"Kieren" wrote in message
om...
Hello all,

basic question is Do it myself or get in the professionals.

Have done reasearch on the web and friends and family and really get a
mixed response from
'yeah it is easy' to 'no way I tried it once and just can't be
bothered with the hassle get the professionals in mate'

We recently bought a victorian property, want to sand the front room
boards approx 4 meter by 3.2 metre room and dining room approx 4metre
by 3 metre(front room is priority)

Various professionals to do our front room are charging from around
£350 to £450 to sand, varnish and then an extra £50 to £150 to stain.

Live in SW London way (Sunbury) and found a sand hiring company called
Floor Sander Hire . com (website surprisingly is
www.floorsanderhire.com)anyone have experience of using these guys

I reckon to hire the sander and edger plus mask, varnish etc would
cost me around the £200 mark for the weekend (including VAT)

snip

ye gods! I'm sure that I hired a sander, edging sander, transformer and
the sanding sheets for approx £70 from Kougar hire in Isleworth about 2
years ago - that was for the weekend. Give 'em a call - they're not that
far from you.

That'd leave you £130ish to buy a decent mask with (what, £20 for a really
good one?) and get the varnish (can be expensive, around the £50 mark
perhaps).

As for the work, well it's messy and quite hard work, but not too difficult
and very rewarding when it's done.

Start off by working diagonally across the boards (to level) and then work
along them to finish. Watch out for the edger - they're quite agressive ad
if you don't go through the grits strictly then you can end up with rather
bad circular disk marks which helpfully only become really apparent when you
apply the finish! They can also go through heating pipes in a flash.

If they're pine boards and you intend to stain them then be careful - pine
is pretty hard to stain evenly over large areas - it can have a range of
absorbancies. I stained a floor down by mixing stain and danish oil, then
varnishing on top of that, but I wouldn't really recommend that method for
an area of heavy use. You've got to be careful that the stain is compatible
with the finish that you intend to protect it all with as well - best thing
if you do this is to choose your intended products and then ring the
manufacturer's technical department before buying and using them.



--
Richard Sampson

mail me at
richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk