What flooring installation actually covers
Flooring installation is the whole sequence that turns a bare subfloor into a finished surface you can live on: assessing what is underneath, testing it, correcting it, laying out the material so it looks right, fastening it by the method the product requires, and finishing every edge where the floor meets something else. The visible part, boards going down, is the smallest share of the work and the least likely part to go wrong.
This is the service for a new build, an addition, a gut renovation, or any room where the old surface is already out. If the existing floor is still in place, you want flooring replacement, which folds tear-out and disposal into the same visit. If the tear-out is the only thing you need, floor removal handles it on its own.
Homeowners taking delivery of a new build with plywood underfoot. Anyone who has already stripped a room back. Landlords turning over a unit. Anyone whose contractor has framed and drywalled and now needs a floor before the trim carpenter arrives. If the room is empty and the subfloor is exposed, this is the job.
The four ways a floor gets fastened
Nearly every flooring product on the market attaches to the building in one of four ways. The method is not a preference. It is dictated by the product, the subfloor and whether the room is above or below grade, and choosing wrong is the root cause of most callbacks in this trade.
Nail or staple down drives fasteners at an angle through the tongue of each board into a wood subfloor. It is the traditional method for solid hardwood and it produces a floor that is mechanically part of the structure. It needs a wood subfloor of adequate thickness. Over concrete it is not an option unless a wood layer is built first.
Glue down bonds the flooring to the subfloor with a trowelled adhesive. It is the quietest underfoot, the most stable, and the standard approach for engineered wood over a slab, for most commercial vinyl, and for tile in the sense that thinset is an adhesive. It is also the least forgiving of a dirty or damp surface, because the bond is only as good as what it is bonding to.
Floating click means the boards lock to each other and to nothing else. The floor sits on the subfloor as one large panel and moves as one. It suits laminate and most rigid core vinyl, goes over more substrates than any other method, and is the fastest to install. It is also the fussiest about flatness, because a hollow underneath lets the joint flex until it separates.
Loose lay uses the weight and friction of a heavy backed vinyl to hold the floor in place, usually with adhesive only around the perimeter and in doorways. It is a specialist method for rooms where you might want to lift and replace planks later, and it needs a flat, clean substrate to behave.
| Method | Typically used for | Subfloor it needs | Strengths | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nail or staple | Solid hardwood, some engineered | Wood, above grade, dry | Solid underfoot, structurally integrated, long life | No slabs without a built-up wood layer |
| Glue down | Engineered wood, vinyl plank and tile, sheet goods | Wood or concrete, clean, dry, flat | Quietest, most dimensionally stable, works below grade | Unforgiving of moisture and contamination, slow to remove later |
| Floating click | Laminate, rigid core vinyl, some engineered | Almost anything sound and flat | Fast, no adhesive, goes over many existing surfaces | Tightest flatness tolerance, hollower sound, needs full perimeter gap |
| Loose lay | Heavy backed vinyl plank and tile | Clean, flat, smooth | Individual planks replaceable, minimal adhesive | Product specific, poor over uneven or dusty substrates |
How we test before anything goes down
Two numbers decide whether an installation succeeds: moisture and flatness. Both get measured, both get written down, and neither gets guessed at.
Moisture testing
Concrete slabs are tested, not assumed. A slab can look and feel bone dry on the surface while pushing vapour up through it continuously, and adhesive is what pays for that. The two standard tests are a calcium chloride test, which measures how much moisture vapour comes out of a set area over a set period, and an in-situ relative humidity probe, which is drilled into the slab to read the humidity inside it rather than at the surface. In-situ RH is the more reliable of the two because it reads the body of the slab, not just its face.
Wood gets a different instrument. A pin meter drives two probes into the board and reads the electrical resistance between them. A pinless meter reads dielectrically through the surface without marking it. Either way we take readings on the flooring and on the subfloor and compare them, because the difference between the two matters as much as either number on its own.
Flatness
Flatness is checked with a long straightedge and feeler gauges, or with a rotary laser on bigger areas. Manufacturers write their tolerance as a maximum deviation across a stated span, most commonly something in the region of 3/16 inch over 10 feet, or 1/8 inch over 6 feet for tighter products. A short straightedge on a wavy floor will pass everywhere and still be wrong, which is why the span matters as much as the number.
Where the floor is out, it gets corrected with a self-levelling compound in the dips or by grinding the high spots. That work is covered in detail on our subfloor preparation page, and on a lot of jobs it is the single largest line item nobody expected.
Wood is delivered ahead of the install and left in the room, unwrapped and stacked so air moves through it, until its moisture content settles toward the conditions of the space. Rooms need to be at normal living temperature and humidity for that to mean anything, which is why acclimating boards in an unheated house in February achieves nothing. Rigid core vinyl usually needs a day at room temperature and some needs none. The manufacturer's instruction is the rule, and ignoring it is a warranty exclusion.
Layout, and why racking matters
Before a single board is fastened, material comes out of multiple cartons and gets laid out dry. That does two things. It spreads colour and grain variation across the room instead of leaving one dark patch where a single carton landed, and it lets us plan the end joints.
End joints get staggered so no two adjacent rows break in the same place, and so the offsets do not form a visible diagonal stair pattern down the room. Most manufacturers specify a minimum offset, often six or eight inches, sometimes more for wide plank. We also plan the first and last row together, because a room that starts with a full plank at the door frequently ends with a two inch sliver at the far wall, and that sliver is the row everybody stares at.
Direction is decided at this stage too. Running boards along the longest dimension of the room usually reads best. Running them perpendicular to floor joists is a structural preference for nail-down work. Where the two conflict, the joists normally win, or an underlayment layer is added to resolve it.
Edges, gaps and everything the floor meets
A hard floor has to be free to grow and shrink. That means an expansion gap around the entire perimeter, at every door jamb, around pipes, at columns, and at any point where the floor meets something that will not move. The gap is covered by base or shoe moulding sitting on the floor, not fastened through it. Filling that gap with caulk or grout pins the floor, and a pinned floating floor has only one direction left to go: up, in the middle.
Large runs need more than a perimeter gap. Most floating products specify a maximum continuous length or area before an intermediate expansion joint is required, and long narrow spaces through doorways are the classic place where that gets skipped and the floor later peaks at the threshold.
Where the new floor meets a different material or a different height, it gets a proper profile rather than a strip of moulding covering a bad cut. A T-moulding joins two floors of equal height. A reducer steps down to something thinner. A threshold or end cap closes the floor against a fixed edge like a sliding door track. Stair nosing caps the leading edge of a tread and is the single most safety-relevant trim on the job, so it gets fastened properly rather than glued and hoped for.
Door casings get undercut, not scribed around. We use an undercut saw with a scrap of the flooring and underlayment as a height gauge, cut the casing, and slide the flooring underneath. Scribing a plank around the profile of a moulding is slower, looks worse, and leaves no room for movement. If a door itself no longer clears the new floor height, it comes off and gets trimmed.
What a day on site looks like
Protection first
Paths in and out get covered, doorways to rooms we are not touching get sealed, and dust equipment goes in before any cutting starts. Furniture and appliances are already out per the plan agreed at the measure.
Prep, then lay
Subfloor gets a final clean and a last flatness check, fasteners and high spots are dealt with, underlayment or adhesive goes down, then the floor gets laid working out from the planned starting line.
Clean at close
Offcuts and packaging are cleared, the site gets vacuumed, and anything left curing overnight is flagged so nobody walks on it. You are told what the next day covers before we leave.
Cutting happens outside or in a contained area wherever the material and weather allow, because dust travels much further than people expect and tile and laminate dust are both unpleasant. Trim and transitions go on last, after the field of the floor is complete, so nothing is fitted to a dimension that later changes.
What goes wrong, and how it gets handled
Most problems on an installation are discovered, not created. Here are the ones that come up repeatedly.
- The slab fails its moisture test. Work stops on that material until a mitigation is agreed: a moisture barrier membrane, a different adhesive system, or a change to a product that tolerates the reading. Laying over a failing slab is how you get a floor that debonds in a year.
- The subfloor is out of flat. It gets levelled or ground. This is normal and it is quoted as a variable at the measure rather than as a surprise on day two.
- Squeaks and movement. Loose subfloor panels get refastened into the joists before anything covers them. Once the floor is on, that access is gone.
- Height at doorways and appliances. A new floor build-up can be higher than the old one. Dishwashers, in particular, can end up trapped under a counter. This gets measured before ordering, not discovered at install.
- Material damaged or short. Cartons get inspected on delivery. Ordering includes an allowance for cuts and waste, and dye lot consistency is checked before laying rather than after.
Before we finish, we walk the floor with you. Sight down it in the light from the windows, which is where anything worth pointing out will show. We cover care for the specific surface you chose, hand over leftover material for future repairs, and note anything that needs a return visit. Raising something at the walkthrough is far easier than raising it a month later.
Choosing what to install
The install method follows the material, so the material decision comes first. Hardwood is the only floor here you can sand back and start over rather than replace, and it belongs above grade on a dry wood subfloor unless you go engineered. Luxury vinyl plank has a waterproof core and is the default answer for kitchens, baths and basements. Laminate gives you the hardest wear layer for the money in dry rooms. Tile is unaffected by water and is the right call in a full bath. Carpet still does something no hard surface can in bedrooms and on stairs.
If you want the five laid out against each other before you decide, the flooring comparison puts them side by side. Tell us the rooms and how they get used and we will narrow it for you.
Common questions about installation
How long does a flooring installation take?
It depends on square footage, material and how much prep the subfloor needs. A single room of floating floor over a flat, dry subfloor can be a one-day job. A whole floor of nail-down hardwood with acclimation, levelling and trim runs several days. Prep is what moves the schedule most, which is why we measure and test before quoting a duration rather than after.
Does new flooring have to acclimate before installation?
Wood does, and most manufacturers require it in writing. Boards are delivered ahead of the install and left in the room so their moisture content settles toward the conditions they will live in. Many rigid core vinyl products only need a day at room temperature, and some need none. The manufacturer's instruction governs, because ignoring it is a warranty exclusion.
How flat does a subfloor need to be?
Manufacturers write the tolerance as a maximum deviation across a span, commonly around 3/16 inch over 10 feet or 1/8 inch over 6 feet. We measure it with a straightedge and feeler gauges or a laser, not by eye. Floating floors are the least forgiving, because an unsupported hollow lets the locking joint flex until it fails.
Can you install new flooring over my existing floor?
Sometimes. A floating floor can go over sound, flat, well bonded existing material if the added height still clears doors, appliances and stair risers. Nail-down hardwood almost always needs the old surface out so it can fasten into a proper wood subfloor. Carpet, cushioned sheet vinyl and anything loose or hollow always comes out. If it does, our floor removal service takes care of it.
Do I need to move the furniture myself?
Rooms need to be empty before we start, and we agree in advance who is emptying them. Electronics, valuables and anything fragile are best moved by the household. Appliances, doors that come off their hinges and toilets sitting on the floor being replaced are all site conditions we scope during the measure so nothing is a surprise on day one.
What is an expansion gap, and why does my floor need one?
Every hard floor changes size slightly with temperature and humidity. The expansion gap is deliberate space between the field of the floor and every fixed object: walls, columns, jambs, pipes and thresholds. Base or shoe moulding covers it. It never gets filled with caulk or grout, because a floating floor pinned at its edges has only one direction left to move, which is up in the middle.
What to do next
Send us the rooms, the rough square footage and what is currently on the floor. If you already know the material, say so. If you do not, describe how the rooms get used and we will shortlist. From there we measure on site, test what needs testing, and come back with a scope that separates material, labour and prep so you can see what you are paying for. Start the estimate here.