Stripping Hardwood Floors

As hardwood floors wear off with the passing of age, you’ll notice they lose their shine, texture and the color intensity of their finishing coating. Fortunately, getting the old looks back to your hardwood floor can be done without having to replace the actual hardwood. 

Simply stripping hardwood floors of their old coating and replacing it with a new one can do the trick and it’s one of the most common techniques used by today’s do it yourself installers.

 
It’s inevitable that, at some point, you will want to compare stripping vs sanding hardwood floors. Admittedly, sanding is a more complete process, it has beneficial effects that last longer and it’s definitely a better quality choice than stripping. 

However, you will also have to consider the downsides: sanding is a lot more time consuming than stripping and it causes more mess in your house, which makes it more of a nuisance than anything else for many people.

 
In addition, sanding requires a lot of tools that can be hard to get or they could cost more than you would want to spend simply to give your hardwood floor a new shine. 

Stripping on the other hand is quite cheap in comparison, you can finish stripping your hardwood floors in a matter of days and the clean up process won’t be as tough either.

Stuff You’ll Need for Staining Hardwood Floors

• a thick, synthetic stripping pad
• a wide scraper
• stripping solution
• a wide putty knife
• clean absorbent rags
• a large wide paint brush

How to Strip Hardwood Floors

If this is the first time you’re stripping a hardwood floor, it’s best if you start out by testing on a smaller area, somewhere in a corner. Here’s how you should do it:

1. Pour the stripping solution on the floor area and smudge it across it evenly with the brush.


2. Wait for around 30 minutes (this is an approximate time that depends on the type of coating your floor has and on the type of stripping solution you use).


3. Start scraping the finish coating – if you waited long enough, it should peel off with ease.


4. Use a wet rag to scrub off any excess solution that you couldn’t get off.


5. Wipe dry the area that you just stripped, so that the water doesn’t get sucked in the wood, causing it to expand.
   
   
   
   

Why did you go with stripping instead of sanding?

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Stripping and Sanding  Not rated yet
I've only refinished floors in 2 houses, so I'm pretty new to this. In the first house we rented a big drum sander, and it took at least 30 hours (for ...

Inside this Article:

1. Restoring Hardwood Floors 101
2. Hardwood Floor Repair Techniques
3. How to Refinish Hardwood Floors
4. Why Sanding Hardwood Floors is Important
5. Buffing Hardwood Floors
6. Polishing Hardwood Floors – Making Your Room Shine Again
7. Staining Hardwood Floors – Obtaining Room Harmony
8. Stripping Hardwood Floors