How do you reduce dust from sanding hard wood floors?

Cindy, thanks for your good question. This has always been a concern for my clients over the years. Dust is a problem in just about every phase of home improvement. From the dreaded drywall dust to dust from floor sanding, each can cause problems but each can be controlled, more or less, by taking preventive measures.

Since it sounds like this is a DIY project, and that rather then using a contractor, you are going to be doing this yourself, then the best home improvement advice I can give you on this is as follows. 

You will need to buy some plastic rolls or plastic drop cloths from your local home improvement center or paint store. Get a roll the wide blue painters tape. The wider the tape the better. Also, you will need some 1 x 2 or similar strips of wood. Get some cheese cloth or a "Bag of Rags" that most paint stores sell. Plus you will need a construction type stapler such as is used for to install insulation. This will be your arsenal of supplies for the project.

Locate all the hot and cold air registers in the room and adjacent rooms. Remove the registers from the walls and or floors. next take the cheese cloth or rags and get them wet and them ring them out until they are damp. You can then place them over the floor openings and lay the registers back on top of them.  You can also lay blocks of wood over them instead of the registers. On the wall register openings, you can take the dampened clothe and use thumb tacks to hold it in place. 

Using the plastic and tape, you will want to create a drape over every door opening and entryway that comes into the room. Hold the plastic at least 4" above the opening and leave about 6" excess hanging down on the floor. Make sure you leave about 3" of excess plastic on each side of the opening.

You will then need to take the strips of wood and cut them the width of the plastic. Once that is done, take the strip and fold the excess plastic at the floor, over the wood and then use a good hand construction stapler, to staple the plastic to the wood so that the wood now acts as a weight to hold the plastic to the floor. You can then spot a few strips of tape on each side to hold the plastic against the wall, but keep in mind they if you need to exit the room , you will have pull the tape away form one side of the plastic. So it is best to use one opening for entering and exiting the room.

Now, as far as the cabinets, countertops and appliances. here again is where the plastic and tape comes into play. You will need someone to help you with this. Before you begin, it is advisable to remove the contents of your cabinets, however you don't have too. You can actually take out all the drawers with the contents in them a place them in another room. 

Next you will want to take the plastic and wrap in around the upper cabinets from one end of each section to the other. If your upper cabinets are 36" tall, then make sure the plastic is about 5 1/2' wide for cabinets that are open on top and about 4 1/2' wide for cabinets that are mounted under soffits. In general, allow 2 1/2' extra width for the upper cabinets that way you will have enough to wrap over and under and have excess to tape to the wall.

Starting from one end roll the plastic out and drape in over the top of the cabinets that have an open top and fold about 2" up against the wall, and use your tape attach it to the wall.  Have one person keep moving the plastic along as the other installs the tape until you get to the other end of the cabinets. Make sure to allow 2 or 3 inches of excess plastic on each end so that you can tape the plastic to the wall.

Now, with the plastic hanging, fold in under the cabinets and pull it tight and tape the excess to the back wall. Use this same procedure for all the upper cabinets. The main thing is to make sure every cabinet is covered and that you have the plastic secured by the tape.

Now you will want to cover the base cabinets and countertops, pantry cabinets, island and other cabinets with the plastic. Please note, make sure you have all the appliance turned off at the circuit breakers. This will prevent the plastic from catching fire.

For the base cabinets you will need about a 5 1/2' wide piece and again tape the excess to the back wall and let it drape down over the cabinets and take it up to the each side of the sink and faucet. You will then need to use a piece that will be wide enough to drape over the sink and faucet in between. Cut off the excess plastic but leave enough to be able to tape it to the toe kicks of the cabinets.

Use your judgment in covering and island, pantry or tall cabinets or any other cabinets that might vary is size. 

As far as the appliances are concerned, move the refrigerator and free standing ranges or stoves, out of the room. Cover up any of the other installed appliances with the plastic.

When you have this process completed, you will then be ready to sand the floors. Make sure you rent a good floor sander with a dust collector from a tool rental supply company and follow the instructions they give you. You can also get help for this by clicking on the following link. 

Flooring How-To

After you have completed the sanding job, remove as much of the dust as possible from the plastic and then wipe it down with a damp cloth. you can either remove it prior to the finishing the floor or leave it on. Remember that if you leave it on you really do want to make sure you get as much dust off of it as possible. 

Leaving it on give you the advantage of keep the odor of the finish from getting into the cabinets. However, if you want to take it off, then you should put the drawers back in to close off the openings. Also, leaving the plastic in the doorways will help keep the odor contained to the room but you will want to make sure the plastic is held back from the floor while you apply the finish.

You can ask your paint supply store or home improvement center about some of the new low or no VOC floor stains and finishes or the water borne finishes that leave little odor and are safe for the environment. To find out more about these, click on the following link.

Safe Paints and Finishes

That should do it. I know it seems like a lot of work and you may get advice not to go through all this preparation, but I can tell you from experience, not only does this cut the dust way down, it keeps the home owners much happier.

I hope this helps. Rick

Rick Maselli Founder and Editor of Showroom411.com