Pets And Your Wood Floor
The furry friends are part of the family. While they are cute and playful, the dogs and cats in the household can be a threat to the wood floor. As they run around with their claws drawn out, they dig into the surface, creating scratches. The claws are needed to give the pet traction as they zip around the house – but the floor ends up becoming a casualty. The feeding and drinking points are also faced with spills, which can end up damaging the underlying floor. Add this to the grime and debris that is tracked into the house, contributing to the general wear of the surfaces. What measures can you put in place to protect your floor?
- Routine trimming
This deals with the pet’s claws, and is key to reducing the rate at which scratches are formed on the floor. The larger the dog, the more the caution that must be taken due to the extra weight involved. The trimming can be done during the regular visits to the groomer, or you can do it yourself with a specialised pet nail clipper. That way, the rate at which scratches form on the surface will be reduced, which also has the welcome benefit of increasing the time period in between consecutive floor sanding and renovation processes.
- Regular baths
Pets love the outdoors. However, after their adventures they will bring back different kinds of dirt and debris onto the household, adding to the build up of grime. While having mats at the different entryways into the home helps scrape off the dirt that is on the paws of your pets, this is not enough. Regular bathing is critical, to also clear the grime that is in the fur, since the contents would eventually wind up on the floor.
- Set rugs in place
These are especially vital for the areas where the pets will be spending most of their time. in. They will reduce the amount of grime that gets to the floor, while also enabling you to spruce up your decor.
Over time, the wear that the floor receives will require the existing coats of finish to be removed, and new ones applied. After all, it’s not just the effects of having pets around that is a concern. Everyday wear from foot traffic as people walk around the premises, the occasional spills that stain up the floor, cases of wear damage, to the fading effects that are caused by sunlight – these all ruin the overall aesthetics of the floor, The greater the wear, the weaker the structural integrity of the installation. Floor sanding and refinishing processes come in to get rid of those old and worn out layers, after which the ideal treatment can be applied.
Turn to the Floor Restoration Pros
Even with the best floor care program in place, the existing finish will eventually wear down. Certainly, ensuring that the floor has been treated with quality protective formulations, to ward off the effects of everyday wear, and also provide resistance to water and oil-based stains, will increase the lifespan of the installation. It will also lengthen the duration in between restoration cycles. Thorough cleaning to get rid of the grime, putting in place measures such as those listed above for households with pets, cleaning up spills as soon as possible – these all contribute to enabling the existing treatment to last for long. After the years go by and the treatment has deteriorated, it will need to be removed and fresh new coats applied. This floor sanding and refinishing cycle is a labour-intensive process, and is best left to the professionals.
Tackling the floor restoration as a DIY project has its hurdles. Take getting the equipment for instance. These include drum sanders, orbital sanders, edgers, to tools to deal with the dust generated. The machinery used by the professionals is not readily available and comes with a high price tag, and purchasing sanders for the task may not be feasible as this is a task that is carried out around once every 7 or 10 years. As such, DIYers typically rent them from dealerships. This rented equipment may have its own issues as well, from being low-capacity units in order to make them more affordable for renting out, to having damages caused by other people who had rented the machinery before.
Getting the equipment and using it also uses two different things. It’s easy to make mistakes. For instance, leaving the sander on one spot for too long can cause it to dig too deep into the floor, creating depressions and making the surface uneven. Using the sander with the wrong technique can lead to swirl marks and divots forming. All these affect the quality of the results. If the old finish coats are not properly removed, then it will prevent the new treatments that are being applied from bonding well with the surface, resulting in a weak finish which will deteriorate faster. Even failing to ensure that the surface has been properly cleaned causes the residual particles to be trapped under the wet finish coats, and things can only be fixed by redoing the floor sanding. Meanwhile, in case the rented equipment gets damaged during use, you will have an extra bill of repairs to deal with. Regarding the dust, an intensive clean-up job will be required, especially if the dust has got into your vents, cabinets, sockets, or coated your appliances, and other surfaces in the premises.
On the other hand, if you hire a professional contractor to handle the floor sanding and refinishing, the project gets completed within a much shorter time, causes you less frustration, and you get to wind up with quality results. Here, you want to work with a contractor who has a proven track record in floor care, from an experience garnered over the years of their service delivery, to social proof from other residential and commercial clients who have hired their services – including reviews and testimonials. Also look into whether or not they have been insured, since you want to be protected from liabilities in case an accident was to occur.
