The greatest danger in using a hardwood floor sander is that you will leave marks all over the floor. This is because the machine is so heavy and unwieldy. To put it another way, it is next to impossible to polish a hardwood floor without leaving some kind of scrapes or marks. Even professional operators of hardwood floor sanders have a hard time when it comes sanding a floor and leaving absolutely no marks at all. Usually these marks that mar the floor after sanding are called “chatter marks.”
Essentially you can prevent disasters by adhering to a few rules before you think of sanding the floor. First of all it is important to realize that staining the wood before the applying the floor finish needs a different sanding technique then if you are planning to apply the floor finish directly on the wood. Applying floor finish directly to the wood is called a blonde finish. If you are just doing a blonde finish you don`t need to be as particular about the way the floor is sanded. However if you are staining the wood then you might want to hire a professional who really knows how to handle hardwood floor sanders.
You might also want to consider hiring a professional to do the job if you have a house with really old floors. This is because it is really hard for an amateur to tell which of the many hardwood floor sanders would be best to use for your floor. If you choose one that is too heavy or powerful you might just end up with a floor with holes in it.
Another good reason to hire a professional to use hardwood floor sanders on your floors is the fact that you really cannot rent a professional grade of sander yourself. The experts often call the hardwood floor sanders that are rented to the public toy sanders. This is because they weight a lot less and don`t have enough power to truly make a difference on your floor unless you are willing to polish the floor for hours and hours to get it right. This type of repetitive polishing of the floor can also cause nerve, back and wrist damage as people struggled to get this big job done in just a day using a tool that is not quite appropriate for the job.
Hiring a professional to sand your floor should cost about a dollar per square foot. This means it might be worth it to save the hours of time and potential damage to your floor and body that attempting to do it by yourself might cause. However if you are refinishing a very small area of your home and not entire 600 square foot room then you should be find renting a hardwood floor sander.
