Sanding Wooden Floors-How Long Before You Know What You Are Doing ?

Hello and Welcome to another Woodfloor-Renovations Blog Post


Today's post is a recently received question from a Mr Keen,
who ask's " I'm thinking of Sanding Wood Floors for a living, in your experience how long is it before you know what you are doing ??


Well Mr. Keen, in my experience, and I'll be brutally honest with you, it was a full 9 months before I felt fully in control of the jobs/projects I was working on. In the Wood Floor Sanding world you come across many, many things of which are out of your control, but at the same time you have to deal with these issues and do the best you can with any given situation.


As an example of the multitude of variables a professional floor sander has to encounter, I'll briefly describe an issue we had to deal with some months back at a school which we regularly do renovation works.


The area was a long corridor, original parquet blocks [Oak] the floor had been sanded off, and at the end of the second day we applied the first coat of seal [Junckers Baseprime] we left the premises and went home after this coat had been applied, the weather when we left was bright and sunny.


When we came back to the job the next morning there was a puddle of water near to a window, unfortunately overnight there had been very heavy rains and unbeknown to anyone at the school, the window developed a bad leak, the water had stained an area of the floor, and seeing as we were about to put on 3 Coats of Junckers HP Sport commercial lacquer, something had to be done.


We basically sanded off the effected area and re-applied the Baseprime, then continued to apply the finishing coats of lacquer, in short you will come across a multitude of different types of issues and difficult situations, very often when you are half way [and more] through a project...Experience is the key to high quality floor sanding, it's the experience that can't be bought, only gained by doing job after job to a high standard.


If you are serious about getting into the industry, I would recommend you try and obtain work in your part of the world with a reputable company as an assistant, learning the trade properly from the ground up, it's not an easy job and is very hard work, and you must bear in mind there is a huge amount to learn, from using the machinery correctly, to applying seals, oils, lacquers, stains etc.etc...the list goes on and on.


Before taking the plunge into the deep end, one major thing I would advocate would be to do an industry recognised training course, which will give you a basic grounding and show you how to correctly use the equipment, apply seals and oils the correct way.

Having a qualification is nice after doing two days training, but it doesn't mean you know what you are doing, or in the harsh world of floor sanding are properly qualified...It means you are moderately proficient after doing 2 days training...Knowledge and know-how take time and experience, if you are dedicated to the craft you have a good chance.


Whichever way you go I hope it goes well for you.


Hope that helps - Thanks for reading