Hardwood Floor - Sanding and Refinishing

Sanding and refinishing your hardwood floors is necessary to preserve their quality and beauty and also to enhance the wood's natural color while protecting it from the elements. Proper refinishing should last about 10 years, but high traffic areas may need to be done more often.

The sanding and refinishing processes are slightly different for the two main types of hardwood floors:

Pre-finished Hardwood Floors

Pre-finished flooring is a relatively recent development in the hardwood flooring industry, and is available with acrylic impregnated, engineered or solid wood types.

Pre-finished flooring comes with a tough factory finish, is easy to install and eliminates the need for messy sanding.

This is why it has become so popular. Most pre-finished floors produced in the last 10 years are urethane-finished. Older floors are likely to have shellac or varnish finishes (these must be completely removed if you want to apply a new urethane finish). There is also likely to be some amount of aluminum oxide in the newer pre-finished floors.

Unfinished Hardwood Floors

Unfinished floors can be either solid or engineered hardwood. Both types must be finished on site.

The floor boards come in varying lengths and widths, and require a sanding and finishing procedure that can take anywhere from a few days to a week, depending on the size of the room, the stain to be used and the number of top finish coats to be applied. Generally, the finishes used are oil or water-based.

Your safety and satisfaction are our top priorities. Therefore, we section off the areas to be treated in order to protect your home and prevent sanding dust from spreading during the sanding and refinishing process.

We also use special dust containment system (DOS) to limit the amount of dust that gets in the air. It is also important to have as little air flow as possible to prevent airborne particles from becoming embedded in the newly applied finish.

For floors with limited surface wear, we offer screening (also known as buff and topcoat or top coating), which is a basic freshening of your floor's surface. Screening enables the surface to receive another coat of finish (frequent applications can reduce the need for complete refinishing). However, with waxed hardwood floors, this process cannot be used unless all the wax is removed.

Our service ensures that your floors look fantastic and that you are completely satisfied. Contact us today to get a free on-site consultation with one of our expert technicians.