Boston hardwood

floors & flooring

Sanding and refinishing costs $4 to $9 per square foot, so 1,000 square feet in Boston is roughly $4,000 to $9,000 before any stain. A single floor of about 900 square feet comes to $3,600 to $8,100, and a whole house of about 1,800 square feet to $7,200 to $16,200. What pushes a Boston quote above the per-foot math is usually the building rather than the floor. A triple-decker's stairs have to be sanded by hand, and a South End block or a Seaport tower brings a street-occupancy permit or a freight-elevator booking with it. Put your square footage into the estimator for a written figure.

New hardwood in Boston costs $10 to $22 per square foot with material and labor together: $10,000 to $22,000 for 1,000 square feet, or $20,000 to $44,000 for a 2,000-square-foot house. Labor is $4 to $10 of that; plain straight-lay sits at the bottom and herringbone or chevron at $8 to $10 or more. In a house built before 1950, expect a separate subfloor line of $2 to $10 per square foot, because the old board subfloor usually has to be screwed down and leveled first. Two Boston quotes that look far apart often differ only on that line.

The sanding alone is 21 to 33 working hours for a 1,000-square-foot unit with the standard belt sander, edger and buffer sequence. Finishing the open rooms with a Lagler Trio for a flatter, furniture-grade surface takes it to 31 to 46 hours. The stairs in a Dorchester or Jamaica Plain triple-decker are extra: the big machine will not go up a narrow run, so each tread and landing is done by hand with an edger and a palm sander. Coating is quicker. Water-based finish dries in one to two hours per coat, so two coats can go on in one day, and with Bona Traffic HD furniture comes back three days after the last one.

It depends on how much wood is left above the tongue, which we measure at the estimate. A new 3/4-inch strip floor starts with about 1/4 inch there and loses 1/32 to 1/16 of an inch each time it is sanded to bare wood, or three to five refinishes over its life. Once less than about 3/32 of an inch remains, the next full sand starts to expose nail heads. A South End or Back Bay row house floor from the 1860s to 1890s has often used two or three of those passes already. Close to the limit, we recommend replacing the thinnest boards or a screen and recoat, which takes off almost nothing.

The Weles showroom at 800 Boylston Street in Chestnut Hill sells flooring on its own, with or without installation, Monday to Saturday from 9am to 5pm. The stock is prefinished engineered white oak, ash and oak, 9/16 inch thick, in planks 5 to 8-1/8 inches wide, plus herringbone blocks at 5 by 28-1/2 inches. Everything is priced by the square foot, and contractors and designers buy from the same stock as homeowners. Measure the rooms, add 5 to 10 percent for cuts and waste, and the material can be delivered to the job.

Yes, by sanding it to bare wood, which takes the old stain off. From there you pick a lighter stain or a clear water-based sealer: Nordic, Natural, Classic, Intense or Amber. A screen and recoat cannot change the color.

You can rent a sander. The risk is in the sanding itself: each full sand takes 1/32 to 1/16 of an inch off the wood above the tongue, so a mistake uses up life the floor cannot get back. A belt sander leaves straight marks and chatter, and an edger leaves swirls along the baseboards; we take those out with a buffer and palm sanders before any stain goes on.

Most of the signs come from moisture. Cupping comes from moisture rising out of the subfloor, crowning from sanding a cupped floor while trying to fix it, and buckling or cracking is the most extreme reaction. In bad cases the boards also split and open wide gaps. If your floor shows any of these, repair starts with finding where the water comes from.