No. It is a great deal cleaner than the alternative, and the honest description is contained, not dustless. Here is what the equipment actually does and what you should still expect.
Dustless sanding means the sanding machines run with a sealed shroud connected to a vacuum that captures particles below one micron. Instead of the dust going into the air of your house, most of it goes down a hose into a container outside.
Most of it. Not all of it. Anyone who tells you a floor sanding leaves zero dust is either not explaining carefully or hoping you will not check the top of the door frame afterwards.
Three places. The edger, working against a wall where a full shroud will not fit. The hand scraping in corners and around radiators, which no vacuum touches. And the moment of connecting and disconnecting hoses, which puts a small puff into the room every time.
Together that is a small fraction of what an unshrouded drum sander produces, but it is not nothing, and you will find a fine film on horizontal surfaces in adjacent rooms if nothing was covered.
Containment. A crew with a good vacuum and no plastic will make more mess in your house than a crew with an ordinary vacuum who sealed the doorways, covered the return air vents and shut the furnace fan off.
That last one is specific and often missed. If the furnace is circulating while a floor is being sanded, it draws fine dust into the ductwork and redistributes it through the whole house for weeks afterwards. Covering the returns costs a roll of tape.
A standard sand and finish in Des Moines runs $2.75 – $5.50 per sq ft. Dustless runs $3.50 – $6.50 per sq ft, so you are paying roughly a dollar a square foot for the containment.
Whether that is worth it depends on the house. Occupied during the work, anyone with asthma, or a finished space adjacent that cannot be sealed off, worth it. Empty house between owners, everything sealed, nobody moving back in for two weeks, probably not.
Not whether they are dustless, because everyone says yes. Ask what happens at the edges, whether they cover the return air vents, and whether the furnace fan gets shut off. The answers tell you whether the word means equipment or just marketing.
Sanding with the dust pulled straight off the drum instead of into your house. $3.50 – $6.50 per sq ft.
No. It captures most of the dust at the machine, typically particles under one micron, but the edger, hand scraping and hose changes still release some. Contained is the accurate word.
In Des Moines a standard sand and finish is $2.75 – $5.50 per sq ft and dustless is $3.50 – $6.50 per sq ft, so roughly a dollar per square foot more.
Not necessarily with proper containment, though you cannot use the room being worked on. The finish, not the dust, is usually the reason people leave, the smell of an oil based finish is strong for a day or two.
It is worth it in an occupied house, with anyone asthmatic, or where an adjacent finished space cannot be sealed. In an empty house that is fully sealed, standard sanding with good containment does the same job.
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