Sanding a floor- worth the effort?

[Sunnysidegold]

Basically I have a carpet being eatencouraged by carpet moths and it is driving me mad. I have been hoovering madly, moving furniture and spraying stuff and they have got better but I have massive holes in the bedroom carpet which are very visible now that I've been moving furniture around. I think the floorboards are in reasonably good nick so was wondering if anyone had experience of hiring a sander to sand them. Was it hard? Was it worth the effort? Did you varnish or paint the floor after?

Bluntness how do the professionals cut down on the dust? We have 4 more rooms to do and I'd rather avoid the dust again if possible.

How big a room did you do wobbly? We found some part stained boards in the box room and they looked to be in much better condition. At some point in the future we may turn it into a dressing room and as it's a very small room (with no moths!) it may be more of a hand sander job. They have black stain which I really liked.

Professional machines have massively better suction and much more airtight dust collection. They produce the same dust, but it ends up in their bag, not all over your house.
If you're hiring, buy plastic dustsheets, and tape them completely over the door. Stay sealed in until sanding finished and hoovering done. With shewee, obvs.

It's well worth it to pay someone to do it.

We've had all of our rooms done and I love it. So easy to clean and perfect for kids. Works equally well with modern or traditional decor.

None of the floors are orange. The colour varies depending on the type of wood. The kids wanted a ight effect in their rooms so the Victorian pine boards were stained with watered down white emulsion .

Thanks folks!

We've done it in two houses. It is hard work and you will get through a LOT of the sanding disks as they break if they hit the slightest imperfection.

The end results have been well worth it, but don't underestimate the work involved and the noise and dust.

It's also worth checking what state your floor boards are in. If your house has ever been re-wired or re-plumbed then many boards may have been cut in places that will really show.

netballhoops again, professional machines, with pro quality sanding belts work so much better- they cope with uneven bits without constantly breaking and tearing. The guy put a old bit of wood in, where a board was missing, it was proud of the floor by about 5mm, his machine just smoothed it down, no sweat.
The headline price of hiring gets bumped up a lot by the cost of the cheap and ineffective sanding belts they charge you for.

We hired one like this. It was from a bloke who does it but let us hire his machine.

Don't suck the residual dust up with your dyson. It did a great job but then went to the big sad scrap heap in the sky.....

Did mine myself and it was hard and noisy and dusty but the result was worth it. Just used clear Matt varnish, loads of coats and its lasted 10 years with kids and dogs

Hmm had typed a lengthy reply but it has disappeared. Good point about cut floorboards, silly question, guessing I can buy floorboards.somewhere...although colours and stuff might be an.issue. thanks for the advice advice boutique hoovering dysoning it up...that is exactly.what I would have done! Lots to think about thanks for all the replies!

My main concern would be that doing it wouldn't actually solve your moth problem.

All that effort (sanding, repairing, staining and varnishing), all that dust and you end up with an environment the moths love even more because they get under the floor where you can't easily reach them.

How about painting your floors - I had dodgy pre varnished floorboards and after a half hearted sanding effort ran out of steam, I decided to paint* them. Farrow & Ball do specialist floor paints which are pretty hard wearing, and also a company called International.

*Just be careful to paint towards the exit, not away from it.
Not that I ever did that of course