Customer Reviews

Hardwood Floors

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you're planning to install or refinish wood floors, you really should read this book. Installing wood flooring is definitely something a determined beginner can do, but there are some pitfalls along the way. This book will help you avoid them. There's also a companion video that I highly recommend. The time and expense of buying and reading/watching these materials will be returned many times over by avoiding mistakes.

I used the book and video to help prepare myself for my first DIY floor installation, and everything went extremely well. I also had some coaching from a local installer, which I highly recommend. He had me practice on an 8' x 8' square before doing anything on the actual floor. The more you can learn, the easier it will all be and the better the final results. In my case, the results were really quite astonishing - I had many, many comments and compliments, and more than one person mentioned that my work was better than the "professional" work in their own house. That's an advantage of doing it yourself - you can take the time to do it right.

This book will help solve "Many" questions about hardwood floors. The insight it provides will help you decide to "do it yourself" or hire a "licenced professional". Don teaches you step by step from start to "finishing". Deciding on what type and grade of wood is a mystery for most homeowners. Don makes this simple by explaining the different types, hardness, what grade, and a general price guide, to help make this an easier decision. The installation tips will save you hours of frustration and assure a quality look. After reading the book my mind was at ease about doing it myself. Dons book is nothing but "Simplistic Logic". Thanks Don !

This is the book you need if you want to install or refinish your harwood floor. And the author even covers his views on water based finishes.

In addition, I recommend only using a continuous belt sander. The author mentions the benifits, but the sheet fed causes chatter marks. GO WITH THE BELT! The belt sanders can be harder to find, but look for it.

Overall, this book will give you the information you need to install and finish a new hardwood floor or re-finish an existing hardwood floor as painlessly as possible. The subject is covered thoroughly, from choosing lumber types and patterns to types and methods of finishing. However, I strongly suggest that one hint made by the author be ignored completely. On page 111 and perhaps other pages of the Sanding and Finishing chapter of the 1990 edition of the text, the author proposes the use of a floor buffer to fine screen between coats of finish to take the tops off and help successive coats of finish adhere. What this did for me, even with the finest grit screen available, was leave lots of spider web type scratches in the finish that reflected artificial light in every direction at night, and made what was supposed to be a high gloss polyurethane finish look dull in the daylight. This tip wasted two coats and two days of finish work. My suggestion is to use a drywall pole-type sander with 220 grit or finer sandpaper and always sand in the direction of the grain. This method takes much longer than the buffer method, but won't produce the spider web scratches that the buffer does. One other suggestion the author makes is to mix fine sanding dust with a water-based filler base called Wood Stuff to make perfectly matched filler. I thought that this was a great idea, because you'd get the closest match and you could mix a huge batch of filler right on the floor and trowel the entire space very quickly. I wanted the water-based Wood Stuff because I was using a water-based polyurethane to finish. The problem was that I couldn't find Wood Stuff or any comparable water-based product online or in any hardware or woodworking store. I ended up using several one-pint batches of Famowood filler hole-by-hole, which took days because my salvaged hardwood was full of tack holes. I'm just commenting on the suggested product's availability, here, which is not the author's fault. Maybe the book is a little out of date. Ultimately, with the other information in the book, my floor came out great. I just wish I used the floor buffer for the final wood sanding only (not on the finish).

Bollinger provides the "real" information on what it takes for the beginner to lay a hardwood floor. While other books make it look easy, this book goes over each step from a professional's view. The author gives the insight he has gained from many years of experience on how to do a proper installation in detail.

However, I agree with the person below that you should really seek out a continuous belt sander, and avoid drum sanders due to their tendency to create very subtle chatter marks over the entire floor surface. They cannot be seen or felt prior to finishing the floor, but once you have the floor finish applied, you can see them. Also, the author says that a screen buffer is optional, but if you use a drum sander, I think it is pretty much a necessity if you want to lessen the effect of the chatter marks that a drum sander produces, compared to a continuous belt sander.

This book is wonderful. I've been reading everything I can get my eyes on regarding installation of solid hardwood flooring. Most places I see the same general points, but not many details. Not this book. Here are answers to the dozens of questions I had in response to reading all of the other stuff.

Great book. Covers all you need from actually installing the floor to the final coat of finish. I'm a first timer, but installed and finished my pine floors and saved about $7000.

I'm now planning to install ceramic tile for first time and hope to find book on this subject as good as Don Bollinger's book.

Robert

I've done three rooms so far and saved a bundle. Will end up paying about 2.75 a square foot for 5.25 inch red oak planks. Looks great, don't believe it would have come out as well without the book.

An excellent book. Provides good details, anticipates a lot of problems, good graphics/drawings to explain.