Regular hardwood floor refinishing in Southington ensures that your home’s wood floors look their best while also protecting those surfaces from water damage, scratches, and nicks. Wood floor refinishing also gives you a chance to update and outright change the look of wood floors, with the application of new paint or stain. You can then have the deep, dark color you’ve always wanted on your home’s floor or lighten the look of your home with a soft honey-colored stain.
Some homeowners are put off by the cost to refinish hardwood floors in Southington and might attempt to manage their own refinishing, repainting, and staining. This can be a costly mistake, and the job is often more cumbersome than homeowners realize. To ensure you make the right choice when it comes to hardwood floor refinishing in Southington, consider some reasons why this job is best left to the pros.
1. Equipment for hardwood floor refinishing in Southington is heavy and cumbersome
If you’ve ever used a handheld sander or belt sander, you might assume that the equipment for hardwood floor refinishing in Southington is just as lightweight and easy to manage. In truth, floor refinishing equipment is often heavy and cumbersome and difficult to move much less control!
While only a homeowner can know if he or she is strong enough to manage equipment for hardwood floor refinishing for a Southington home, it’s often best to err on the side of caution. Hiring a professional floor refinishing contractor keeps you safe and avoids pulled muscles, backaches, and other physical conditions you might suffer from trying to manage heavy equipment.
2. Choosing sandpaper grit for Southington hardwood refinishing requires some skill
As with sandpaper you use on any wood item in the home, floor refinishing equipment needs sandpaper of a particular grit. Finer grit removes light layers of materials whereas heavier grit helps strip away thick layers of paint and other coatings. Using the wrong grit sandpaper can result in more work or might result in stripping away too much of the wood itself!
Choosing the right grit sandpaper for wood floor refinishing in Southington depends on the type of wood, the coatings or coverings on that flooring, and any damage you want removed. A skilled and experienced floor refinishing contractor will inspect a home’s floors and choose the right grit sandpaper quickly and easily.
3. Proper sanding techniques take skill and experience
Proper sanding for floor refinishing in Southington requires more than choosing the right grit of sandpaper; improper use of a floor sander can leave swirl marks and other unsightly streaks, and create an uneven finish across the floor’s surface. On the other hand, knowing how to use a sander properly makes quick work of the stripping needed for floor refinishing!
Using a sander properly for floor refinishing in Southington is not something you can learn through online videos and websites. Hiring a professional ensures that your floors are not damaged during the sanding process and that the job is done thoroughly and as quickly as possible.
4. Improper sanding damages walls and baseboards
When sanding floors for refinishing, it’s quite easy to damage nearby walls and baseboards. Running the sander too close to the edges of a room or ignoring the use of guides on a sander in order to reach the corners and edges of the floor often results in dents, dings, scratches, and other damage to baseboards and drywall.
While a homeowner wants to avoid damaging the edges of a room, it’s also vital that the corners of floors are reached with sanding. Your floor refinishing Southington won’t look quite right if there are lines of old coatings or scratches along the edges of a room left untouched.
5. Ignoring wood dust after sanding leaves behind a mess
Even if you use a bagged sander for hardwood floor refinishing in Southington, you’ll still be left with some residual dust and debris. Unfortunately many homeowners fail to clean dust properly before applying coatings of paint or stain, and might find that their new coating is uneven and unsightly.
Proper cleaning of wood dust often requires an oil soap or other specialized cleaner, as well as a fine attention to detail! A professional wood floor refinisher will ensure that wood dust and debris are removed before paints and stains are applied, for a smooth and even finish.
6. Hardwood refinishing in Southington requires various products
As with choosing sandpaper, it’s often difficult to choose between the various paints, stains, sealants, and other coatings needed for hardwood refinishing in Southington. Applying the wrong coating might mean that you need to sand your floors all over again!
It’s also often difficult to know the proper application techniques; for example, stain is applied and allowed to sit and them removed. If the stain sits too long, the floors are overly dark but if not left to sit long enough, your color won’t be rich and true. Hiring a professional for hardwood floor refinishing in Southington ensures a beautiful finish to those floors.
7. Wood floor restoration in Southington is hazardous to your health
Along with trying to manage a cumbersome floor sander, wood floor restoration in Southington can be hazardous to your health. Wood dust is dangerous to the lungs when inhaled and can cling to the skin, causing allergic reactions and irritations.
Volatile organic compounds in paint and stains are also hazardous to the lungs and can be bothersome to the eyes and sinuses. Cheap dust masks are not sufficient coverage and protection for your sinuses and it’s also vital that anyone sanding floors protect their eyes and skin throughout the process.
Before you decide that hardwood floor refinishing in Southington is a DIY job that you can handle on your own, consider these cautions carefully. Remember that the cost of hiring a professional floor restoration expert is often worth the investment if it means keeping you safe and ensuring that your floors look their best for many years to come.