Remove Paint From The Floor With A Sander

Remove Paint From The Floor With A Sander

Overhaul of an apartment with the installation of new windows and interior doors, flooring of modern flooring, not every owner can afford. But you can significantly reduce costs if you do not change the carpentry in the house, but simply put it in order. As a rule, the wooden floor and old solid-wood doors are significantly superior in strength and reliability to modern analogues. They can last you a couple of decades, and even become an interior decoration, if you clear them of perennial layers of paint. You can find out how to remove old paint from wood and save on repairs from our article.

Read the article:

Methods for removing paint from wooden surfaces

There are three ways to clean a wooden product from old paint:

  • chemical. using special washes;
  • mechanical. to scrape off the paint manually or using a power tool;
  • thermal. using a building hair dryer.

Which method is easier to use to remove old paint from wood? The answer will depend on what kind of carpentry you are going to clean, and on the quality of the paintwork on it. It is also important to understand what result you want to get. to get to the wood or just smooth the surface and refresh its color. In the first case, you most likely will have to apply several methods, in the second it will be enough to remove the top layer of the old paint with any suitable wash and clean the obvious irregularities with sandpaper.

Chemical washes, in fact, are very corrosive solvents. After application to the surface, they destroy the top coat of paint in 10-15 minutes, giving you the opportunity to remove it with a rag or spatula. But it is the top layer! To get to the wood, you will have to process the surface of the product as many times as it was painted. It is quite expensive, plus, it is very unhealthy, since the pairs of washes are poisonous. Work with solvents only in a well-ventilated area, in a respirator and gloves. Make sure that the composition does not get on the skin and, especially, in the eyes. And do not pour solvents into plastic containers. only into glass, but it is better to scoop them immediately from the factory packaging.

Important! Do not try to remove old paint from the floor and other wooden elements of your apartment with acetone or ordinary solvents. they will not give any effect. Use only washes.

The mechanical method of removing old paint from carpentry is to scrape off the old paint layer. This can be done manually with a spatula or chisel. But wood processing with a power tool is much more effective. a grinder, cycles or a drill with a nozzle in the form of a metal brush. Instead of a drill, by the way, you can use an angle grinder or a screwdriver, depending on what is at hand. And, of course, you need to choose a tool based on the area and topography of the surface being cleaned. For example, it is quite simple to clean the floorboard from the paint using an angle grinder and a brush, while removing old paint from window frames with the same tool without damaging the glazing bead is almost impossible.

And finally, removing paint with a building hair dryer is the fastest and most convenient option if you want to get to the surface of the wood. The hair dryer heats up a layer of paint, causing it to boil, as it were. Due to the fact that the wood heats up much more slowly, the paint easily lags behind the surface and can be scraped off with a spatula. Even the thickest old coat is removed from one pass. By the way, this option only works with wood. It is not recommended to brush metal surfaces from paint with a hairdryer, since the metal will heat up at the same time as the paint and it will be much worse behind. Therefore, for door hinges, handles or latches on windows, you will have to look for another cleaning method.

Attention! Do not use a household hair dryer for heat treatment! Its power will not be enough to warm the paint. You risk burning the appliance and causing a short circuit!

How to clean windows from old paint

So, now you know in general terms how to remove old paint from wood. It’s time to talk more substantively. To begin, we will analyze the most difficult option. window frames. They should not be completely cleaned from paint; on old windows, the paintwork often plays the role of a sealant, filling the gaps between the frame and the glass. It’s better to just align the topography of the frames to the maximum so that the new paint fits better.

Video: Remove Paint From The Floor With A Sander


Do you like coffee beans? Learn how to choose an electric coffee grinder.

Electronic cigarettes should be cleaned regularly. How to care for an electronic cigarette, you can read here.

If possible, remove the sash from the hinges and lay it on a flat surface. Inspect the frame. if there are places where the paint is clearly moving away from the tree and hanging with rags, it must be removed with a spatula. On the surface there will be recesses that need to be putty. To do this, mix the paint with which you are going to paint the windows with any dry putty to a state of thick sour cream. With this mixture fill in the bumps. Act quickly until the composition has thickened. After that, leave the frame for several hours so that the putty dries.

If you did not have to remove the flaps of paint, you can immediately proceed to grinding. To do this, it is easiest to use a grinding machine. She will quickly remove old paint stains and other irregularities. A car, like any other power tool, can always be rented at a construction supermarket. Believe me, it’s better to spend a few hundred rubles on rent than to suffer, sanding the frames with sandpaper. If there is no access to the grinder, cut off the obvious irregularities in the coating with a clerical knife, and then grind the entire surface of the frame with a block wrapped in sandpaper. After that, the frame can be painted again.

Important! Before sanding, do not forget to put on a respirator and gloves, organize the ventilation of the room and hang up all the exits from it so that the dust does not spread around the apartment.

If you still need a way to remove old paint from window frames to the tree itself, we recommend using a hot air gun. But they need to work with caution, trying not to heat the glass. From exposure to high temperature, it can easily crack. Try to pry softened paint carefully so as not to damage the wooden surface of the frame with a spatula. To remove paint from glazing beads, use the narrowest spatula, or better, a blunt knife.

Attention! After removing old paint from a Soviet-made carpentry, a primer may appear under it. If you plan to just paint the wood, and not stain and varnish it, do not remove the primer! So you greatly facilitate your subsequent painting.

How to clean the door of old paint

It is certainly not as difficult to clean a Soviet-made paneled door from paintwork as removing old paint from the ceiling, but also quite difficult. With a smooth door leaf, everything is much easier. it can be processed at least in cycles, at least in an angle grinder with a brush head. But with panels you need to be careful so as not to damage the terrain. Therefore, for doors of this type it is better to use a building hair dryer. From the main canvas and panels, remove the paint heated with a hairdryer with a spatula, process glazing beads with a blunt knife or a metal ruler.

Attention! Do not use a grinder for door processing! On large surfaces, it will not give an effect. the nets will clog too quickly, and will cease to remove paint in just a couple of passes.

Before you remove the old paint from the doors, specify what material the canvas is made of. With a solid-wood door, you can work fearlessly, completely clearing all the old cover. But in many Soviet doors only the skeleton is wooden, and the panels are filled with plywood or chipboard. In this case, having removed all the paint and primer, you will get an uneven surface that is difficult to grind. Such elements are best treated with a brush or hairdryer at a low temperature, trying to maintain the bottom layer of old paint, or at least the soil. In the future, painting the door will be much easier.

Important! Before starting work, remove the door and place it horizontally or at a slight inclination. Swinging on the hinges, the door leaf will greatly slow down the work.

How to remove old paint from a wooden floor

The scariest part of the carpentry is the plank floor. But in fact, bringing it into a decent appearance is not as difficult as cleaning the ceiling from old paint. True, for this you will need a power tool. It is best to use a construction hairdryer, but an angle grinder / drill with a wire brush attachment will do just as well. But you should not use a grinding machine, outdated paint is too hard for it. The nets of the machine will clog every 10-15 minutes, and the coating will remain almost intact.

Before deciding how to remove old paint from the floor, think about what you will do next. If you plan to simply paint the floorboards, remove the old hot air gun to the primer. If you want to make a beautiful wooden floor by soaking the boards with stain and varnishing, you only need an angle grinder with a brush. It is unlikely that the construction dryer can remove the primer from the Soviet Union, and not at all because super-reliable materials were used for it. Most often, floorboards were primed with mixtures, the composition of which is still unknown to science. There are primers from fine sawdust and varnish, cement and drying oil, and other mixtures of the ingredients that came to hand. They react very poorly to temperature, after removing the paint with a hairdryer, you still have to scrape them off. So why do double work?

Attention! Before cleaning the floor from old paint, take care of good ventilation of the room in which you will work! Even if you plan to treat the surface with a hairdryer, evaporation of heated floor enamel is not the most useful thing. Well, the dust from the angle grinder is not worth talking at all.

If you have chosen an angle grinder / drill with a brush as a tool, you should know several life hacks for working with them. First, do not hold the brush for too long in one place. From friction, the floorboards begin to heat up and burn. In the best case, you just face the smell of burning (by the way, before you remove the old paint from the floor, warn the neighbors on the porch, otherwise they will call firefighters). And in the worst case scenario, the cleaned floor will turn out with dark spots, and you will have to spend time polishing it.

Secondly, take the brush strictly along the board, otherwise it will cling to the cracks and leave wire bristles in them, which are easy to hurt. If in some place the coating does not want to be cleaned off, most likely a knot is hidden under it. In this case, you can change the direction of brush movement (not towards you, but from yourself) or walk around the problem area in circular motions.

Learn how to wash so things don’t fade.

How to clean the sole of the iron, read here.

And thirdly, before starting work, do not forget to take security measures. Open all the windows in the room, curtain the doorways with plastic wrap and place wet rags under them. Spend no money on a good respirator and safety glasses. Close your hands with gloves, and put on a disposable plastic raincoat over the robe. it will be much easier to throw it away after work than to wash clothes from heavy dust. And be sure to work in shoes to protect your feet from the wire bristles of the brush, which will still fly out when cleaning. Removing paint from the floor in this way is a rather noisy and dirty activity. But the result is simply magnificent!