Hardwood Floors

[ferco]

We're planning to install hardwood flooring in our master bedroom (currently has carpet). The area is 307 SF. A quote from the original company that put hardwood in the parts of the house when it was originally built 6 years ago is as follows (for 3/4" x 3 1/4 " pre-finished hardwood):

325 SF @$6.00 $1,950.00
Tax $111.48
72 ft shoe molding @ $2.50 / ft $180.00
Remove 36 yds of carpet (@ $3/yd) $108.00
and move furniture

Total $2,349.48

Work can be completed in 1 day

Has any one else had hardwoods recently installed. Is this a good price or are we getting "ripped" a new one. Do I need to ask any other significant questions ?

 

[Enuff2Eat]

I think the price is fair just because you are NOT lifting a finger. With that said, start "lifting some fingers" like remove the furniture, remove the carpet, or do the shoe molding yourself. I would even go as far as shopping for better price on the floor and even hauling it home yourself. my 2 cents

enuff

ps. or just shop around and around til you find someone cheaper. In some cases, cheaper means the contractor is not license, insure or bond. So you're at risk if he fell and hurt on your property or if accidentally damage other part of the house.

good luck

 

[sheehs1]

Not sure. By pre-finished, is the flooring real white or red oak? Did you use pre-finished 6 years ago?

Recently had a contractor who was looking at a possible addition for us say that the hardwood floors would be "around" $8.00 a square foot installed. When I built my home in 1993 they were $5.00 to $6.00 a square foot installed. This is using 3/4 inch white oak put down "raw", stained and polyurethaned, quarter rounding, etc. That puts the price in the range of $2,456 for your square footage for oak floors that are not pre-finished.

Pre-finished flooring, as it has gained popularity, must have gone up in price the last many years. It didn't used to be that they were almost as expensive as putting them down "raw", staining them and then using polyurethane coats on them.

Hope that helps as a comparison.

 

[samclem]

Do I need to ask any other significant questions?

I'd want to know if the flooring (wood species, construction, finish) is the same as they installed in the rest of your house, and whether the new floors could be sanded and refinished when the time comes.

 

[fisherman]

The price is in line. That is a project you can do yourself if you have the tools, the back and the knees. It is not easy work if you have not done it before but can certainly be done. DW, the Kids and I put done over 2000 ft of the pre-finished board this year at the lake house. If you can get at least there people working on it that will help.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Prefinished engineered wood? I am guessing it is. Reasonable price, then.

If not, how many coats of urethane/Swedish varnish? One is typical, three are recommended (in which case, the price given is low). All water-based these days. Ours was Swedish with iso-butanol solvent. Water-based is just as good these days and a LOT safer.

Get references. Look at them if you can. Some guys do not do a good job.

 

[Brat]

You really need to visit flooring (material supplier) shops and look at products. If it is manufactured flooring look at the thickness of the top layer (some are very thin). Talk to them about long term serviceability, even look on the Internet for comments too,

Check the installers references as Ed suggests.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Have you considered Ipe? We did our master bathroom in it and it is amazing: very hard, water resistent, and beautifuo. You can even use it for exterior deck flooring.

 

[davemartin88]

Price seems okay to a bit high depending on the quality of the material- we did red oak, varied widths up to 6" installed and finished on site for about $5.50 /sq ft which I think is a bit better. I like the varied widths and that usually costs a bit more because of the cost of materials (wider strips).

Didn't need/use of need floor molding. As others said, make sure you understand what you're getting if you use pre-finished material, especially if you ever think you'll need to refinish it.

 

[American-Canadian]

I'm planning on getting hardwood floors installed downstairs in the Spring and I need to look at this vs. getting my original 100 yr old floors (in bad shape) redone. It seems to me that getting the prefinished new floor will be quicker than trying to repair the old floor and redo it, which might take days from what I understand.

I'm interested in all ideas on this.

 

[Brat]

We put pre-finished manufactured wood floors in our condo over concrete and took a long time investigating materials. For the underlayment we choose a sound retarder with slots. Glue went in the slots to secure the flooring to the concrete.

If American-Canadian removes the old flooring he may need to install plywood underlayment before installing the hardwood floor.

I wouldn't try to make 100 year old wood floor look like new. If they are sound refinishing them may take time but the result can be delightful.

 

[ferco]

Thanks for all the input.....Looked at Lowe's today and just the materials would be in the $2,000 range ; Install is about $2.50 / sf !! Saving $100 or there about , for my input / labor when getting someone to do it turn-key who does this everyday may be worth it. I'll keep investigating.

 

[W2R]

Wow - - wood is a lot more expensive than carpet, isn't it? Although I have never installed wood, I had Home Depot install wall to wall carpet throughout my 1600 square foot house (except galley kitchen and bathrooms) last fall. For that, the entire bill was $2230, including installation, tax, removal and disposal of old carpet, furniture moving for the master bedroom (I moved the rest), metal edging for transition to kitchen, everything.

So $2349 for only 325 square feet seems like a lot, to me. Granted my carpet was not a high grade but while a little thin, it looks great to me and has worn well so far.

 

[My Dream]

It depends on which wood you're getting. In my location prefinished solid wood in the sizing you suggested goes for around $2.50 to $10.75 per sq. ft on sale. Installation is around $2.00 per sq. ft, but they don't screw down the sub floor which I think is key to having a solid foundation and they must use the proper screws. Some installer use wax paper underneath, some go up to the baseboard then use quarter round to cover the gap. Others remove baseboard and install new ones over top for a nice clean finish. This gives you a chance to hide all those speaker, phone, cable wires that were tucked underneath the carpet.

Price is going to depend on the quality, type of wood and style you choose, and what measure they use to install them, or shall I say, what corners they cut during the installation process.

 

[pb4uski]

That seems in the hunt. We had bamboo flooring installed earlier this year and the installed cost was about $6.50/sf including tax and ours was new construction so there was no moving of furniture, removing carpet, etc.

 

[Free To Canoe]

Your price sounds very good for a turnkey operation.
My frame of reference is that we recently completed our first DIY hardwood floor installation. It was a room half your size that previously had carpet. We installed pine because it is what is everywhere else in the house (pine is not a hardwood but installs the same way). We installed the unfinished wood and put on three coats of polyurathane. Once we started, it took about 10 days. We had to buy a floor nail gun, air compressor and a table saw.
That is a good price because at least half of that goes into raw materials. Hard to believe that they can finish in one day.

 

[kat]

Ferco, do you have any kids or grandkids in the 9 to 12 range?

The money is in the product, the wood flooring, not the work. You and a kid can install them yourselves on a weekend.

There seems something odd in the money, so if it was me, I'd keep looking to price the product.

 

[FUEGO]

My BIL does hardwood and tile for a living. His quotes always show the labor as $X per square foot and the materials at a cost per sf (plus a possible mark up). You can ask them to break out the labor and materials. This way you can know if you are getting a $1/sf product or a $4/sf product. And the labor charge should apply to the actual sf of the space in general. For materials, you always want to buy a little more than the exact square footage to account for waste, spoilage, defects, short lots, etc so paying for 325 sf of materials on a 307 sf area is very reasonable.

 

[freebird5825]

I can't comment on current prices, but I will tell you that since 1999, when we went for hand installed oak hardwood floors with 3 coats of poly in the entire upstairs except for bedrooms, there have been no more carpet cleaning ordeals. Hallellujah!
I have 2 dogs, so there are always "tumbleweeds" to deal with. I prefer using a simple cotton dustmop to make them disappear versus constant vacuuming.
I use area and strip rugs for high traffic zones.

 

[HFWR]

Sounds like a decent price, based on me having installed engineered flooring in several rooms a couple of years ago. But one gotcha is whether your subfloor is level. I did not have my slab leveled, and there are some pockets here and there. Not a problem in that no joints are affected, but you will get some popping and cracking when you step on those places. Leveling is expensive and messy, but will definitely give you a more solid base.

 

[kat]

Freebird, You and me are in upstate NY, so here's my question. I apologize for a brief departure from the OP's question.

You used the word tumbleweed.

That is a word from my growing up years in the sand of the suburbs of a city in upstate NY. We called it the Sand Hill. In the winter, we tried to get to US route 20 at the bottom, in our toboggan, but never made it. For the other 3 seasons we chased tumbleweeds, these big things that rolled in the sand. (We played baseball and kick the can too.)

Tumbleweeds in your message and seeing you are in NY, well, that's why I asked.

Tumbleweeds inside is nothing like those big things in the sand!!

Kate

 

[Free To Canoe]

Ferco, do you have any kids or grandkids in the 9 to 12 range?

The money is in the product, the wood flooring, not the work. You and a kid can install them yourselves on a weekend.

There seems something odd in the money, so if it was me, I'd keep looking to price the product.

Maybe we are thinking of two different things. Perhaps there is some leggo like flooring out there. Some floors are glued in.

If you are talking about 3/4" hardwood tongue and groove flooring that is installed with nails...
I would like to see a kid or most adults hammer in 2 inch nails into the base of the tongue of each oak plank on a 45 degree angle and then counter sink them flush (without crying). You need to do this against the walls where the nail gun cannot reach.

 

[eytonxav]

Freebird, You and me are in upstate NY, so here's my question. I apologize for a brief departure from the OP's question.

You used the word tumbleweed.

That is a word from my growing up years in the sand of the suburbs of a city in upstate NY. We called it the Sand Hill. In the winter, we tried to get to US route 20 at the bottom, in our toboggan, but never made it. For the other 3 seasons we chased tumbleweeds, these big things that rolled in the sand. (We played baseball and kick the can too.)

Tumbleweeds in your message and seeing you are in NY, well, that's why I asked.

Tumbleweeds inside is nothing like those big things in the sand!!

Kate

As a former NYer, I never associated tumbleweeds with NYS, leaves yes, tumbleweeds no, but I suppose some areas may be different. Living in the southwest, definitely.

 

[kat]

The tumbleweeds in my experience were big and round and rolled in the sand (open space) and wind. Guessing they could have picked up other things......

The road they called Rt 20 was a dirt road before it became Rt 20, Mom said.

 

[kat]

P.s. I think I got the wood and put it in place, and he nailed.


It wasn't hard. You'd have to ask Dad why not.

Dad planned to be an architect, but became a lawyer. I forgot why.

(and he didn't use a nail gun. He said Kat, this nail has to go there, or something like that, explaining while he nailed.)

It's still beautiful 30 years later.

Mom and Dad are still there.

Maybe we are thinking of two different things. Perhaps there is some leggo like flooring out there. Some floors are glued in.

If you are talking about 3/4" hardwood tongue and groove flooring that is installed with nails...
I would like to see a kid or most adults hammer in 2 inch nails into the base of the tongue of each oak plank on a 45 degree angle and then counter sink them flush (without crying). You need to do this against the walls where the nail gun cannot reach.