Hardwood floor installation cost varies a great deal depending on the layout of your home. How much cutting etc needs to be done while installing your floor is also a factor. Installation is the next biggest cost that you will need to consider. Installing hardwood in a rectangular room of some kind, is relatively inexpensive. On the other hand if there are hallways or curved walls the amount of cutting and fitting is going to increase.
Hardwood Floor Installation Cost – Issues to Consider
The following are a couple of issues to consider when deciding to install hardwood flooring.
Stairways are The most Expensive Per Square Foot
The same thing applies to stairs when installing hardwood flooring on stair risers. Stairs that are straight with each riser being exactly the same can be cut and installed relatively easily. The challenge comes when you install risers on a stairway that is curved. Each riser is a different size and will also be an odd size. The riser must be custom made to fit the step. Then it must be fitted into the step to match all of the other. This takes extra time to measure, manufacture and cut to the exact width and depth of the stairway.
Anyone who is planning to do their own installation may want to get help with a curved stairway. The measuring and cutting must be exact and you need to have the right tools to do this work. An experienced floor installer will be able to install the stairs faster. Select your floor installer with care. Confirm their experience before giving them the job of installing your hardwood floor on your stairs.
Minimize the Cutting and Improve the look of the Floor
Cutting and measuring is typically what takes all of the time when it comes to installing a hardwood floor. The choices you make in regards to which direction the flooring will run will play a big part in the labor cost. Let’s consider a hallway as an example.
To begin you must coordinate the direction of the floor with other rooms in your home, especially if all rooms and hallways will be hardwood flooring. Typically most people will run the floor along the longest direction. This has the effect of making the room look a bit larger from an optical perspective while at the same time minimizing the amount of cutting that needs to be done. Adjacent hallways may have the floor run in the same direction or they may run perpendicular to the room that the hallway connects with.
Consider Direction Carefully
Consumers will never want hardwood flooring to run across the hallway. It should always run parallel to the hallways length to make the hallway look larger and to also enable full appreciation of the floor. This has the effect of significantly reducing the cutting and fitting required also. More cutting and fitting will take more time and increase your installation cost.
In situations where two hallways run into each other in a ninety degree corner, a choice should be made to decide which hallway will have the floor run parallel to the longest length of the hallway and which one will have the flooring run across the shortest width of the hallway. We had exactly this situation on our own home and chose to run the floor parallel with the longest hallway which was also part of the main entrance to our home. This gives a nice long view of the hardwood floor and makes the hallway look larger than it is. The other hallway leads to the laundry room and the garage and is not nearly as important in terms of the way the home looks. It is also shorter and did not impact the installation cost of the hardwood floor significantly.
Interfaces to Other Flooring Materials
You may have carpet in some rooms or tile or marble in entrance areas. Wherever the hardwood floor will meet these other flooring types and interface to this floor must be installed so that there is an easy transition from one floor to the other and the actual joint is seamless. These also take a little more time to install and require special materials to make them look perfect. Your hardwood floor provider can help you select these materials. Your installer will be able to install them with no problems. They do take a little more time and will add slightly to the cost of installing your hardwood floor.
When you request an estimate for installation, you may want the installer to break down all of these costs so that you can assess what is being charged for each area. Then you can make an informed decision regarding whether you want to proceed or not with your hardwood floor installation.
January 27th, 2013 on 6:15 am
Installing hardwood floors is hard work. I am going to get some one to install them for me
December 17th, 2012 on 2:34 pm
This is a really great web site on hardwood floors, thankyou for putting this together. Keep up the good work!