What hardwood floor refinishing costs in Calgary

Why there is no per square foot number here

Every flooring site in this city publishes a range, and most of those ranges are close to meaningless. They are copied between sites, they are years old, and they describe an average job in an average house, which is not a thing that exists. The gap between the cheapest and the most expensive floor of the same size in the same neighbourhood is enormous, and it is driven by things a square footage figure cannot see.

The practical problem with a published range is that it anchors you. If a page tells you a number and your floor turns out to be a different job, the quote feels like a bait and switch even when it is honest. We would rather set out what actually drives the price, let you place your own floor against it, and then give you a real number when we have seen it.

The one decision that moves the price most

Whether the floor needs a recoat or a full sand-back matters more than anything else on this page, and the two are not close in cost. A recoat abrades the existing finish and rolls new coats over it, normally in a single day, with very little dust and the room back in use the next morning. A full refinish takes the floor down through several grits to bare wood, cuts in every edge and corner by hand, and then builds the finish back up across several days.

Test it yourself before you assume. Put a drop of water on the worst looking traffic path and wait a minute. If it beads, the finish is still working and a recoat will take. If it soaks in and darkens the wood, that spot has lost its finish and you are into a sand-back.

What actually moves the number

• Floor area, and how it is broken up. Six hundred square feet in two open rooms is a cheaper job than the same area split across five small bedrooms with closets, because the edging and the corners are where the slow hand work lives.
• Stairs. The most expensive equivalent area in the house. Hand sanded tread by tread, and nobody can use them while the finish cures.
• Colour change. Staining adds a full step plus its dry time, and it adds test patches beforehand. Clear over sanded oak is cheaper.
• Board replacement. Priced per board, done before the sanding. A few boards add very little. A large lifted area is a different job.
• What is already on the floor. Acrylic mop-and-shine build-up has to come off chemically before anything will bond, and it is common on Calgary floors that were maintained through the 1980s and 1990s.
• Furniture and appliances. An empty house is faster than a furnished one. If you can clear the rooms yourself, that shows up in the price.
• Level changes. Split-levels and bi-levels have half flights, landings and transitions where the flooring meets at odd angles, and those junctions take longer than a flat run of the same size.
• The number of coats and the finish product. Three coats cost more than two and last longer. Water based and oil based finishes are priced differently and behave differently. Both go on the written quote.

What does not change the price

The visit does not, because it is free. Being told the honest answer does not either: if we look at your floor and a recoat will hold it for another decade, a recoat is what gets quoted, and we would rather lose the bigger job than sell you a sand-back that spends wood you cannot get back.

Before you ask anyone for a number

Two things are worth knowing about your own floor, because they change the answer more than anything a contractor can tell you over the phone. The first is whether it is solid or engineered: a floor vent or a stair nosing usually shows you the edge of a board, and if you can see a thin veneer over a plywood core rather than a solid piece of oak, the refinishing question changes completely. The second is whether it has been sanded before, because solid wood only has so many sand-backs in it.

If you cannot tell, that is exactly what the free visit is for. Read the repair versus refinish decision if the damage is in one place rather than everywhere, or the water damage page if boards are cupping.