apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Do a search on floormaters.com regarding Mr. Sandless to form your own opinion. As an architect, this looks to me like a quick fix and not a long-term solution--it may even be something you can do yourself. I am also skeptical about franchise companies for home improvement...but that's my baggage.

Floor sanding is not as messy as it used to be (sanders have built-in dust collectors now) and there are low VOC coatings available. Traditional sanding and coating does take more than a few hours to dry (unlike the claims on the Mr. Sandless website) but I think it lasts longer.

We had our floors redone in our 2-flat before we moved in and it took 3 days. The first day was sanding and the first coat and the second day was the top coat and then 24 hours to dry. We weren't living there at the time which made it easier. The pet stains sanded out and the original layer of wax came off without much problem (we have a building from the 60s and they waxed back then).

Mr. Sandless might be an option if you have floor that are in good shape or floors that have been refinished many times and cannot be sanded again--this does happen esp. in Chicago.

I am not sure but it looks alot like the same product used to finish off basketball courts. I can't remember the name of it right now but it used to be one of those "As Seen on TV" products that you can still find in Home Depot's floor refinishing section for I think around $25 a half-liter . I used it to refinish a clients floors for a quick down & dirty job and they did look great after I was done. It took me about 3 bottles for a single application on about a 750sqft condo excluding the kitchen & bath. The difference seems to be Mr Sandless scuffs up the floor and possibly re-fills cracks or nail holes before application. I think it would have looked much better with the added attention to detail scuffing, detailing and prepping will add. All I did was mop. We also re-did the floor to my wife's salon with something similar to it through a professional who appears to be a freelancer doing the same thing that Mr. Sandless does...it was quick, dried by morning and we were back open for business the next day...as opposed to the days of downtime with traditional floor refinishing....it lasted about over a year and did look great but very glossy like the Mr. Sandless photo's do until it mellowed out. For a quicker job I would say try it out. I will look for a picture and email to the ladies of AT and perhaps they can post it or forward it to you.
Have a great day.

I am moving across the hall this week and although the apartment in general is much nicer than my current one, the bedroom is not. The floor has been neglected. Now, there is a lot I will do for a cheap rental in a great neighborhood like mine, but refinishing or restoring a floor is OUT. I found a Johnson's product at Lowes that is easy to use (also petroleum based unfortunately), BUT it did spruce the floors up nicely. Granted, most of us in urban areas don't have the luxury of seeing much of the floor in your typical bedroom, But hey, try it out in a small area. It's certainly cheap and it might work in for your entire home. You must ventilate while using this product and if possible, extinguish pilot lights! Flash fires can happen, just ask my mom.

Mr. Sandless has a 5 year warranty on finish and also has their finish available in gloss or satin. They do a much better job than the store bought brands because they use a floor machine to prep the floor, which takes them a little while. I know they've done bars in Chicago, which makes me think their finish holds up pretty well. They didn't make any dust or mess and the "dustless" sanding systems I checked into were about 3 times as expensive as Mr. Sandless. They take about 5 hours to do 3 pretty large rooms and I walked on my floors when they were done (they put down 3 coats of their finish).

Hope this helps, Mike