Parquet restoration in Batumi: sanding, repairs, lacquer and oil

What we look at when inspecting old parquet

Before drawing up the estimate, the site foreman taps the whole floor and marks with tape the areas where blocks sound hollow or are loose. If there are only a few such spots, they are re-glued. If half the room has come away, the problem is usually the base, and restoration turns into relaying the floor.

Next we find out how much wood is left above the tongue: you can see this on the end of a block at the threshold or under the skirting. One full sanding usually removes up to a millimetre, more on an uneven floor, so whether the floor can take another one depends on the margin above the tongue. We also check the old finish separately: lacquer, oil, wax or mastic. Wax and mastic clog the abrasive, and before new lacquer they are removed completely.

In older buildings, parquet is laid either on bitumen mastic or on a board subfloor over joists, and squeaks are dealt with differently in each case. If the whole apartment is being renovated, the floor inspection is part of the overall plan for a resale apartment renovation.

Repairing the floor before sanding

We take out loose blocks, scrape the old adhesive off the block and the base, and bed it on fresh adhesive. Broken and blackened blocks are replaced, and we look for the replacements in the floor itself: blocks from under a wardrobe or from a storeroom are closest in shade to the rest, and new wood of the same species goes in their place. Squeaks over joists are fixed with screws in countersunk holes, which we close with wooden plugs.

Gaps of up to 1–2 mm are filled after the first pass of the machine with a filler made from a binder mixed with dust from the same floor, so that the joint matches in colour. In wide gaps this filler doesn't hold, cracking and crumbling out, so there we glue in thin slivers of the same species.

How sanding is done

The first pass is made with a drum or belt sander and coarse abrasive, 36–40 grit: it removes the old lacquer and the height differences between blocks. On herringbone and on an uneven floor this pass runs diagonally, and after that the machine follows the grain of the main direction. Then we fill the gaps and sand with 60–80 grit, finishing with 100–120. An edger works along the walls, and corners and spots around pipes are finished by hand with a scraper.

After each pass we vacuum the floor, otherwise grains from the previous abrasive will leave scratches. We sand an engineered wood floor only when we know the thickness of the top layer from the specification or from the board end at the threshold, and we start straight away with a medium grit, skipping the coarse pass.

Primer, lacquer and oil

In residential buildings we work with water-based lacquers: they have only a faint smell, and the neighbours don't have to put up with solvent fumes. Water-based lacquer has one peculiarity. On a floor with gaps it glues the blocks together at their sides into large sections, and when the wood shrinks, a few wide cracks open up instead of many fine joints. So under the lacquer we apply a primer that prevents this side bonding.

Then come two or three coats of lacquer, with light sanding with an abrasive screen between them to remove raised grain and give the next coat something to grip. For a hallway or a rental apartment we use two-component lacquer, which is noticeably more resistant to wear. Oil is rubbed in, in one or two coats, and buffed, and the excess is removed before it sets. Choose the sheen in advance: scratches and dust show less on matt lacquer than on gloss.

Dark stains, water and wear

By the balcony door, under flower pots and wherever water has stood for a long time, black stains appear on oak. The tannins in the wood darken on contact with water and metal, and sanding doesn't always remove these stains: the colour goes deeper than the machine takes off. A stain can be lightened with oxalic acid, but we test the result on one block first, and if it isn't good enough, we replace the blocks.

Grey water marks and tracks worn through to the wood usually disappear with full sanding. Our rule is this: if more than a third of the blocks need replacing and the base under them is damp, it is cheaper and more reliable to lay new parquet on a dry base than to patch up the old one.

When refreshing the finish is enough

If the lacquer is worn but hasn't gone through to the wood, full sanding isn't needed. We clean the floor, abrade the old lacquer with a sanding screen and apply one or two new coats. It is a day or two of work with almost no dust, and only the finish line remains in the estimate. This often rescues an apartment between tenants when it has to be back on the rental market within a week, and when preparing an apartment for rent, the floor is one of the first things we look at.

The new lacquer has to adhere to the old one. If we don't know what the floor is finished with, we do a test on an inconspicuous area and check the adhesion a day later.

How much parquet restoration in Batumi costs

Sanding with a lacquer or oil finish costs from 42 to 54 ₾ per m². This is labour only, and the lacquer or oil is priced separately, from 20 to 30 ₾ per m², depending on the grade of finish and the number of coats. Sanding alone without a finish costs from 17 to 24 ₾ per m², finishing alone from 24 to 30 ₾, and floor repair, meaning filling gaps, re-gluing and replacing blocks, from 24 to 36 ₾ per m² of the area repaired.

The price goes up with herringbone, which has to be sanded in several directions, with a thick layer of old mastic or wax, and with many blocks to replace and match by species. Refreshing the finish on a sound floor without sanding is the cheapest option. The final cost is set after inspection, measuring up and agreeing the estimate. If it makes more sense to replace the floor, we will tell you before we draw up the estimate.