Your hardwood floors may be showing some serious wear and tear; perhaps now is the time for them to be refinished.
Sanding may appear like the ideal solution, but it can be messy and costly.
Refinishing hardwood floors without resorting to sanding is achievable, although it requires skill and patience. Follow these steps to restore your hardwood floors without the inconvenience of sanding.
Chemical abrasion
Most property owners believe that in order to give their hardwood floors a renewed luster, they need to sand them down and restain them – an expensive, time-consuming and messy process. But this doesn’t need to be the case! Here’s another solution.
Instead of resorting to sanding, an alternative approach known as “screen and recoating” will refresh your floors without the need for extensive sanding. This option can especially come in handy if your floors only exhibit surface-level wear or need coloring changes; plus it saves on labor costs!
Before beginning the refinishing process, empty the room of furniture and thoroughly vacuum and dust mop the floors to remove any dust or debris that could prevent the new finish from adhering properly. Allow time for drying before walking on it or moving back any furniture back in.
Keep in mind, however, that refinishing your floors this way won’t remove deep scratches or stains and won’t rectify cupping and crowning issues; but will provide a good, long-term surface to protect your floor’s finish for many years to come.
Buffering
If your floors are scratched and worn down but don’t require complete refinishing, buffering may be an effective way to renew them without resorting to full sanding. This process entails using a buffer to scrub over the surface before applying a fresh coat of finish.
Importantly, laminated and prefinished wood floors cannot be sanded using this method as their attractive veneer is only attached to plywood subflooring. Sanding these types of floors could damage their substructure and leave it susceptible to moisture leakage.
Begin by emptying and removing all furniture. Clean the floor using a pH-neutral wood flooring cleaner and allow it to dry before moving any back in. When it comes time to apply new finish, have one of your helpers hold a buffer behind closely, smoothing out drips or puddles as they arise with smoothing tools. Allow the finish at least an hour to cure before walking on it or moving back any furniture.
Wood stain or paint
Hardwood floor contractors often get requests that seem impossible, like changing the color of hardwood floors without sanding. Luckily, there are various methods available to renew them without this extensive operation.
One technique is called “screen and recoat,” whereby you scuff up the existing finish with a buffer, before applying a fresh coat of floor finish. Another alternative is chemical etching kits; both avoid messy, expensive, and time-consuming jobs of sanding down to bare wood.
Before beginning either procedure, begin by thoroughly sweeping and vacuuming your floors, as well as removing all furniture. If using a chemical etching kit, read its instructions closely in order to know how long people and furniture should remain away before applying product. Allow for proper drying times – typically from several hours up to several days depending on weather conditions and material choice of floor surface.
Renewal by Armstrong
This method offers an effective yet cost-effective option for floors that don’t require sanding. A revitalizer penetrates wood fibers to fill in mild scratches and make your floor appear new again. Before applying the revitalizer, clear away furniture and empty the room of all its contents before cleaning your floor thoroughly to get rid of wax, grease, and residue that has built up on its surface; any dirt on its surface prevents polish or finish from bonding properly to the wood surface.
Refinishing traditional hardwoods may work, but prefinished and laminated floors won’t. This is due to their thin layer of attractive wood veneer covering plywood subflooring – you cannot sand them without damaging this foundation layer. However, recoating can restore gloss to prefinished or laminated floors that have become dull-looking with regular mopping; additionally recoating can increase their lifespan, too – although its wear performance won’t compare favorably to solid-wood floors.