My lounge and hallway has a floating solid oak floor.. it’s t&g glued to the underlay over the concrete floor.

Wear and tear.. a 5 year old and a Springer Spaniel have not been kind and various areas are now devoid of varnish, so sanding and new varnish sounds like the plan; however…

The planks themselves are not smooth, it’s like they were machined with a rippled finish. How can a remove all the old varnish without having to sand 3mm off the lot to get it completely flat? Anyone done something similar?

Pic of the issue below (hopefully)

Jeff

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IME, unless you do it by hand, taking off the top thickness is exactly what most professionals do.

Getting these guys in, They use some pretty heavy duty kit and very good dust extraction.
Eden hardwood Flooring
They won’t take much off. It is quite difficult to do without the right kit. You can hire it but it’s not an easy job to get a good finish with. My dad did theirs a few years ago, ended up a bit rippled, our floor was done by a less than skilled person in the past and it is also rippled.

You can hire industrial grade floor sanders that will remove the top layer or pay someone to do it. It’s a very dusty process – you really need to remove all the furniture and seal all the windows and doors.

In my last house I sanded the bathroom floorboards and varnished. To no great surprise the varnish didn’t last too well. I tried sanding it off but it was very slow going. Instead I removed it with nitromors.

Also not all varnishes are created equal. In that house we sanded and varnished downstairs and didn’t have to touch it again in the 19 years we lived there. I also revarnished the bathroom with something that actually lasted just fine.

I don’t remember what varnish I used downstairs, or for the bathroom originally or for the bathroom finally. So not much help to you!

Not hard to do with the right kit. Best to use a proper orbiting finishing sander rather than a crappy belt sander. You will need to hire from a specialist not somewhere like hss. The one I used had 3 discs and was like a massive floor polisher. If the floor is oiled not varnished you can locally repair damage. Osmo do a great range of product. Are you sure the planks are solid oak as you wouldn’t normally put solid oak boards as a floating floor over concrete. Normally use ply or blockboard backed with a 3-6mm solid wear layer. If wear layer is thin you need to be careful how much to sand.

Thanks all.. was really wondering if the texture of the planks would have to go.. but I guess that will depend on the sander type, size of pads or whatever.

ajc: thanks for the info. It is solid oak, I had to take up a section and relay it in the hall as they’d left insufficient expansion space around the stairs and where it abuts the stone floor in the kitchen. I think if I ever replace the whole thing I’d go with an engineered floor to reduce those issues.

Certainly looks like it’s a job for the summer when I can leave the doors open onto the desk (and probably put most of the furniture out there too!)

J

Really easy to DIY with an industrial floor and edge sanders which you can get from the hire shop.

That will get all the ridges out.

Don’t use varnish with having a dog as water will get under it again.
Do it with Osmo oil, which is expensive but the best. It’s around £80 a tin. Put in on two coats with a roller as thin as possible. Really can’t stress how thin it’s meant to be applied.

Amazing at our place with dog claws and sand from the beach 🏝