Equipment Finance for Flooring: Finance the sanders, cutters and larger install gear, Not Everyday Spend

The sander and dust extraction are your big-ticket items -- everything else is noise

A decent drum or belt floor sander runs $5K-15K depending on brand and condition. Edge sanders sit between $2K and $4K. A proper dust extraction system -- increasingly non-negotiable for indoor resi work -- is $3K-8K.

Buffers and polishers add another $2K-5K. Then moisture meters, planking jigs, and the smaller bits. Total rig for a properly equipped flooring operator? $15K to $35,000.

Here's the thing. The sander is the centrepiece. A cheap sander makes every job slower, leaves more marks, and chews through abrasives faster. A good one pays for itself in finish quality and repeat referrals. The dust extraction is the other one worth serious money -- clients in 2026 won't tolerate a sanding job that coats their house in fine timber dust. Those two items are where the finance conversation should focus.

When you're hiring from Kennards more than you're earning from the job

Most flooring installers start by hiring sanders from Kennards or a local tool hire. Smart move when you're doing two or three sanding jobs a month.

But the hire costs run $200-400 a day for a good machine. A three-day sand and polish might cost $600-1,200 in hire alone. Once you're consistently doing four or more sanding jobs a month, the maths starts favouring ownership. Monthly repayments on a financed $12K sander sit around $350-400 over three years. That's less than a single job's hire cost.

The other trigger is when you want to move from installation-only into sand-and-finish as a service line. That's a genuine capability upgrade -- sand-and-finish commands better margins than laying floating floors. If you've got the skills and the demand is there, financing the sander and dust extraction as a package to unlock that revenue makes solid business sense.

Abrasives add up fast and the sander depreciates hard if someone misuses it

Floor sanders cop a hiding. A drum sander used daily on hardwood needs drum resurfacing, belt tracking adjustments, and motor servicing. If you or your staff aren't experienced with the machine, you can damage the drum assembly. That's an expensive repair bill nobody budgets for.

Real talk: a $12K sander with $2K a year in servicing is a different proposition than the purchase price alone. Factor that in before you sign anything.

The other thing to watch is financing too many specialist items at once. You don't need an edger, buffer, polisher, and drum sander all on repayments from day one. Start with the drum sander and dust extraction. Add the buffer when the workload justifies it. Edge sanders are cheap enough to buy outright. Don't let a broker bundle everything into one package because it looks neater on paper.

Chattel mortgage for the sander -- operating lease only if you're an upgrade junkie

Chattel mortgage is the standard play. You own the machine, claim the depreciation, and get the GST credit upfront. A three-year term on a $10K-15K sander keeps repayments manageable and lines up roughly with the heavy-use lifespan before major servicing kicks in.

Most brokers will bundle the dust extraction unit into the same agreement. Keeps the paperwork simple.

If you're the type who upgrades every two to three years to stay on the latest machines, an operating lease with a return-at-end option can work. Lower monthly payments, hand it back, move on. But you never build equity. For most flooring businesses, owning outright through chattel mortgage makes more sense -- a well-maintained sander holds reasonable resale value in the trade.

When hire costs beat ownership costs, you're already paying for it -- just not owning it

The maths is straightforward. Track what you're spending on sander hire over three months. If it consistently exceeds what a monthly finance repayment would be, you're paying for the machine anyway but not building any equity. That's your trigger.

The other clear signal? Losing jobs because you can't guarantee machine availability. Client wants their floors done next Tuesday and Kennards is booked out. That's lost revenue from not owning the gear.

When not to bother: if you're primarily an installation business doing floating floors and vinyl plank, and sanding is an occasional add-on. Hire the sander for those jobs. Don't finance a $12K machine that sits in the trailer five days out of six. Finance suits operators where sanding is a core, regular part of the business -- not a sometimes service.

If the hire bill over three months covers a full year of repayments, stop hiring and start owning.

The sander and the dust extraction system. Those are the only two items most flooring operators genuinely need to finance.

Everything else is either cheap enough to buy outright or too small to justify the paperwork. Keep finance focused on the machines that are running on every job and producing the finish your clients are paying for.