Hardwood Floor Restoration in Sioux Falls, SD: Thin Floors, Discontinued Profiles and the Subfloor Beneath | Sioux Falls Hardwood Flooring

Assessing Whether an Old Floor Can Be Saved

A hardwood floor has a limited amount of wood a sander can remove, and how much remains depends on your floor. It is governed by the thickness above the tongue, the boards’ condition, and how much each sanding pass removes. Floors in older Sioux Falls houses have usually been sanded at least once, so some of that material is gone before we arrive. That is why a hardwood floor assessment comes before any price: we measure what remains and explain what it allows. Sanding does not put wood back, so this measurement sets the limit for every later step.

Measuring What Is Left Above the Tongue

Each board in a solid floor has a tongue along one edge, a machined lip that fits into the matching slot in the next board and holds them together. Only the wood above the tongue can be sanded; below it, the sander would cut into the part that keeps the floor joined and fastened down. We check the exposed edge of a board at a floor register or threshold, or lift a board where possible, to find out how much wood is left to sand. No single measurement makes every hardwood floor too thin to refinish. The original thickness, wood species, and number of previous sandings determine that limit together.

Drying a Cupped Floor Before It Is Sanded

A cupped hardwood floor has board edges that sit higher than the centers because the underside absorbed more moisture than the face and swelled. Whether the floor can be sanded depends on how much moisture remains.

Sanding off the raised edges while the undersides are still swollen leaves the boards convex after they dry and level out. That condition is called crowning. Putting a crowning hardwood floor right usually requires another sanding, and whether correction is possible depends on the floor’s stability and how much wood remains. We take moisture meter readings and let the floor stabilize first; that requires waiting, not a special technique. Our water damage service handles the source of the water.

Stripping Layers a Century Put Down

A floor this old carries several generations of coating, each applied over the one before it. The oldest layer is shellac, a thin finish made from resin dissolved in alcohol. Varnish came later, followed by polyurethane, and each gives way under abrasive at its own rate. Varnish can lift cleanly in one spot and turn into a gummy skin under abrasion elsewhere in the same room, so we strip a test corner and watch how it releases before working across the room. Beneath boards that were later covered with an overlay, we also find tar paper and felt. Stripping an old finish too aggressively removes wood the floor needs for its next refinish.

Restoring a Pre-Finished Floor

Pre-finished hardwood floors can be refinished, but sanding a micro-bevel flat removes the groove at every joint, changing the look of the floor you remember. We discuss this with you first because those shallow grooves have been part of the floor you walk on for years. Factory finishes also wear down sanding abrasives because many contain aluminum oxide, which is abrasive itself. If only part of the floor is worn, replacing the affected boards is sometimes a better choice than sanding the bevel off throughout every room.

Where Restoration Stops and a New Floor Starts

Restoration can save floors that a refinish cannot, but it has limits. A hardwood floor is beyond repair when no sound wood remains above the tongue or past sanding has cut down far enough to expose the fasteners holding the floor in place. Those fasteners are different from the original nail heads, which were intentionally set through the board faces. A floor is also beyond restoration when too many boards are too damaged to lace in replacement pieces. We determine whether to replace or restore the hardwood floor during the estimate, before bringing machines into your home. Installing a new floor is part of our installation service.