Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs
Are we right in thinking that you have more than a few questions about wood flooring and finishing in West Kensington? To help, we’ve drawn up this list of some of the ones that have been put to us by customers during the last 20 years. Give us a call if yours aren’t included and one of our friendly operators will be delighted to help.
ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN RESTORE MY DECREPIT FLOORING?
When you lift up the corner of a carpet and look at the wooden floorboards, which may not have seen the light of day for many decades, you’ll probably be tempted to hastily replace it! This is perfectly normal, but with natural flooring appearances can be deceptive. You’ll be greeted by rubbed-in dirt, dead insects and splashed paint from old decorating, and it will be difficult to imagine that this floor could ever look beautiful.
The good news is that it usually can! In our experience there are very few wooden floors that are truly beyond hope. In fact, the fresh underlying wood is often being protected by the surface layers of dirt and grime. When the West Kensington floor sanding and finishing team strips these upper layers away with their dust-free machines you’ll see that the wood underneath is as good as new. Using a range of eco-friendly stains, lacquers and other finishes, the team can then bring the floor back to shining, immaculate life.
HOW LONG WILL YOU TAKE?
The West Kensington floor sanding experts like to get in and out as fast as they are able, without sacrificing anything in terms of quality of the finished flooring. The team will normally take one day to repair the floor and sand it down up to three times. This will depend on its condition, though, and you may need to allow a small amount of extra time if the necessary repairs are unusually extensive. Another day will be needed to apply the eco-friendly, non-allergenic finish, and then the floor will have to be left completely for a further two or three days so that the timber can cure thoroughly.
The West Kensington floor sanding teams can work outside of office hours in the case of commercial sanding to minimise any inconvenience as well. For schools, we can carry out all necessary repairs and sanding and finishing tasks during school holidays so that the flooring is back in place for the start of the new term without any disruption to classes.
ARE WOODEN FLOOR HEALTHIER?
They certainly are. This is especially so if anyone in your household suffers from a common allergy such as asthma. This condition is exacerbated by dust mites that live in soft furnishings such as carpets, rugs and cushions, feeding off human skin scales that make up much of a room’s dust. By removing your carpets and replacing them with prepared natural wooden flooring you’ll be destroying the mites’ natural habitat and they’ll have to relocate.
It’s easy to keep wooden floors beautifully clean with a damp cloth, and you can also use colourful rugs for decoration – these are easy to wash and dry at your convenience.
WHAT IS THE BEST TYPE OF FINISH FOR WOODEN FLOORING?
For the average domestic floor there’s not a lot to choose between the three main finishes of wax, oil and varnish. This only becomes a crucial consideration for floors in high-traffic environments such as restaurants and museums.
Bear in mind, though, that there are subtle strengths and weaknesses to the different floor finishes. Wax and varnish, for example, will demand periodic re-coating because it will not be possible to do running local repairs when worn patches start to appear. In the case of an oiled finish, the re-coating is a much more frequent task but it is possible to do local repairs as well, so these have to be balanced against one another.
The West Kensington floor sanding and renovation teams use stains coated with clear varnish rather than the more convenient coloured varnishes you find in DIY outlets. This gives us precise control over the final colour, whereas a coloured varnish will darken as more coats are laid down, and you never know what the result will look like.