to organise to hire a sander. If you’re bringing in the professionals, sanding your floor is likely to be slightly less intrusive than if you do the job yourself. This is because the “pros” sand floors, day-in and day-out, so have the whole process down to a fine art.
Effectively, what sanding does is, it removes the top layer of your floor to reveal the new-looking wood that has been protected below. What you need to be careful of, if you’re planning to sand your own floor on a DIY basis, is that you don’t remove too much of the top layer of your floor. If you do, you could cause damage and end up having to invest in a new floor anyway. You need to be particularly careful when planning to sand an engineered wood floor. This is because the solid oak lamella or top layer of engineered wood flooring will only stand up to a limited number of sandings. A 5mm oak lamella, for example, will withstand a maximum of 5 or 6 sandings and no more. That said, if you’re in any doubt about whether or not your floor will stand up to more sanding, you’d be well advised to ask the opinion of a reliable floor supplier or DIY expert.
So, all in all, sanding is a great, low cost (but not no cost!) way to get your floor looking great again. The costs you need to take into account are either the cost of a professional coming in to do the whole job for you or, the cost of hiring a sander as well as all the sandpapers you’ll require to do the job and the products you’ll need to finish off your floor. Thereafter, it’s a case of working out your time and the hassle-factor, and of course double checking that your floor will stand up to sanding.
At the other end of the scale, there’s the option to invest in a new floor. When it comes to considering a new floor, it’s worth bearing in mind that new floors open up great opportunities to really change the whole look of your room and don’t always cost as much as you imagine. Add to this, the fact that a new floor comes with a warranty and the attractions become pretty appealing.
All of that said, only you can decide whether sanding your floor or investing in a new wooden floor is the best solution for you. Either way, we hope you’ll enjoy the end result for many years to come!
