Floor sanding costs

[ErrolFinn]

We are considering having the floorboards in our living room and bedroom sanded and varnished. There are a couple of boards that may need replaced and gaps filled. Has anyone ever had this done and roughly how much would you expect to pay for this?
Also, how hard would it be to do myself if I hired the sander etc?

Thanks!

I've recently had a couple of quotes. Our floorboards are in good condition so £25 / sqm with two coats of varnish.

I've done it almost all alone in two houses and all together in about eight rooms. It's one of the worst jobs I've ever done! It's noisy and very dirty. However, you can hire a sander and edging sander with all the sandpaper for around £100 for a weekend. I then use a Ronseal floor wax although you may want to varnish
I found it was the cleaning up after the sanding and before waxing that was horrendous, the dust reached the ceilings and into every drawer.
So a lot of work but will save a fortune. Around here companies charge something like £750 per 12x12 room, you'd have much less mess of course.
BTW I could never manage the big sander as found it too heavy so mostly just used the edger

I've just done two rooms myself. It's fairly easy and gets amazing results but is so dusty and unpleasant. I wore a mask and goggles and was still coughing and sneezing out dust for days. So happy with the results now though and probably couldn't have afforded a professional with all our other house renovation costs.

3000 for 2 large rooms and a hall.

I have done it myself, but I’d much rather have someone else do it.

I've just had two rooms done. One had floorboards that were in good condition (about 14 x 13 feet), the other was pretty bad (about 10 x 10 feet).

The base charge was £15 per square metre for sanding only and £25 with the coating (bona traffic HD). I paid £700, with £100 being for 'repairs' which included repairing cracks, filling, and replacing some boards for others which they store up as and when they do other jobs.

I have done two rooms myself before. For the finish and the price, I am really happy with having paid a pro to do it. I'm in east anglia.

Also the attention to detail was amazing, I was so impressed. The pro lifted and relaid all boards so the spacing between them is even. He spent hours hoovering after sanding too, don't think he used chemicals for the clean up before applying coating.

Here are some before and afters, the 'better' room first.

And the worse of the two. Second and third photos are the finish in different lights.

@EnglishRain

And the worse of the two. Second and third photos are the finish in different lights.

Hi Englishrain, beautiful floors! You must be so happy with the results. please could I just ask for the second floor the one which is dark around the edges, was it like a paint that was on the floor boards round the edges, and did the sanding person sand that off no problem? We have very similar looking floors, and I hoping to get them sanded soon. I had a concern that they may be lead in the paint, or the varnish on the dark bit. I just wondered if anything was flagged for your floor.

I hired a sander and did it myself. The results were... ok. I defo would not attempt again. You need a huge belt sander and a small edging sander. The belts snag on any nails you havent knocked fully flat and i had to replace it several times. Theres also a couple of gouges where i went a bit too deep with the edging sander! It was fine in a pinch though. It was dusty but that was easily dealt with by taping sheets over the doors.

@Skyliner001 thank you!

The dark is a varnish of sorts from many years ago, not paint. I gather it's quite unusual for floorboards to have been painted back when lead paint was more commonly used. Those boards had been covered with carpet for years, and whichever product was used came off easily, I had sanded a corner myself to check when I lifted the carpet. The only reason the other room started off in a better state is because the previous owners got those boards done, but left the smaller room because they felt they were too badly damaged. The professionals can work wonders. Definitely worth researching and using a good product though, our big room had worn very badly because the owners had done it themselves and not fixed boards down properly and used an inferior varnish. Hadn't lasted well at all.

The pro also told me that the square in the middle of the smaller room was because in times gone by they would coat the floor but leave a square if a rug was to go in the middle He also said sometimes it's a stinky job because people used to pee directly on the floorboards, and sometimes the scent would come back out of the wood! My house was built in the early 1800s and the boards are the original ones, so we were really pleased they could be saved.

Thank you so much for all that information Englishrain! That's been really incredibly helpful, I had wondered if it might just be coated and coated varnish, rather than paint. Really interesting to hear about the rug to, as our room has the square in the middle as well! Thanks for all that fab advice, enjoy your new floors 😊