A Guide on how to prepare your home.
If you own a timber floor, you understand that it needs proper treatment. With professional floor sanding, you get to achieve a visual quality unlike any other.
If you’re considering having professional sanding done, you need to know that proper preparation is crucial. Sanding can be messy and stressful, so if you want the process to go without a hitch, you need to set everything up properly.
What to do before you hire professional floor sanding services
Before you hire a professional sanding team, it’s best to make a checklist of the tasks you need to do to simplify your logistics. Here are things homeowners need to keep in mind in preparation for floor sanding.
· Plan ahead.
This is where your checklist comes in handy. When you’re hiring a professional floor sanding contractor, you need to make sure that your schedule is in sync with both the contractor’s and your household’s availability. That’s because it’s vital that you don’t disrupt anyone’s schedule and the floor sanding process goes smoothly.
Schedule the entire process ahead of time and make sure to consult with your household on a date and time that works for them so as not to disrupt their own schedule. Planning also prevents people from distracting the sanding contractors, so they can better can stick to their schedule and complete the work on time.
That said, make sure to check with the sanding team’s schedule. A true professional team will abide by the timetable they have set aside for the service.
If you believe that your family members will experience discomfort, take them out of your house. Wayward dust and particles can trigger asthma in children, so find a place to stay for your family members to prevent them from coming into the house while service is on-going if this is a concern.
· Remove all items and furniture.
Prior to having professional floor sanding done, remove all items in the rooms being sanded. If there are many items or the room is too big, take a picture. A quick snap will help you put everything in its proper place.
Find a room away the area being worked on where you need to put furniture and knick-knacks. The best way to keep things going is to never stow anything in areas that will be sanded.
By keeping the work area cleared, you prevent interruptions during work time. You also avoid any potential damage that sanding can cause.
Remove any curtains. If you cannot remove the curtains, wrap them in plastic or bags and secure them as high up as possible.
· Protect the baseboards and joints of your walls.
Once you clear the room of small items and furniture, start protecting parts of the room that aren’t being sanded. Many areas adjacent to a wood floor can receive damage if left unprotected from sanding.
Among the parts of a room that you need to safeguard are the baseboard of your walls. There’s also the sill around your door that requires a covering to limit any damage.
Cover the joints of your wall with painters’ tape to prevent scuffing. Seal any areas that can push dust in and out of the room, including chimneys and vents. If you have light fittings, use a plastic bag to cover these items, but also ensure adequate light to allow the professionals to see the work area.
· Keep sufficient ventilation.
Make sure that the room has adequate ventilation for the contractors do their job properly and comfortably. The cleaning and finishing of wood floors takes a while – as much as a couple of weeks. So, you want the fumes to go out and move away from the room.
The better the ventilation is, the faster the cleaning and drying process can be. Open windows won’t be adequate unless it’s for finishing. You don’t want wood dust and particles to escape your room as it then becomes doubly hard to locate and clean them.
· Do some pre-cleaning before every step.
Pre-cleaning your floors is an essential step in the professional sanding process. After each stage, dust and dirt particles will start to accumulate. While professionals will clean the area as they sand, cleaning before they come helps make their work easier and faster.
You can vacuum the floor to remove any dust and debris, and use a damp mop to pull everything out of the wooden floors too. Using wood-safe cleaning products for your floors is highly recommended.
· Do inspections and repairs.
The last and possibly the most important thing to do to prepare for professional floor sanding is to inspect your flooring by looking for broken floorboards, bent nails, or popping nail heads. Make sure that the floor is as flat as possible to avoid any damage to equipment and preventable injury to the contractors.
Uneven surfaces can cause the sanding machine to swerve or skip. This mistake could lead to a scratch or damage to your floor and delay the process. If there are any minor repairs to be done, make sure that these are completed before you schedule for professional sanding.
The key to professional floor sanding is expertise
The keys to a flawless professional floor sanding experience are preparation and expertise. You want to make sure to prepare the staging ground for the work. This process will cut down the time your floor sanding specialist needs to work on your home.
Only an experienced contractor can do this job smoothly and efficiently. You should be sure to find timber flooring specialists who know what they’re doing. Talk to a professional floor sanding team today and let’s discuss what you have in mind.