Oscillating or Drum Floor Sander

Question

I'm refinishing the floors in a 4 bedroom house, built circa 2003. The house is roughly 1800 sqft total. The 4 bedrooms have pine floors, while the living room and the hallway are some sort of hardwood. Considering the tile in the kitchen and bathrooms, I would estimate that the pine covers roughly 800 sqft, and the hardwood approximately 500 sqft.

I've watched videos, read articles, and actually helped refinish floors a decade or two ago, so I have a loose idea what I'm getting into. My one uncertainty is the type of sander I'll need.

The hardwood is generally in good shape, except the finish is badly worn, especially in the high traffic areas. The pine's finish is much better, although the level of the boards does not seem to be nearly as even. Still, it's not horrible in my opinion.

Do you think using an oscillating floor sander with a low grit would be a reasonable choice (for the hardwood, or both), or would I be killing myself? Would I be better off with a drum sander?

Secondly, can anyone help estimate what grit of paper to start with, and how much I would likely require? I'm just looking for a ballpark of 5, 10, 25 sheets.

Hardwood

Pine

Answer 1

Drum sander was the best solution. The pine boards being uneven was a big enough problem on it's own. Even with 40 grit paper on drum sander it took multiple slow passes on an angle just to get the floor flat enough to be able to sand the entire board. Oscillating sander would have taken forever.

As far as paper, 5 sheets of each grit should be plenty to refinish that amount of space. I may use closer to 10 with the lowest grit, because some of the pine floors are so uneven.