Beveled Floor Disclosure

What is a beveled floor?

Beveled floors are often seen in prefinished types of lumber but can also be found in site finished lumber. They are a small angle cut at the top of the lumber, usually along the length of the board. Bevels are cut in a variety of sizes, but Micro and Standard are most common. Bevels tend to help define the individual boards to the eye and break up the monolithic appearance of the floor.

Why does this matter during refinishing?

Sanding the surface of a floor means removing layers of sealer and wood until the attractive raw wood is exposed. We will also sand the floor to remove scratches, stains and discolorations, which often require sanding deep into the wood. The amount of wood removed during sanding and the deepness of the bevels means that the bevels will be reduced in size or disappear completely—sometimes on the same floor.

If you want your beveled floor sanded, you need to know that to give the floor a consistent appearance, you may ask us to sand out the bevels completely; this will usually increase the cost of the installation, as additional time and materials are necessary.

Can you sand less so that they don’t come out?

The amount of wood we remove isn’t up to us as much as it’s up to your floor! We need to remove enough polyurethane and wood to get down to raw and attractive lumber. If we don't remove all of the current coating, our new polyurethane will not adhere to the floor.

Prefinished floors generally have an aluminum oxide coating that is very difficult to remove. Heavy grit sandpaper is required to abrade it off and, in the process, takes more wood with it.

Often times too, stains, scratches, and discolorations are deep enough that we have remove more wood to get them out. In addition, we try and flatten out any cupping in the wood which can also increase the amount of sanding needed. These factors determine how much sanding is required.

What is the impact of bevels on stained floors?

If you're planning on changing the color of your floor during the refinish, the bevels must be removed. Bevels retain their finish during normal sanding because they rest below the plane of the floor, and our machine sands right over them. If bevels are not removed through additional sanding, they will retain their polyurethane coating. This layer of polyurethane prevents the new stain color from penetrating, and causes the bevels to have a different color than the field of the floor. This issue arises when changing from a stained floor to a natural floor, or vice versa.