let's try this again - hardwood floors . . .

I think $1800 cash for LR, Dining, 2 bedrooms and hallway. Done in 2 separate sessions. (Philadelphia PA area)

Consumer Reports had a very nice floor varnish review in about 2001 or so. A good read!

Hi-
Hardwood floors contractors will quote you usually by the foot.
In our area, a good, experienced, preferred contractor will be between 2.75 and 3.50 a sq ft.
Sometimes price will depend on finish wanted, number of coats (usually 3 is best), and perhaps on the layout of the house or rooms. If there are alot of small, cut-up rooms, the sanding takes more time and there are more corners to scrap. This may cost more.
I would recommend getting references or a referral from someone very happy with their floor. Also helpful to ask how long the contractor has been doing refinishing, if he belongs to the National Wood Flooring Assoc., is he licensed and INSURED (!) and does he just do hardwood floors (owns his own equipment) or is he more a handyman and rents equipment.
Hope this helps.
If you haven't guessed...we are in the business. I run the office for our hardwood floor company...my Dh has been doing them 20yrs.
GL!

I am going to go out on a limb.

You can refinish them your self for a fraction of the cost. We have done it a couple of times.

Sander rental............................................ ....45 a day plus deposit.
multi grits of paper, pad, and buffer about.......... 50.00
Sealer .................................................. ........20.00 a gallon.
We just redid the floors of a friend of ours, their estimate was 2200.00
We spent 300 including lunch and dinner for 5 hungry adults. It took us all day Saturday (10-8pm) and Sunday was spent dusting, sweeping and prep.

There is lots of dust, and you should have a couple of hand sanders to do the edges.

I would definitely do it ourselves, having a professional do it could cost as much as new wood floors. I found a place where it's less than $2.75 per sq ft to buy red oak hard wood (not engineered) so why the heck would I pay someone more than that to refinish my exsisting floors?

Quote:
Nine years ago we had 1200 sq ft of hardwood floors sanded and refinished, had a 3ft x 3ft space repaired with new wood and had new shoe mold put down for about $2200 dollars. (this was in our old home) Before they came in, we removed all the old carpet, tacts, and glue. Removed the old shoe mold ourselves. All the furniture was moved out of the house. This saved us a great deal of money.

Quote:
$2.75 a foot is only the raw materials. You would still have to pay or DIY to have the old floor removed and the new one installed. Refinishing would be cheaper and easier regardless of who did the labor.

Quote:
My point is it's outrageous what those companies charge to do it and personally I would rip out the old, freecycle it, and install new. But that's just my preferrence.

We just took the carpet out of our bedroom (about 120 sq. feet) and I think it cost about $100 and a weekend. We had nice wood under our carpet that didn't need a whole lot of attention. You can rent a re-finishing machine at home depot or some place like that for about $50 (I think). We also had to buy finish for the floor, dust masks, and a few other things. It really wasn't very hard to do ourselves and we used a home improvement book at the store to gather our supplies (and then didn't buy it).

Quote:
And more ecologically sound!

Speaking of which, some friends of ours just made a gorgouse new floor with scrap wood pallets. A huge amount of labor, so not viable for most of us with little kids, but sooo cool. Here's an article:
http://www.metroland.net/back_issues.../features.html

We just redid our ourselves. Dh rented the machine and bought the pads. We had a friend who was needing to do his too, so we rented on a Saturday morning knowing we'd get to keep the sander Sunday too at no additional cost (the rental place isn't open on Sunday) and we split the cost with him. I think all together to do 2 bedrooms and the lving room it was less than 100.

How bad is it not to refinish them? I ask this for myself. Ours is just the living room, and there is almost no finish left on it, and we just cleaned it up and we put oil on the wood. Is there anything wrong with this if it doesn't need to be very waterproof? I am cheap, and don't want to add chemicals when avoidable to our home environment.