Wood Floor Refinishing Service Fort Wayne
Hardwood Flooring Care Fort Wayne
The following signs are indicators that your floors need sanding and refinishing:
If your floors are showing any of the signs above, feel free to give us a call. We'd love to help prevent further damage from occurring. We recommend that hardwood floors be evaluated once every 3 to 5 years depending on traffic and family size. Often we find that homeowners are unaware that their floors should be inspected to ensure that the protective finish is preventing damage. When the protective wear layer is depleted, the floors are exposed to the elements. Moisture is the number one culprit for irreversibly damaging wood floors.
Step 1: Inspection and thorough vacuuming
Prior to the job start date, all furniture will need to be removed from the applicable rooms. All existing shoe molding, quarter rounds, and ventilation registers should be removed. To ensure professional-looking work, this step is essential. Sanding, staining, and refinishing work need to extend all the way to the edge of the walls. When we arrive on-site, at the customer's request, we'll provide plastic covering over vents and doorways. We'll begin by vacuuming up large debris in preparation for the sanding phase.
Step 2: Broad and Detail Sanding
We begin sanding with a drum sander to remove layers of the surface, to bare wood. Because drum sanders remove wood with every pass, we use various grits of sandpaper to gradually produce a smooth bare wood surface. A very fine-grit sandpaper is used for the final sanding to ensure a surface that is evenly smooth and capable of receiving a stain and/or top coat finish. Once the bulk sanding is completed, we begin the detail sanding around the perimeter of the room, and corners. The detail-sanding process can take a while due to all of the nooks, corners, and door jams.
Step 3: Staining or Sealing- Optional
A visual inspection is conducted after all sanding is completed to look for any remaining sander marks. Once the marks have been removed, the floors are ready to be stained. Depending on the pigment in the stain, we might water pop the floor to get a deeper shade of the same color. We use a commercial-grade quick-dry stain which doubles as a sealer. If a natural wood color is desired, we'll apply a sealer to the floors and let them dry.
Step 4: Buffing - If a natural sealer is applied
After the natural clear sealer has dried, we apply the first coat of polyurethane and let that dry. Depending on environmental conditions we may return in 24 hours to lightly sand the surface in preparation for the second coat of polyurethane.
Step 5: Sealer and Polyurethane Dry Time
Both the sealer and water-based polyurethane required 1 to 3 hours to dry. During this time, no foot traffic is permitted.
Step 6: Cure Time
After four hours, the top coat finish is thoroughly dried and can handle light foot traffic. We recommend socks only until the finish is completely cured. The curing process takes 5 days minimum, so we recommend that furniture is not placed on the floors until after they are fully cured.
It is simple and fast to schedule our hardwood floor refinishers and receive a free estimate by visiting our contact page.
Contact us at 260-446-3335 to schedule a free in-home Estimate!
