Sanding floors yourself

[Wiggy29]

Any tips? Dh trying to level them/ bash in nails so they're not sticking up today plus we've heard sander and edger for 2 days (2 rooms to do). Any tips?

Yes: Osmo polyx clear matt.

We did our parquet flooring (having butchered the dining room to 'fill in the gaps') and it looks absolutely fantastic. I applied it with an old T-shirt. The initial attempt, using rubbish bought from Wickes, looked awful and we ended up having to re-sand the floor.

We also used a resin to mix in with the finer dust and used it as a paste to fill any small gaps between the oak.

A really good job in the end. Remember, judge the floor from 5'-6' up. not when your nose is inches away from it.

Is that the oil rather than the varnish,? Just checking as just googled it. Can you buy it from any of the big diy shops?

Thanks for tips, I had just bought stuff from wickes!

We used the varnish from Wickes and it looked terrible! PLEASE learn from our mistake and don't use this stuff. When we cocked it up, we phoned in a proper firm, the guy was very busy and couldn't fit us in, but he suggested we use the POLYX stuff (which is apparently what the trade use). We found it on the internet for about 40 I think. By all accounts, the older the floor - particualrly hardwood (ours was very old) the more unsuitable the DIY type stuff is.

If you never take advice from anyone, trust me on this. We were left with a crap colour and brush marks. The OSMO stuff left the floor at pretty much the same colour (a shade darker) and looks much better. We went for the matt finish, but that's just personal preference.

In answer to your specific questions:

Yes, it's the oil (not the varnish)

No, it isn't (wasn't available from DIY). We found a local-ish firm (that supplied the trade) who stocked it, but they were considerably more expensive than getting it online. somehting I usually try and avoid

That'great, thanks for the advice. I'll return the wickes varnish. It'll be fine ordering online as think we're going to have a bit of a delay any way as found evidence of woodworm when sanding and not sure if it's old or new yet.

Thanks again for advice.

We did our floor a while ago, we've since moved.
The room was only small so we did it with a belt sander that we hired and a hand sander that we bought.
We varnished it with Ronsell Diamond Hard, or something like that.

I just realised. I've assumed you have parquet flooring. If you're sanding floorboards, the advice might be different (I've never done that).

I suppose the best thing to do it just try it out. If you have oak parquet - follow my advice.

FACE MASK
A relative ended up in the ICU because he inhaled way too much crap when sanding.