Parquet: How thin is too thin?
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…
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.
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.
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.
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
1/4″ thick parquet is fine for sanding (new strip flooring is only 5/16″ thick anyway). exposing the nail heads is a problem if you finish the floor with a water base finish, they are going to rust and the area around them will probably turn blue (if you are dealing with red oak, white oak will not blue). I would not be too concerned with the nail heads interfering with sanding so long as they are embedded in the wood. after sanding, you can push them back down and fill the holes if you wish (actually, push them down and fill the holes just before the last pass lest you leave filler in the grain of the wood).
Someone above mentioned hiring someone to do it the old way. I am not sure this is necessary, but as with any delicate woodwork, we sometimes use light sanders and light paper. I once worked in a brownstone in Manhattan and they had someone come in and hand scrape the floors – talk about traditionalists. if you are really worried about going too thin on the floor, have someone start with 60 grit; you will not get all of the scratches out, but you will save your floors.
Also, if you call a real floor sanding company, like Verazzano, they will tell you what you can and can’t do; no real floor refinishing company will bs you and risk destroying a floor.
Steve
http://www.thetinkerswagon.com
We had this same issue, probably found our post here. What we discovered was that the floors were not as old as we thought (were added decades after house built). We had them sanded but not with the coarsest grit and they turned out great. Glad we didn’t just screen, which we were considering. I don’t know what yours look like, but screening would not have done enough. Just go for it, just compromise by not having them use super coarse paper. Worst case you have to pull them up to reveal the wide-plank subfloor. Which I like better anyway but my husband doesn’t so I compromised and kept the parquet, I know too much info.
Thanks to both of you — very helpful. I actually previously took a crack at countersinking some nails in my floor, just to see how long it would take. Once you get the rhythm down, it’s about a minute per square foot (6 boards per square foot with 5 nails per board = 30 nails per square foot or 2 seconds per nail). So the 800 square feet of flooring on a typical parlor floor should take one person a little over 13 hours. Not sure how much that person would get paid per hour, but even at $30/hr ($400 in total = $2 square foot) it doesn’t sound like a prohibitive addition to the overall cost of refinishing.
Has anyone out there successfully sanded parquet that was only 1/4″ thick?
The nicest 1890’s parquet floor I’ve ever seen was done by hand – with a hand sander or by hand without a sander, not sure which (it is easier to see if you are going too deep if you are down on the floor rather than standing up with the big drum sander).
Also at issue are all the nails which catch on the sander and sandpaper. If you have someone countersink all the nails (hammer them in with a tool so they are below the level of the floor), the sanding will go much easier.
Both of these are very labor intense suggestions. So I would recommend doing it yourself, or hiring someone (not a floor company) willing to do the painstaking work by hand (and be willing to pay them for many hours of work). Someone rather younger than older is likely better, due to the strain on the back.
The upside is that your floors will look amazing – noticeably better than the floors of anyone who gets a really good job done by a floor refinishing company. And your floor will be so smooth – you won’t feel a nail anywhere when you are walking on it.
The nicest old 1890’s parquet floor I’ve ever seen was done by hand – with a hand sander or by hand without a sander, not sure which (it is easier to see if you are going to deep if you are down on the floor rather than standing up with the big drum sander).
Also at issue are all the nails which catch on the sander and sandpaper. If you have someone countersink all the nails (hammer them in with a tool so they are below the level of the floor), the sanding will go much easier.
Both of these are very labor intense suggestions. So I would recommend doing it yourself, or hiring someone (not a floor company) willing to do the painstaking work by hand (and be willing to pay them for many hours of work). Someone rather younger than older is likely better, due to the strain on the back.
The upside is that your floors will look amazing – noticeably better than the floors of anyone who gets a really good job done by a floor refinishing company.
Thickness is especially important with tongue and groove as you approach the tongue, so hopefully more leeway with top-nailed wood. Some floor refinishes will claim that a top-nailed floor is too thin when it is not because the nails will chew up their sandpaper, meaning more time and sandpaper is needed for the same floor area and they don’t want the job.