Thread: Sealing/Finishing Floorboards

here is a photo showing some of the floorboards

Okay. I'll be the first to jump in, as I am going through this myself. Here are some basics...

*Before you start the floors, find out what type of finish they have on them. This project can quickly turn into a nightmare if they are shellac or any other type of wax finish. It is almost impossible to sand shellac. I spent about 15 hours on my hands and knees scraping it off with a heat gun and putty knife.

*Drum/belt sanders are tough to use,especially the cheap one offered by the rental stores. The ones you rent usually are much lower quality(harder to use) than the ones professionals use.

*If the floors are in pretty good shape, use an orbital type floor sander instead of a drum/belt style. They are much more forgiving to the novice user and you are less likely to damage your floors.

*If you do drum/belt sand, you will want to use an orbital floor sander to remove the drum and chatter marks and smooth out the finish.

*Waterborne finishes are less toxic and faster drying than oil based polyurethane. Here in the US, there are strict regulations on the oil based products available to consumers...basically most of them are junk now. I have no idea what products are available in your area, but 'Bona Kemi' and 'Basic' are without a doubt the best floor finishes available in the US.

*Some products require sealing. This helps the stick to the surface like a primer and or it will minimize color variations.

*Satin finishes are the same as gloss, but they add dulling agents to reduce the sheen. Too many coats of satin create a cloudy look to the finish. Satin is also not as strong as gloss finish, some of the pros use gloss as their base coats and complete the finish coats with satin. This will improve the durability of the eliminate chances of cloudy finish.

*I STRONGLY recommend that you DO NOT DO THIS YOURSELF. I am in the process of refinishing my third floor. It's a lot of work and it's really not worth the effort. There is no question about it, a experienced floor finisher will have the best polyurethane products, the best sanders, the best vacuum/dust removal equipment, and most importantly the skills to do the job 10X faster than you and provide you with a much better quality floor.

*Before you start, call upon a few professionals to provide you estimates for sanding the floor as well as finishing the floor. Many of the pro's can come in and sand the floor and clean up in one day and let you apply the polyurethane yourself. Compare the cost of the different options and you may find that your time can be better used doing something else.

Also I forgot to mention. If the floors have a polyurethane finish and are in pretty good shape, there are options of simply screening the floor and recoating the surface...this will not require a full removal of the old finish, is much cheaper, and will be done in one day. A professional should be able to identify the current finish and provide product recommendations.

You only need to sand to bare wood if:
*there are scratches or gouges that need to be removed
*you want to stain or change the color of the current finish
*the current finish(wax) is not compatible with topcoating products

Wax based floor finishes can be cleaned, re-waxed, and buffed to restore the finish.

Firstly, I'd like to echo philcav7.....have a pro do the sanding and finishing of the floors.

However, if you insist on doing it yourself, my suggestion is to worry about the floors first, prior to painting. Normally, we recommend that the painting gets done first (bar the final coat on the skirting boards) but, in your case, I would have all hands on deck and do the floors first, as you will possibly find that it takes a bit longer and is quite a deal harder than what you might be initially thinking.

So, instead of rushing to get the floors done in the second week you can take the necessary time to do as good a job as you possibly can. You won't regret it in the long run.

Finishing off painting, if required, once your in the house is relatively easy, whereas, the floors will be a nightmare to do, or finish off, once you have moved your stuff in.

Congrats on your new home.

Consider getting a quote from Larry McCully, he did a great job for us and is a very friendly bloke - if nothing else if you shout him a cuppa and his offsiders a bottle of coke you'll get some good conversation and an idea on how much it will cost and what to look for. Outside of Larry there are a few professional floorsanders on the forums, who I am sure would at least be available for quotes.

I have done quite a few floors myself but I have found the extra quality and care a professional sander provides is well worth the expense. Very roughly, to do it yourself will cost around $20 per sqm (depending largely on hiring costs and times) and to get a professional should cost somewhere around $30 to $40 per sqm. The other thing is, if you do it yourself, then it is most likely you will be using a drum sander to do all the sanding, a professional will do the finish sanding with a disc sander - which in my mind - is all the difference.

Best of luck and photos!

i got Bonna Traffic on my Jarrah boards and am very happy with the result Personally i prefer a light satin finish to the high gloss and i feel that if you have gaps in between the board a satin finish look better than high gloss .
As the rest have said get the pro's to do the job the floor is a feature in your home it's not like painting the back wall of a cupboard if you stuff it up its' there for all to see .And hire equipment is the worst quality .

P.S I'm not a fan of Dulux Once for painting walls it should be called Dulux One and a Half . But the Once for the ceiling is great

best of luck
Rob

I wrote this great reply but it appears to have disappeared, maybe I took too long??

Thanks for all your help, I don't know if I can be bothered to write it all out again suffice to say:

thanks for the heads up with Larry. Seeing as we don't have keys I don't think its fair (or he'd be willing) to quote unseen. I only have 2 weeks from settlement to us moving in so I can't afford for it to not work out so I think I will stick with doing it myself and just do the hard yards. Others on this site have, one guy with a mouse sander??!! At $40/m2 the whole job would be $4000 which we just can't afford. I reckon I can do it myself for about $1500.

I've attached some photos, you can see that the current quality is pretty poor - I don't reckon I can do any worse

Does anyone know of any floor sanding supplier specialists in the shire? I spoke to a knowledgeable guy at Synteko in Chatswood but thats a bit far to go if I suddenly need more supplies on a saturday afternoon.

Thanks again for all your help everyone, Jags - love the photo of the kitchen, thats exactly the look we're going for!! Does anyone know where I can get the Bona Traffic from? I guess it will be more than the Cabots though.

Okay. If you insist...

It looks like the floors are stained (second picture) and have some dimples and waves that should be sanded.

1. Find out what type of finish is on the floor. Like I said, if you try sanding shellac or wax based coating, you will be in for a suprise.

2. Drum sand the floor. I would recommend putting a fine grit on FIRST and get a feel for the machine and its operation. You are less likely to damage the floors with a finer grit. Once you figure out and are comfortable with the machine, install the coarse grit paper and sand the floor. Badly damaged floors may require starting with 20 grit, other floors may only need to start with 36 grit. Nobody can tell you this over the internet, the floors must be visually inspected to determine starting grit.

2a. Make sure you vacuum the floor before each grit of sanding. This will prevent loose debris from scratching the floor during finishing.

3. After drum sanding the finish and removing imperfections, use a orbital sander to remove your sanding marks and damage caused by the drum sander. Finish with either 80, 100, or 120 grit depending on the type of wood and if you are going to stain the wood or use a natural poly finish.

4. Vacuum the floor, walls, windows, door frames. Wait a hour or two, then do it again.

5. Tack the floor.

6. Are you going to stain the floor?

7. Apply your base coat of poly and allow to dry. Screen the floor with 100-150 grit and tack between each coat. Normally 3 or 4 coats are applied.

Bona Traffic is one of the best finishes available. Many of the pro's use it. It is NOT designed for consumer use; therefore, you will not find it on the shelf of your local hardware store. This is not a easy finish to apply and I really don't recommend you try to use it. I would look into some of the other Bona products or Basic Coatings products. Basic Coatings is another great company that is designed for professional use, but it is not as tricky to use. Most likely you will end up with a 'better' quality finish using a Basic product since things such as humidity, temperature, airflow, sunlight, mixture drastically affect the Bona products.

Like I said, before you start, call a professional and get two quotes. One for sanding only and the other for sanding and top coating. Then take a long, hard thought about your decision and then move forward. You may be better off having the sanding done by a pro and apply the top coat yourself. Here in the US, there is only a small difference in price between hiring a professional for the sanding and renting the equipment to do it yourself. Below is an example in US dollars of sanding 400 square feet.

Self:
Drum sander/edger rental- $70
Orbital sander rental- $40
Sandpaper- $60
My daily wages from my job- $250 (you must consider, your time is money)

Total cost: $420 USD
----------------------

Professional sanding:

Approximately $1.25 - $1.75 per square foot = $500-$700

Sometimes it's a very small difference to have it done professionally, GET A QUOTE.

thanks Mat

if you are going to do it yourself i would read Big cal's thread on floor sanding it was about two months ago and is very informative .

get the equipment from a good shop and hire an orbital sander as well as the drum sander .in short your floor will be as good as your final sand .
it might be easier to give your floor its first sand before you sink all the nails so that you don't miss any . and get a big punch it will make the job ten time easier .

if you look up the web site for Bonna im sure you will find somebody that stocks it also being a water base sealent there is no bad smell and the drying time is a lot shorter . once my floor was dry enough to walk on i covered it with one ply cardboard with the corugation up so that it would not get scratched in the move .think it cost $50 for the roll of 50m2

Also if you can be bothered you will get a better finish if you remove the skirting boards .

The paint colour i used was half strength dulux directions in white China white .It is worth paying a little extra for good rollers i think the ones i used cost $14 each but lasted the hole house but wash them well before you use them .
Rob

I did not see phils post before i sent mine to add to what he said about bonna being hard to work with my floor was done by a pro and even he managed to get a couple of streaks in it so mybe not the best product to use if you are doing it yourself .And as he mentioned dust is your enemy if it get on your floor it will make it look $hit so get a dyson you will need it .

Lastly it is also better to have somebody to blame other than one's self .

Rob

floor torque taren point 9540 4655

Is there some kind of bl00dy time limit to typing things or something???!!!! grrr, lost a lengthy post again!!....maybe I shouldn't be so considered in my replies....

Anyway;

• I have 80m2 to do, mostly bare boards (or some old finish) all in poor condition.
• gonna get in one weekend earlier - extra 2 days and 5 evenings
• this means 1 weekend to prep, 1 weekend to sand and 1 weekend to finish
• gonna go with the Cabots Clear Floor water based poly with a satin finish. I called around for Bona and Synteko (Floor Torque were really helpful) but I reckon they're a bit pro for me. And I can get Cabots on a sunday lunch if I accidentally run out.
• I wasn't going to put down a sealer, Cabots reckon they don't need one. I'm getting 2off 10L tubs which should give me 3 coats.
• have booked to hire a drum and edger from Able Hire in Kirrawee - they were very helpful. They suggested 2 days would be plenty to do 80m2?
• do I really need to sand between coats? Able reckoned not with a satin finish. Otherwise I'll need the rotary sander and it will slow me down a bit.

I think the satin finish will be a little more forgiving than a gloss. Even if the finish lasts 5 years that should be plenty as our little fibro will probably need a major facelift by then. Besides, I really want to get stuck into something challenging and my budget/timeframe makes DIY preferable.

Thanks for all your help, will post some afters shots once its done

Call Larry McCully tell him i sent Ya ... Its bound to cost you more this way but atleast i will get some browny points out of it......

By the way got another for you to look at in end of JULY Bro

Cheers utemad

Thanks Utemad, someone else suggested Larry too but I think I will just have a go at it myself