Sanding & Refinishing

Occupied condo refinish, dust-contained

Existing hardwood in an occupied unit sanded and refinished under containment, with the residents and their pets staying in the home.

When this is the job

A condo or a house where moving out for a week is not an option — young children, pets, a home office, or a building that will not permit an empty unit. The assumption is that refinishing means leaving. It usually does not.

Also called: dust free sanding Toronto · refinishing floors while living there · condo floor refinishing occupied

Published band

From $4.50–$8.50 / sq ft

HST extra. A range, not a quote — a firm number follows a moisture reading on site.

Worked example

$6,041 – $8,570

1,100 sq ft occupied unit, Richmond Hill · 4–6 days incl. cure window

Typical specification

Vacuum-integrated sanding equipment at every stage, edger included
Zip-wall containment with negative air pressure at the work boundary
Waterborne two-component finish — low odour, fast recoat window
Staged room-by-room so a bedroom and a bathroom stay reachable every night

Sequence of work

1Walk the unit and agree the containment line and the nightly reachable path.
2Seal the boundary, set negative pressure, protect the corridor and the elevator route to the building's rules.
3Sand under containment, edger included — the edger is where dust escapes.
4Finish waterborne, staged so the resident always has a route to a bed and a bathroom.
5Pull containment, wipe down, walk the unit with the owner.

What goes wrong

The part of a hardwood job that costs money is rarely the part in the quote. These are the failures that produce a second invoice.

Containment on the drum sander but not the edger

The edger produces the fine dust that travels. It reaches closets and HVAC returns, and it is found weeks later on every horizontal surface in the unit.

Avoided by: Vacuum integration at every machine, and negative pressure across the boundary.

Solvent finish in an occupied unit

The odour is not merely unpleasant; it makes the unit genuinely uninhabitable for days and can carry into neighbouring units through shared HVAC.

Avoided by: Waterborne two-component finish, which is also the harder-wearing product.

Ignoring the building's own rules on corridor protection and elevator booking

The job gets stopped mid-sand by property management, and the resident lives with a bare, unfinished floor until it can be rebooked.

Avoided by: Reading the building's contractor rules before the schedule is promised.

Is this your job?

City, service and size gives you a 2026 GTA band in about twenty seconds. We lock a number only after a moisture reading.

Get a price band All twelve job types