Cost of Floor Sanding per Square Meter

[loogmord]

Can anyone tell me a reasonable price to floor sand and polish wooden floors. I have a 130sqm house and I'm getting quotes of $3000-$4000. Does this seem high?

[Ivanhoe]

Nope, seems to be reasonable. Had one quote $20 per sqm for 50 sqm house, 3 coats. Ended up with 4 coats + floor praparation, same $1000+GST. Taht's in Chch.

[SuperDad]

That sounds about right.

Have you considered doing it yourself? (I'm not sure if you're in the same city as the property.) I did my own floors, around 100m2 in total. It cost me well under $1000, and it looks just like a bought one. If you're interested in some advice on how to sand your own floors, you can send me a personal message.

Your friendly D-I-Yer,

Paul.

[Ivanhoe]

I would be happy to jump on it too Paul
but I see myself as property investor, not floor sander!
So if I do reno I project management and maybe a bit of cean-up, everything else is done by pro's while I'm looking for another deal!
I would quite happily outsource project management too, to be honest!

[SuperDad]

Hi Ivanhoe,

Good point!

In my situation (still researching our first trade), I'll be doing as much of the reno on our first properties as possible, but only if a cost-benefit analysis justifies this. For example, I'd do the floors myself, because for a three-day job I can do it for 3K cheaper than a pro. That's 1K a day, which is good money. But say some landscaping (excavation) needs doing. That would be too time consuming for me - I could dig by hand and ship the crap out by the trailer or skip load, or the pros could bring in the big guns (digger, trucks). And I won't be able to do everything myself inside the turn-around time-frame, so I'll have to sub-contract some jobs I could do myself.

I will get to the point one day where I don't need to do as much hands-on work - I can't wait! (In fact, I'm not waiting. I'm taking action now to ensure that this happens in the furture.)

Paul.

[Ivanhoe]

Paul, I hear what you say.
It's your game so you set the rules, including amount of hands-on work. One of guys who's approach I really respect (he has not got a book published and not in NZ anymore) taught me to be really un-emotional and quite anal when doing investment. He called ANY house "unit" ("I settled on 26 units this month") and played purely by numbers.
I'm not discussing YOUR rules here, rather I'm trying to find out why mine are different.
You can do renovations yourself, saves heaps. And this approach also tru to kiwi nature too. My concern is it's also tru that majority of investors here in NZ have one, two, maybe three properties (I know a guy who accumulated FIVE!!! and done them up himself over last 12 years or so).
So my approach (or rather approach I'm adopting) is quite lateral - do as much as possible using other people's time-money-skills etc. Become very good in couple of MAIN things (finding properties and finacing them would be my choice) and use someone to do the rest. Adopt "cost of business" idea - if I have to pay extra $$ but move it faster and easier - fine by me, also you contribute to the economy of the country giving work to all these trades ppl.
Will you first first deal be profitable ONLY if you do all that work yourself? Maybe it's not THAT good after all...

[SuperDad]

Ivanhoe,

I hear what you say also, especially when you wrote:

Will you first first deal be profitable ONLY if you do all that work yourself? Maybe it's not THAT good after all.

Like you, for me it comes down to time and money at the end of the day. Say I want to come out of my first deal clearing $30K. If I go completely "hands-off", then it might take me 6 weeks to find a deal that stacks up, and 3 weeks to turn it over (i.e., have it back on the market). If I go "hands-on", then it might take me 2 weeks to find a deal, and 4 weeks to turn it over. I've made 3 weeks - I can go fishing or find more deals!!! (Although I guess I could have done the same for the 3 weeks it takes the professionals to renovate, so I'm no better off there.)

It comes down to how I want to spend my time - finding those deals that stack up taking into consideration the cost of getting pros to do work I can do myself, or finding deals that will stack up only if I do the work. To tell the truth, I haven't done enough research to find which of these two scenarios is the more likely. It does seem to me that, at this stage of the market, profit margins are tighter and so it makes sense to do the manual work myself. Deals that stack up will simply be easier to find if I do this. In a rising market the deals will be more plentiful, and so I could spend my time sourcing deals and managing projects.

I'm not wedded to either way of doing things on my first deal, I'll just see what is out there.

Thanks for sharing your take on matters - it causes me to be more reflective about my own approach.

Paul.

[MaryJ]

If you're interested in some advice on how to sand your own floors, you can send me a personal message.

Your friendly D-I-Yer,

Paul.

I'd like that advice, please. I once sanded my partner's house while he was in hospital. I still get the blushes when I go to his house and see the strange welts where the machine dug into the floor...

Personally, I rather enjoy putting in a bit of ellbow grease now and then. I agree that it would be better to have lots of experience in reno's and trading, so that I can outsource everything. Yep, that day will come. In the meantime, Paul, what is the trick with that darned sander??

cheers
Mary

[manic_mansions]

the trick to avoid the gouges

is to have the sander moving forward before you lower the drum. When you go to the hire shop, test the sanders on offer and choose the one with the smoothest raise/lower lever. You use that lever a lot when finishing up, and you want to preserve the hand that operates it, so make sure it moves freely too.

[QueenBee]

Hi guys

I run a floorsanding business so if you need any advice, I can help. Our rates are: $31.50 per sqm, but I'd be charging around $25 per sqm for 130 sqm floor. So the $4k quotes, are a little on the high side, but those floorsanders are probably really busy that's why they are charging that. They don't need the work.

Depends really what city you are in, and how many floorsanders are in your city to what price you are going to get. I know that more and more floorsanders in Wellington are charging $600 minimum, even for bathrooms and toilets. That's only because they don't want to do them, because they are fiddley and some toilets are disgusting. My partner sands toilets for $350 but it comes with the dry retching too!

The ditches in the floor are caused by the drum sander not moving. You must keep moving. Quite often if you hire a sander, they will be out of balance, and you will get little ridges going across the floor. These aren't your fault, it's the sander and they are called chatter marks. The wheels might have grit in the them, or there is something else out of balance.

If you have left over glue on the floor, you can sand it off with a 16 grit paper.

Any questions, just ask

Cheers, Queen Bee

[SuperDad]

Hi Mary,

Manic mansions is correct about how to avoid the gouge marks.

Queen Bee - thanks for explaining why some floors have "chatter marks" on them - I didn't know that. That's why you're the pro.

MaryJ - how are you doing? From the sounds of your postings, it sounds like you're doing very well.

Here's a very brief account of what I did when I sanded my own floor.

1. I went to the public library, and got two books on floor sanding.

2. I lifted all of the carpet in the house, which was completely empty. (Definately preferable to a semi- or fully-furnished house. The sander makes a huge amount of dust.)

3. I puched all of the nails to about 5mm below the surface level.

4. At this stage you can fill the holes with a filler to match the timber. I didn't bother - time was not on my side. But I think filling the holes makes for a tidier finish.

5. I went to Bunnings and hired the sanders. The large sander is a drum sander - heavy, a two-person lift. The drum sander is basically a belt sander on steroids. The smaller is an edger - an orbital sander for doing the edges (as the name suggests). I also bought lots of belts/sheets for the two sanders. (Bunnigs refunded me for the unused ones. Check whether your supplier will do this - if so, get heaps more than you think you will need.) From memory the three different grades were 36, 80 and 120 grit. Get lots of the 36 grit - this is what rips the old surface off.

Be very careful if it turns out that the floors under the carpet have been oiled - this kind of floor will tend to get nasty burn marks in my experience!

Other supplies I would recommend are a set of overalls (the light disposable ones are good), goggles, and a decent dust mask. I didn't have the latter, and just used the cheap paper ones. I now have the 1/2 face 3M mask with detachable filters - awesome.

6. Sand the floors. I'd start in a bedroom, where the finish is not as important as in the main living area. You'll get the hang of it. I did the main area of the floor first (with 36 grit), then used the edge sander (36 grit). I then repeated this process with 80 and 120 grit.

Be sure to empty the dust bag on the drum sander frequently - it gets very hot, and the dust is combustible.

7. Once the floors are sanded, apply the finish. I used Cabots Clearfloor, in a satin finish, applied with a sheepskin pad on a pole. (Available at Bunnings.) I used this product because it is water-based, so makes for low odour and fast re-coat time. (Four hours between coats, from memory.) I applied 3 coats, then used a Cabots polish for a hard finish.

Paul.

P.S. Be careful not to sand over the cord. I sanded over the extension cord I was using on the edge sander - lots of sparks, a blown fuse, and 1 step closer to death.

[QueenBee]

Hi SuperDad

Just some tips

You can fill the holes after the first coat if you forget.

The sanders are dusty because you hired them so they are probably not maintained and half nackered. Our sanders have minimal dust. i.e. you don't have to wipe dust off anything when we've sanded.

Be really careful as SuperDad mentioned about emptying your dust bag, one of ours caught on fire once, luckily there were no curtains in the room at the time!

My man carries the drum sander up and down numerous flights of steps in steep Wellington suburbs, every day, BY HIMSELF. "He the man"!! (I'm lucky if I can carry the edger, they're pretty heavy too)

Use a sealer first, it works out cheaper.

Get a trade account at the paint shop, then you will pay trade prices.

Good luck!

[whitt]

I wrote a few tips awhile back on these forums on my experience floor sanding. I must do a search.
Summary:
Can be hard work but very rewarding

[booyaah]

hi there

I am in the process of doing a renovation, I am thinking about sanding the floors myself but after reading this thread it seems to be a daunting task, personally I dont mind doing the hard yards its just what the finish product will look like as I want to sell asap but at the same time do a really good job, my plan of attack was to do the floorsanding after the plastering and painting was finish but with the dust flying everywhere hmmm.....maybe some advice would be appreciated.

cheers

[drelly]

I did it during the painting!
NB: Do not sand floors and paint at the same time in the same room