Tuesday, 30 March 2010

How Many Sandings Can a Floor Brand Stand?

This is a question I had been asked a few times over the years (try a few thousand), but never-more than since Wickes said on their advert that their floor can be sanded up to 3 times.

Since that advert aired this has been one of the most common questions people ask when buying wood flooring products. How many sandings can it take? How many times can that species be sanded? Etc etc etc.

The truth is that there is no answer to this question, and that is why Wickes carefully chose to use the consumer-dreaded up-to in their promotions. How many times a floor can be sanded depends upon so many variables:

The type and/or quality of the sander, the reason for sanding (are there any deep grooves that need to be fixed), who is doing the sanding (how heavy are they leaning/are they pressing too hard) and many more variables based on the species of the wood, the age of the wood and also things like the atmosphere the wood has lived in.

That is why we will never give a clear answer, not even an up-to answer, because it just gives people false expectations.

What we can say is that Wickes real wood floor is 18mm thick. With the exception of our Caledonian, Tuscan and a few other species/brand combos, our flooring is between 20+22mm thick, those mentioned above are 18mm + 19mm thick, and our Junkers range, comes with a 14mm thick option, or a 22mm thick option.

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

I Need a Tough Wood Floor, Should I Choose Handscraped or Sanded

I have just been asked something that I get asked frequently, but today I was inspired to answer it in a blog. I was asked this on another blog that I run called Woodfloorguru, in a post about Kahrs Oak Sienna:

"Hi, I have a question about another oak, white oak. We're trying to decide if we should go with hand scraped or sanded due to concerns about heel dents, etc. Solid HW, not engineered. It's a darker, "antiquish" stain but we don't know if we would like to make it even more antique/rustic looking with the hand scraped. We don't want to be overly stressed when we entertain is our primary issue."

The answer to that question is: Read full entry

Tuesday, 16 March 2010

Floor Sanding & Finishing: 3 Reasons You Should Hire Professionals

It is a common misconception that hiring professional floor sanders is so expensive that we are better to have a go at it ourselves. This couldn't be further from the truth. Here are just 3 of the top reasons why hiring professional floor sanders is the best way to go:

1: Peace of Mind

Depending on whether you buy new, reclaimed or even engineered wood flooring will affect the price, but nevertheless, flooring a house or even a room in wood is not a cheap thing to do. Don’t get me wrong it is definitely worth it, to take people’s breath away when they enter your house or room alone.

The last thing you want to do is damage it, or do a sub-standard job. Bringing in the professionals is worth it if only for the peace of mind of knowing that they will leave the floor as good as when it was new.

2: Quality Guarantees

I can’t speak for all floor sanding companies, but Edinburgh Floor Sanders (AKA Mckay Flooring) offer full guarantees upon the quality of our work, and as we have an exemplary reputation after 37 years operation our guarantees really mean something – we want to maintain our reputation for first-rate work.

We don’t sub-contract to any outside contractors, all our work is done by our in-house team of professional, experienced floor sanders, fitters and finishers, and using nothing buy the latest dustless floor sanding machinery.

3: Value for Money

This really encapsulates the two points made above. Value for money comes from the fact that the cost, which isn’t as much as you may think, is well worth it for the peace of mind of knowing that your floor is guaranteed to look as good as new when the work is completed. This also means fully sealed and once-again resistant to water and damage.

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Floor Sanding, Finishing and Sealing: A Step by Step Guide

It is a fact that hardwood flooring will last a lifetime if properly maintained. In our last post we covered how to protect floors from damage, and how to keep floors looking beautiful with regular light cleaning, and occasional deep cleaning when necessary.

But what if its too late for that? What if the floor is damaged or simply loses its shine?

below we will cover how a floor can be sanded and refinished to make it look as good as new. Call it a DIY guide if you like, but more importantly it will give you the knowledge necessary to make an educated judgement about quotations, and whether or not it is worth attempting yourself.

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