One process, whichever service you need
Every flooring job we run follows the same spine, whether it is a single bedroom or a whole floor of a commercial unit. The services differ in what they include. The process does not, because the parts that go wrong on flooring jobs are almost always the parts that got skipped rather than the parts that got done badly.
Here is the whole engagement, start to finish, so you know what happens next at every point.
First contact and the questions we ask
You tell us the rooms, roughly the square footage, what is on the floor now and what is under it if you know. We ask what happens in each room, whether there are pets, whether there is a slab, and whether anything is failing. That last question matters: a floor that is cupping or peaking is telling us something about the building, not about the flooring. Our service area covers Add the cities and areas served.
The measure, on site
Nobody quotes a floor properly from a phone call. On site we measure room by room, check flatness with a straightedge, take moisture readings where there is a slab or a suspect area, look at door casings, thresholds and appliance clearances, and note every cut that will take time: islands, hearths, angled walls, vents, closets. Stairs get counted individually. This is also where we find the things that change the number, which is exactly why we would rather find them now.
Material shortlist and samples
We narrow five materials down to two before anyone talks about colour, based on the room, the subfloor and how the house gets used. Then you take samples home and look at them properly. The flooring comparison lays all five materials side by side on water, scratches, dents, sound and lifespan, and explains how to judge a sample in the room's own light rather than under showroom lighting.
Written scope and estimate
You get a scope in writing that says what is being installed, where, in what sequence, what preparation is included, what is being removed and taken away, and what is priced as a variable because it cannot be seen yet. A number without that scope attached is not an estimate, it is a guess with a decimal point.
Ordering, dye lots and acclimation
Material is ordered with a waste allowance above the measured area, because planks get cut at every wall and patterns have to align. Cartons are checked for dye lot consistency on delivery rather than halfway through the second room. Where the product needs to acclimate, it is delivered ahead of the install and left in the space so its moisture content settles toward the conditions it will live in.
Preparation day
Protection goes in before any tools do: covered walkways, sealed doorways to rooms we are not touching, dust equipment set up. Old flooring comes out if that is part of the scope. Then the subfloor gets its final clean, a last flatness check, fasteners dealt with and any levelling or moisture mitigation completed. Nothing gets laid over a substrate that has not passed this stage.
Installation
Layout is planned dry first so colour and grain distribute across the room and end joints stagger properly. Then the field of the floor goes down, working out from a planned starting line rather than from whichever wall is closest. Expansion gaps are maintained around the entire perimeter and at every fixed obstruction. Cutting happens outside or in a contained area wherever the material and the weather allow.
Transitions, trim and the details
Doorways, thresholds and every change of material get the correct profile rather than a strip of moulding covering a bad cut. Door casings get undercut so the floor slides beneath them. Registers are cut around, not covered. Base or shoe moulding goes on last, fastened to the wall rather than through the floor, because a pinned floating floor has only one direction left to move.
Clean, walkthrough and handover
Offcuts and packaging are cleared, the site is vacuumed, and anything still curing is flagged so nobody walks on it. Then we walk the floor with you, in daylight, looking along the boards rather than down at them, because that is the angle that shows everything. You are told what the product needs in its first weeks, how to clean it, and what to do if something moves. Attic stock gets left where it makes sense, so a future repair matches.
Subfloor preparation, every time. It is invisible when it is finished, it adds a day, and it is the only thing standing between a floor that is still tight in fifteen years and one that hollows out, squeaks or gaps in its first winter. Once the new floor is on, that surface is unreachable without pulling the floor back up.
The six services, and what each one covers
Most jobs use two or three of these together. They are listed separately because they are scoped separately, not because they happen in isolation.
01. Flooring Installation
Laying a new floor where there is nothing to take out first: a new build, an addition, or a room already stripped back to the subfloor. The method follows the material, so the material decision comes before anything else. Nail-down, glue-down and floating floors each want a different subfloor condition, a different fastening plan and a different starting line, and all three want their layout planned dry before a single board is fixed. Everything that happens on site, from racking and stagger to expansion gaps, undercut casings and stair nosings, is set out on the flooring installation page.
02. Flooring Replacement
The same work with a tear-out in front of it. Most homes are replacing rather than installing, and the difference is not just an extra day. What comes out changes the height of the finished floor, exposes a subfloor nobody has seen in twenty years, and often turns up the reason the old floor failed. We sequence it so the room is out of use once rather than twice, which matters far more in a kitchen than in a spare bedroom. See how the phases fit together on the flooring replacement page.
03. Floor Removal
Tear-out, haul-away and a clean substrate to build on, scoped as its own piece of work because the effort varies enormously. Carpet and pad lift in strips. Floating laminate comes up in rows. Glued vinyl and tile set over a mortar bed are a different job entirely, with dust control, disposal volume and adhesive residue all in play. Sometimes the removal is the entire brief, with nothing going back down yet, and that is a perfectly normal thing to book. The floor removal page covers what each surface takes.
04. Residential Flooring
Homes, which means working around people, pets, pinch points and a kitchen that has to be usable again by a certain evening. A whole-house run of one material through the main living space is a different planning exercise from one bedroom, and stairs are their own discipline: every tread and riser is a fitted piece and the nosing is the most safety-critical trim on any job. Dust control, protected walkways and a room-by-room sequence are the parts people remember. More on the residential flooring page.
05. Commercial Flooring
Offices, retail, tenant fit-outs and the gap between one tenant leaving and the next one arriving. The constraints are different: the floor has to take rolling loads and chair castors rather than bare feet, the building has rules about noise, access and lifts, and the schedule is usually driven by a lease date rather than by convenience. Phasing the work so part of the space keeps operating is often the whole problem to solve. That planning is covered on the commercial flooring page.
06. Subfloor Preparation
The work nobody sees and everybody feels. Flatness checked against the tolerance the manufacturer actually specifies, moisture tested rather than guessed at, loose panels refastened into joists, high spots ground down, low spots filled with levelling compound, and a mitigation plan when a slab reads wet. This is the single biggest variable in any flooring estimate and the one that cannot be inspected in advance through an existing floor. What the testing involves is on the subfloor preparation page.
Which service you need, by situation
Find the line that sounds like your house or your unit. The right starting point is usually obvious once the situation is written down plainly.
| Your situation | Start here | What it usually involves |
|---|---|---|
| The existing floor is worn out but the structure is fine | Flooring replacement | Tear-out, disposal, subfloor correction and new floor in one sequence, so the room is out of use once |
| New build, addition or a room already stripped to the subfloor | Flooring installation | Measure, material selection, prep, layout and install, with no removal phase |
| Moving in and want it done before the furniture arrives | Flooring installation, whole-home | An empty house is the fastest and cleanest a floor will ever go in. Sequence the whole run of one material at once |
| The floor is failing early: cupping, gapping, hollow spots, peaking | Subfloor preparation | Diagnosis before anything else. Moisture readings, flatness, fastening and expansion gaps decide what the repair actually is |
| Commercial space between tenants | Commercial flooring | Phased to a lease date, planned around building access rules, specified for rolling loads and castors |
| Old tile or glued vinyl has to come up, nothing going back yet | Floor removal | Dust-controlled tear-out, adhesive or mortar bed dealt with, debris hauled away, substrate left ready |
| One room, a hallway or a set of stairs in an occupied home | Residential flooring | Protected walkways, contained work area, a room-by-room sequence that keeps the house usable |
| Slab reads damp, or it is a new pour | Subfloor preparation | Moisture testing and a mitigation plan agreed before any material is ordered, not after it arrives |
| Different rooms need different materials | Residential flooring | Transitions planned at doorways, heights reconciled, and the order of work set so trades do not undo each other |
What is standard, what is scoped separately, and what to ask
We are not going to publish a list of inclusions on a web page and let you assume it applies to your job, because scope is written per job and the honest answer to most of these is "it depends what we find". What we can do is tell you the questions that separate a real scope from a headline number. Ask these of us, and ask them of anyone else you are getting a number from.
- What happens if the subfloor fails? Ask specifically what changes if a moisture reading comes back out of tolerance or the floor is out of flat. If the answer is vague, the variation later will not be.
- Is removal and disposal included, and by volume or by area? Two layers of old material is not the same job as one, and haul-away has a real cost attached to it. Get it in the scope either way.
- Who moves furniture and appliances, and who disconnects them? Water and gas connections are the ones that matter. Settle this in writing at the measure rather than at eight in the morning on day one.
- How are transitions, thresholds and stair nosings handled? These are where jobs visibly cheapen out. Ask what profile goes where and whether trim is included or priced separately.
- What is the waste allowance, and is attic stock left behind? Ordering the exact measured area is how a job runs two rows short. Leftover material from the same dye lot is what makes a future repair invisible.
- What does the labour warranty cover, and how does it differ from the manufacturer warranty on the material? They are two separate documents covering two separate things, and most disputes live in the gap between them. Ask for both in writing. Our terms are set out in your scope: Add the written labour warranty terms.
- Who is actually doing the work? Ask whether the crew on site is the company you are contracting with. It changes accountability, and it is a fair question to ask anybody.
- What is the sequence, and what does each day look like? A schedule that exists only in someone's head is a schedule that slips. You should know which rooms are out of use, and when.
Two estimates for the same room can differ substantially and both be honest, because one includes levelling, disposal and trim and the other has quietly excluded all three. Before comparing numbers, line the scopes up next to each other and check that they describe the same job. If one is shorter, that is not efficiency, it is missing work that will reappear later.
Where to go next
If you already know the material, go straight to its page and read how it gets installed. If you do not, the flooring comparison puts hardwood, luxury vinyl plank, laminate, tile and carpet side by side on the properties that actually decide the choice, and it will get you down to two candidates in about five minutes.
If you would rather look at finished work first, our projects page shows completed rooms with the material and the situation noted. The about page explains how we run jobs and who you are dealing with. And when you are ready for a real number for your rooms, the estimate form takes a couple of minutes and gets you a scope rather than a headline figure.
Common questions about how we work
What is the difference between installation and replacement?
Installation covers laying a new floor where there is nothing to take out: a new build, an addition, or a room already stripped back to the subfloor. Replacement is the same work with a tear-out, disposal and subfloor correction phase in front of it. The sequencing is the real difference, because a replacement has to be planned so the room is out of use once rather than twice.
Does floor removal get quoted separately?
It is scoped separately even when it happens on the same job, because what is under the old floor is genuinely unknown until it comes up. Carpet and pad lift in minutes. Glued-down vinyl, tile set over a mortar bed and two or three stacked layers of old material remove at completely different speeds, and the disposal volume varies with them. Scoping it separately is what keeps it from becoming a surprise.
Does the subfloor always need work?
It always needs assessment. Whether it needs work depends on flatness measured against the tolerance the manufacturer actually specifies, on moisture readings, and on whether panels are sound and properly fastened. Plenty of subfloors need nothing but a clean. The point is that you only find out by checking, and the surface is unreachable once the new floor is on top of it.
Do we need to move furniture and appliances?
Who moves what should be agreed in writing at the measure, not on the morning of day one. Appliances need particular attention, because water and gas connections have to be disconnected and reconnected by someone competent to do it, and because a taller floor build-up can change whether a dishwasher still slides out from under the counter. That is measured before ordering, not discovered at install.
How soon can furniture go back on a new floor?
The product decides it, not the calendar. Floating floors are generally walkable straight away. Glue-down floors and tile have manufacturer cure schedules that have to be respected before heavy or rolling loads go on, and grout and sealer add their own waiting periods on top. Loading a floor before the adhesive has cured is one of the most common ways a good installation gets broken in its first week.
What should I ask any flooring installer before signing?
Ask what happens if the subfloor fails its moisture or flatness check, who moves furniture and appliances, whether removal and disposal are included, how transitions and stair nosings are handled, what the waste allowance is, and what the labour warranty covers separately from the manufacturer warranty on the material. Get every answer into the written scope. A verbal yes has no scope attached to it.