I live in an 1890s brownstone with typical top-nailed parquet floors. I’m hoping to refinish them, including sanding if possible (as opposed to just screening). There is a tongue in groove subfloor that is just under 1″ thick, and the oak parquet boards on top are about 1/4″ thick (some are slightly thicker — maybe 5/16″). Is that parquet too thin to sand? I’ve found past posts about sanding thin parquet, but I couldn’t find anything specifying what thickness is too thin to sand. I’m planning to get bids soon, and I know that some flooring companies try to up-sell and push for new floors by telling you the old ones can’t be sanded, so I’m hoping to get some background info before I start that dialogue. Thanks.


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  1. Thanks again for all the responses.

    Brucef, just to clarify, the 1″ thick subfloor is tongue in groove, the top layer of 1/4″ thick parquet is not. In other words, the thin parquet boards are just top-nailed into place, and there are no interlocking tongues and grooves among those boards. So there’s no risk of accidentally sanding off the top part of the groove.

  2. When we say the parquet is too thin to sand, we are not talking about nailheads and sandpaper.

    What we are referring to is the possibility in places of cracking up the top half of the groove, exposing the tongue off the next piece.

    If the parquet is 1/4″ thick, then the top of the groove will be slightly less than 1/8″, easy to sand off by mistake, especially if the floor has been scraped before.

    We say it can’t be done because you can’t fix it, even though we only have bad luck on a few pieces.

    Depending on the condition and the thickness, I would try screening. It costs little and risks nothing.

  3. These floors can be sanded without any problems, as for the nails I would leave them exposed and finish the floors with an oil finish, so just a standard sand and finish. Good Luck

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