Any experience with refinishing hardwood floors?
 

I am buying a 2-family home that luckily has had nasty carpetting covering the original hardwood flooring. I ripped up some of the carpet the floor looks okay but needs some refinishing. Anyone have experience with this? Is it worth it to pay for this service or is it easy enough to rent the equipment to do on one's own? Thanks for the advice in advance.

Re: Any experience with refinishing hardwood floors?
 

I am the managing partner of a hardwood flooring wholesale operation and a certified hardwood flooring inspector.

While I have only coated 4 floors in total in my life, I know what I'm talking about.

PM me if you want.

Re: Any experience with refinishing hardwood floors?
 

I just had 4 rooms and a hallway done. I have a neighbor who did it himself. Our floors look pretty comparable. If you are handy with this kind of stuff, I suggest picking a small room first and then moving to the bigger rooms after you get a feel for it. Of course, if you butcher the small room, you can call in the pros.

Re: Any experience with refinishing hardwood floors?
 

IIRC someone did a TR on refinishing their floors awhile back. We had a friend do our floors last year, with me assisting, and it turned out great. I wouldn't recommend doing them yourself unless you have some kind of experience, it's a real pain in the ass.

Re: Any experience with refinishing hardwood floors?
 

Its a real bitch, if you have ANY kind of carpet glue, have someoen do it, if its just tacks, than it is feasible, but its mind numbing, easy to [censored] up, and you have no "out" if you do [censored] up. Usually home depot or wherever you rent the machines from will have two types, get the weaker of the two, the strong one if you dont know what you are doing, will eat through the floor easily.

Re: Any experience with refinishing hardwood floors?
 

While it is possible to do it yourself, its one of those MONEY WELL SPENT type deals. Its pain in the ass labor, will take you at least double the time of a professional (if you've never done it before) and who wants to breathe in all that sawdust and fumes and clean up after. I redid the floors in my tenants house a year ago and spent just slightly over $1 Per SQF to have it done.

SteveOMS

Re: Any experience with refinishing hardwood floors?
 

use a quality chemical stripper (circa 1820 is a good one) to remove any varnish/stain/glue residue, then give the floor a good sanding (either rent a machine or just use a block and a lot of elbow grease, depending on how badly they need sanding). after that it's easy. i'd probably use an acrylic polyurethane as finish, as they're easy to fix if you screw up, and they tend to wear well. you can use a penetrating stain underneath if you want to change the color. that's easy too.

Re: Any experience with refinishing hardwood floors?
 

[ QUOTE ]
While it is possible to do it yourself, its one of those MONEY WELL SPENT type deals. Its pain in the ass labor, will take you at least double the time of a professional (if you've never done it before) and who wants to breathe in all that sawdust and fumes and clean up after. I redid the floors in my tenants house a year ago and spent just slightly over $1 Per SQF to have it done.

SteveOMS

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey, what's up Steve!

My experience was the same. The fumes are the biggest reason to pay for it. It was not cost prohibitive.

Re: Any experience with refinishing hardwood floors?
 

[ QUOTE ]
While it is possible to do it yourself, its one of those MONEY WELL SPENT type deals. Its pain in the ass labor, will take you at least double the time of a professional (if you've never done it before) and who wants to breathe in all that sawdust and fumes and clean up after. I redid the floors in my tenants house a year ago and spent just slightly over $1 Per SQF to have it done.

SteveOMS

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree 100%. I've been in construction for 10years and while I've never finished floors, I have a ton of related experience and I wouldn't consider for a second doing this myself.

It's nasty, hard work and if your time is worth anything you won't be saving anything. Plus it's easy to really mess up the sanding.