Bear in mind before sanding...

There are one or two things that should consider before reaching a final decision about having a floor sanded. The first comes under the heading of chattering. This has nothing to do with having a good chat but everything to do with how some floors are fitted.

Engineered tongue and grooved floors where boards are not secured to each joist may sand unevenly. Some times the floor vibrates under the drum sander and leaves ridges known as “chatter marks”.

The only way to prevent this happening or to remove these ridges is to use a large flat oscillating sander but it does take some considerable time to achieve an acceptable finish and therefore is a considerably more expensive job. We have found that many clients are not troubled by the minor ridging but some are. If you are we do have an Italian made machine specifically designed to prevent this happening.

If you live in a Victorian property it is quite likely that the edges of the rooms were varnished. It was for some considerable time to simply have a centre carpet or in some cases linoleum and for the surrounding wood to be dark varnished. One of the finishes was known as Egyptian Black and was a varnish with a bitumen content possibly to act as some form of insulation.

The varnish was sufficiently dense to protect the floor from the effects of UV light which will eventually penetrate most materials and darken the wood. This does mean that there are occasions where the edges of the room will sand lighter than the centre. It is not a good policy in these situations to sand the centre to cut beneath the darkened material as you are likely to end up with a ridged surface. Better to be patient and let nature take its course.

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