Hardwood floor refinishing in Toronto is far less expensive than installing new flooring. Hardwood floors are known to last longer due to their long-term durability.

With an older house that uses hardwood flooring, you can still see its beauty and feel the high quality of its old flooring. However, even with extreme durability, hardwood is still known to be affected by eventual wear and tear as time passes.

As the floor ages, some damage may occur to your floor, and you start to find solutions to restore it to its original beauty. Given the chance, you may even choose to change the colour of your flooring by adding some stains as you wish.

You have options to fix this debacle. Rather than spending to remove the flooring and install a new one, you can choose to just refinish your hardwood flooring as long as it is doable.

In this article, we discuss the cost of hardwood flooring refinishing in Toronto. We also discuss calculating the cost of hardwood floors in Canada.

How Much Will It Cost to Refinish Hardwood Floors?

If you wish to refinish your hardwood flooring in Toronto, you can directly contact us so that we can gather all the information needed for the work to give you a proper quotation. We typically consider Multiple factors to compute the total cost of a refinishing project.

Expert personnel would need to first evaluate the work area that needs refinishing and the number of repairs needed before coming up with an exact quotation. However, when considering refinishing your floor in Canada, it’s essential to use a hardwood flooring cost calculator to get an accurate estimate for your project.

As an example, let us assume the following variables:

• Area to be refinished: 1 Room
• The severity of the damage: Basic flooring damage without floor panel replacement

For this scenario, it’s easy to compute the total cost to refinish the flooring of 1 room. With an area of 200 square feet, you just have to multiply the average labour cost per square foot of CAD 3.85 by the total area to be covered.

The estimated cost for the flooring refinishing in Toronto amounts to CAD 770. However, if work becomes more complex upon evaluation, the average labour per square foot would also increase.

As the work becomes more complex, the refinishing team may need to use more tools, and refinishing may take more time, especially in areas like your stairs, wherein it takes more detailed and precise work.

The calculating cost of refinishing hardwood floors in Canada will depend on the following:

Staining

Costs for refinishing hardwood floors depend on staining, ranging from $1.50 to $3.00 per square foot. Therefore, stain quality, as well as labour costs in the house location, may have a significant impact on final costs.

House Dimensions

Hardwood floor refinishing costs get more expensive with increased installation. Hardwood floor refinishing typically costs between $3 and $8 per square foot, with an additional $2 to $4 per square foot for dustless refinishing.

Labour

The cost of refinishing hardwood floors will rise if you need more labour hours. Average labour prices range from $3.50 to $8.00 per square foot. Several factors determine the cost of labour.

These include the sanding level required, floor condition, and the homeowner’s location and accessibility. The location issue is why homeowners should enlist floor refinishing services close to them. With a flooring cost calculator, you can effectively budget for your hardwood flooring refinishing in Canada.

Materials

The cost of flooring refinishing in Toronto depends on how many materials you need. You’ll need a drum sander, sanding belt, floor prep and repair tools, vacuums, plastic sheeting, stain, and topcoat for refinishing hardwood floors. Depending on the area size you’re refinishing, the stain and finish coat you’ll need will increase.

Therefore, homeowners should expect to pay between $50 and $80 per day, or $100 and $200 per week, to rent a drum sander. Cleaning and painting equipment will cost around $275. Varnishes and stains can cost up to $360 per gallon.

These expenses will influence the overall project cost estimate when hiring a professional for hardwood floor refinishing in Toronto.

Cleaning and Setting Up the Room

Calculating the cost of refinishing hardwood floors in Canada also depends on initial preparation expenses. Before refinishing, you’ll need to repair hardwood floors and have new wood planks installed if necessary. Alongside, you’ll need to clean the space before refinishing can start.

The cost depends on the amount of prep work, which will vary depending on how worn the hardwood floors are. Floors with severe damage, including deep scratches and gouges, stains, fading, or water damage, will require additional prep work and restoration. And these factors will likely spike materials and labour costs.

Sanding

Hardwood floor sanding may cost anything from $0.50 to $3 per square foot. Belt sanders are used around the edges, while installers use massive drum sanders in the centre.

And it takes multiple sanding passes to get a flawless finish on hardwood floors. To avoid overshooting your budget, use a reliable flooring cost calculator to plan your renovation in Canada accurately.

Implementing a Covering or Ending

The cost of hardwood floor refinishing in Toronto also depends on the outermost top layer. The last stage in finishing hardwood floors is applying a topcoat after stripping, sanding, and staining them.

Polyurethane is sprayed or brushed on in even coatings. Prices range from $20 to $40 per gallon for oil-based coatings. On the other hand, the price per gallon for water-based paint is $25 to $50.

What is Hardwood Floor Refinishing?

As time passes, you should regularly check the status of your hardwood flooring. There are times when you can apply quick fixes to your flooring, especially when there are minimal marks that you can fix with deep cleaning.

For those problems that you can’t fix with deep cleaning, depending on the severity of the damages, you can save your flooring through refinishing.

Refinishing involves sanding your flooring as needed. If there has been cosmetic damage to the flooring, you need to repair it before applying new layers of coating and staining. This process usually takes a lot of time, and we recommend having professionals do this for you.

Related Article: Relive Your Home’s Heritage with Hardwood Flooring Restoration

Process of Refinishing Your Hardwood Flooring

Before refinishing your hardwood floor in Toronto, evaluate your flooring first. For severe damage to the flooring, these are cases wherein refinishing is no longer an option. Below is a list of issues that will invalidate refinishing as an option for your flooring:

• When the flooring has incurred severe damages that include chipping, the formation of unpleasant-looking stains, or termite ingestion of the wooden planks, it is not advisable to have your floor refinished.

In these cases, it would not be cost-efficient to spend both money and time trying to revive your flooring. Outright replacement of the damaged planks would be the better option.

• If structural damages have occurred under the wooden planks, which have also caused damage to them, this will force you to remove the planks on top of the affected area, and a replacement may be your only option.
• When gaps between the wooden planks appear that cause the flooring to wiggle and move around, refinishing will not be a practical option anymore. Refurbishing your flooring would only make it worse and cause a mess.
• Since it is possible to refinish your flooring multiple times over many years, there will come a time when sanding the wooden planks will eventually reach the point of revealing the nails and grooves. By now, the current hardwood floor planks have reached their limit, and your only option is a replacement.

For issues you can fix without replacement, you can opt to refinish your floors to save money. The process will take some time, and having professionals do this for you will still be the smartest choice.

There are two types of refinishing based on the level of damage on your flooring. The first type is simply buffing. You can do this when the scratches and signs of wear and tear have only affected the surface finish of your flooring. This also means that there are no damages inside the wooden planks.

The process is simple, using a buffing rather than a sanding tool. The point of this process is to fully restore the topcoat of your flooring.

However, if the damage has reached beneath the surface of the wooden planks, then you would need to undergo a different process. This involves the basic steps in refinishing, which involve sanding, patching, staining, and applying the top coating.

Installers will use a drum sander and sandpaper with progressive grits to sand any coatings until you reach the level wherein it is all bare wood. The next step is to fill any cracks with wood filler that matches the colour of your choice. Then, you can add the stain and let it dry out thoroughly. The last step involves adding the layers of coating that you would prefer.

Advantages of Hardwood Refinishing

Though it has been said that a refinishing process will take some time to finish, you also need to see the value of saving your current hardwood flooring. Hardwood floor refinishing in Toronto has its advantages, which are listed as follows:

Less expensive than replacing an entire floor

Refinishing costs less than replacing your flooring with new hardwood planks. Replacement of hardwood flooring costs at least five times compared to going through the tedious refinishing process.

Hardwood Floor Life Will be Extended

With the durability and longevity of hardwood flooring, hardwood planks can handle multiple refinishing efforts. If the damages incurred are not considered severe enough for replacement, you can have your flooring refinished.

In addition, by opting for hardwood floor refinishing in Toronto, you can extend your flooring lifespan for a few more years. If the process is done properly, your flooring may not be refinished again for over 5-10 years.

Good as New

After refinishing, your floor will look like it is almost new again. All the gritty surfaces and scratches that have formed over time will completely disappear, bringing back the beauty of your hardwood flooring.

Prevention of Decay Formation

Refinishing your wooden floor will keep unwanted pests from living in your flooring as it ages. Refinishing can prevent the formation of decay or craters that termites and other insects might infest. This helps keep your house safe from these critters.

Related Article: Hardwood Flooring Maintenance Dos and Don’ts: Essential Tips for Long-Lasting Beauty

The Cost of Refinishing Hardwood Flooring Is Worth It

Why replace wood flooring when you can save it at a cheaper price? This should be your mindset when it comes to the maintenance of your house. Even the most durable thing will eventually get affected by wear and tear.

When it comes to your hardwood floor, you should make sure to keep it well-maintained because it will be there to continue serving you for many years. When you see some signs of damage, you can nip the problem in its bud before it becomes costlier.

Refinishing wood flooring can restore its durability and prolong its life. Even though you have the option to refinish your flooring by yourself, you must remember that having a professional who is an expert in this line of work can carry out the task faster and with better results.

These professionals have accumulated so much knowledge that they know every bit of the process, and they are experts in using the tools needed to refinish hardwood floors.

Hiring professionals for hardwood floor refinishing in Toronto will reduce the chances of having back jobs. In addition, refinishing is a messy job. During sanding, the area will be full of dust. So why risk breathing in dust particles and getting sick instead of having professionals do it?

Contact Three Tree Flooring to help you save money and revive your beautiful hardwood flooring. You can reach us at (416) 665-2624/