Does this company not want our business?

[Daisyismynameorisnot]

Ok we are looking to replace some flooring. It's not a big area and we went to a local company for a quote (small respectable business local to us). They came out and measured up and then sent a quote. The quote was not cheap exactly but as it was for quality I was willing to pay and see the flooring last well. Here's the thing. The quote excludes bringing up the existing flooring. So we need to bring the existing flooring up ourselves and scrape off anything that is already on the floor. It feels an odd thing to do given the guy who visited said most of what we will pay for is their time. Is this normal? I have this gut feeling that the job is not big enough for this supplier and that they don't actually want our business. We did query it and the response was that it takes a long time to bring flooring up and they might not do it properly?? I am so confused by this?

We had new flooring recently and needed to do the same. To give a clear work area.

It's a lot easier to lay new flooring on a clean subfloor, so it isn't too surprising that they aren't interested in removing existing stuff first. They get to dictate the terms they're willing to work under.

You could always try and get a quote from an odd job person for removing the old floor if you don't want to do it yourself.

Sorry and my AIBU are....

No you're not being unreasonable: they are clearing trying to avoid doing the job.

Your being unreasonable: this is normal. A flooring company doesn't pull up your old floor

It's vinyl by the way.

Ok thanks. It's good to know what the norm is. I just had a feeling that the guy couldn't be bothered with us really which perhaps didn't help. Polite on the surface but it was that good old gut feeling. It's quite a nice shop and we don't pull off a very 'posh' look.

I think they’re offering you much better value than a quote which includes taking up the existing flooring and prepping the subfloor. As they say, most of what you pay for is their time / labour - and removal and prep takes quite a bit of time but ultimately not much skill, yet you’d pay fitters the same hourly rate for this unskilled work as for the skilled fitting and finishing.

When we have had new flooring we pulled up the old one and brushed it (no need to scrape). The new floor man levelled it before fitting

When we renovated we bought a couple of hoes (fnar fnar), a case of beer and a couple of friends who had volunteered to help came over to lift all the old wood and floor tile. It made light work of a dirty but pretty straightforward job. Would recommend!

We've always taken up old flooring