Consumers who have decided to install hardwood floors in their homes must also decide what hardwood flooring contractors they will hire. In most cases the store they purchase the hardwood from can also provide installation services for them. They are providing a list of subcontractors that have been vetted by the store. Most hardwood stores will only recommend hardwood flooring contractors that they have experience with and who they can count on to do a good quality job and who also stand behind their work. After all their reputation is on the line as well, since if they have a dissatisfied customer, it will not matter whether it is with the material or the subcontractor, the store is still going to get a bad reputation.
However everyone has to begin somewhere and this is also true of hardwood flooring contractors. They need to gain experience and sometimes will work under another professional hardwood flooring installer to learn the trade. They may work together until the contractor has sufficient experience that they feel they can go out on their own and take on their own contracts. The questions for consumers is whether you want to be part of the training period when you are probably spending thousands of dollars on a new hardwood floor.
Questions for Hardwood Flooring Contractors
We put together several questions that will hopefully help consumers when they are hiring hardwood flooring contractors or even just going with the contractor that the store recommends.
- How Long have you been laying hardwood floors?
- How many installations have you completed on your own?
- Can you provide references that are willing to speak with us?
- Do you warranty your work?
- When will the work begin?
- When will you finish?
- Will you stay on our contract until it is finished?
- What precautions do you take to avoid dust in our home
- What precautions do you take to avoid damage to other parts of our home
- Do you clean up all sawdust and board ends that may be left over
Squeaky Floors and Hardwood Flooring Contractors
You may have other concerns or questions that you also want to ask the contractor that we have not listed. let us know what they are and we will add them to the list for other readers. Some home owners will request the contractor to explain how they will go about the installation, which way will the grain of the floor flow, how does the grain flow relative to the joists underneath and so on. For example, your floor will gain maximum strength of the hardwood strips flow across the joists underneath the floor. this can be very important if you want to minimize squeaks in your floor. Most floors will squeak at some point and in one or two locations. In fact our floor squeaks in the winter time when the humidity in the house is the driest and the wood shrinks a bit because it is so dry.
It also squeaks in the hallway and nowhere else for some reason that we have not been able to figure out and only in the winter time as we explained. This is one of the weird things about our home and it will be a different location and even a different time of the year for your home. Having the contractor explain how he will install your floor will tell you a lot. If he does not mention installing across the joists, then you may want to add some probing questions of your own to see if he really knows what he is doing. Another point is that I like the contractor to set up his saw outside to minimize the dust in the house.
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Feel free to leave comments for our readers about your own experiences and any suggestions that you may want to leave for our readers. We can all assist each other to avoid situations that are less than what many people would like to experience with hardwood flooring contractors.