Can Engineered Wood Flooring Be Sanded and Refinished ?

Hello and Welcome to another Woodfloor-Renovations blogpost.


Today we'll be touching on a subject that many end users are unsure of.


The question I have recently been asked is:- "Can my Engineered Wood Flooring be Sanded and Refinished ? "


This lady had contacted us with regards to having her floors restored, but had heard from someone she knew that Engineered wood floors couldn't be sanded and sealed.

So she got in touch with us and asked us to quote for the restoration works. On our site visit I was able determine that her Engineered Oak strip flooring was in fact more than good enough to properly sand off and refinish.


The single strip flooring did have a 4mm wear layer which hadn't been sanded before, so even though our sanding processes took off about 1mm of material, there is plenty of oak material left on the wear layer for at least one more sand off.


The floor overall wasn't in too bad a condition, and didn't really have bad gauges in the floor, more small scratches and indentations in 2 or 3 high wear areas of the two rooms that we restored. The trouble is with some Engineered floors that the wear layer may only be 1 or 2mm in thickness, and the indents and gauges are literally scratched through to the plywood core of the material.


This is when trying to sand off an Engineered wood floor can be problematic, because if you sand through the wear layer to the plywood core then the floor would be ruined, and almost certainly the floor sanding contractor would be liable for the damage.


So in answer to the original question...Yes an Engineered Wood Floor can indeed be Sanded and Re-Finished, but who ever is doing the works must be completely sure that the wear layer of the floor is thick enough to be able to take a full sand and seal.


Hope that helps anyone who reads this blog...Forewarned is forearmed.


Thanks for reading - Regards Gary