Floor Buffers

Floor buffing machines are very useful if you've encountered a subfloor that may have been sealed and needs removal. This is especially important when gluing hardwood floors direct to Rough buffing on concrete concrete as some sealers may react negatively with new hardwood adhesives creating a bonding problem. Essentially, some are too slick to allow a good adhesive grab with wood and subfloor.

Buffers are also a strong recommendation when gluing hardwood floors over Terrazzo surfaces. In many cases these types of floors have been waxed and the residue must be removed. Our example does not show a Terrazzo surface but concrete. For jobs that may have an enormous amount of paint overspray on the concrete, this method works more quickly than having to hand scrape the entire area.

Machines and their accessories, like the one shown can be rented on a four hour or daily basis at nearly any rental center. When considering such, look around for the coarsest paper grit possible.

Our latest research showed Home Depot offering a very course paper (12 grit) selling for about $ 6.50 each. It will almost appear like small rocks glued to a strong paper backing (shown below). How many discs needed will depend on the condition of the subfloor and what's plastered to it. For waxed surfaces a good reference point to how many may be 12 grit rock paper needed could be one for each 200 square feet, as the disks will gum up from the older waxes.

This great gizmo won't get into the corners and will damage baseboards if you're not careful. Actually it can get away from you rather quickly. If in doubt of how to use it, the rental center guys can probably offer tips or possibly put it on a small test run in the store.