Can wooden flooring really cost that much?

[Loulou000]

We just got a quote for replacing the carpet in our hallway with wood. It's a four bed terrace house, so the hallway is not like giant or anything, and the quote is for £2.4k. I can't believe it. This is for engineered wood that is distressed to look old, and is £95 a metre. That still leaves something like £1.4 for fitting. I can't believe it! Is this normal? Wishing I had not taken up the carpet now before finding out how much it would cost to replace!!!!

We are having our hallway, dining room and kitchen refloored and have been quoted £1900 all in by our builders. This is for approx 40sqm, we are having bamboo which is about £30 per sqm. Obviously this is a lot cheaper than the wood floor you are going for but the amount you have been quoted for fitting still seems excessive. Maybe try to get a few more quotes and hopefully you can find someone a lot more reasonable.

Engineered wood flooring is very expensive. Is there a laminate version that looks similar?

We bought up some wicks end of line wooden flooring (not laminate or engineered) for about £25 per sqm.

I've been looking too.
I found quite a few oak lines for about £45m2, plus fitting. I suggest you get some more quotes.

Goodness me, I think I'd better get some more quotes.

Fitting costs are often similar to the actual wood. Expect at least £30/£40 per sq m for the fitting.

Thats seems very expensive both for the wood and the fitting. My H fitted the flooring in our hall - hes a competent DIYer but its not massively difficult.

If it helps - weve just had engineered floors fitted and were told the going rate for fitting was £15-£20 per sq m. Got four quotes and they all fell into that bracket.

I have solid oak through out downstairs. It cost about 6k six years ago, but does still look great. We just redid the kitchen in November, it cost 35 for solid oak per metre , plus 12 fitting. We are in edinburgh and used a local supplier rather than a big chain.

Ask the person who quotes why it is so expensive. Does it include underlay or any other factors that are not listed on the quote and you did not realise?

I wanted prime (hardly any knots) oak so paid about 55 per sqm for engineered wood 21mm thick so a few mils re resandable - bought online.
Two adjoining rooms, 5 x 4m and 3 x 2m fitting cost 900. That included underlay, poly sheets, glue, wooden thresholds new skirting boards etc. Used indie carpenter.

I have beautiful oak flooring in 3 rooms downstairs (large rooms). Cost around 4 grand about six years ago. Worth every penny IMO.

we have engineered oak in our kitchen/diner which is about 40sqm, and paid about £2K including underlay and fitting. I haggled very hard! It looks amazing, and is thicker than most others we looked at so we can pay someone to resand up to 4 times apparently. I would look around and get other quotes as you seem to be paying a fortune for a hallway.

You have been quoted a high price probably because of the distressed finish and my guess is that it is a plank (wide) floor not a strip (2 or 3 strips to a plank width) floor. I have just had a look at a large flooring company based in Daventry, Northamtonshire (1934 Trading) and they have loads of oak floors for £30 m3 upwards, but not planks and not distressed. You can easily lower the price if you are prepared to compromise. Will you need to remove the skirting boards and refit over the floor. Does the floor need levelling? Wood is unforgiving and will bounce if floor is uneven. Don't have beading to join the floor to the skirting. It looks awful. It is vital to take the skirting up and put the flooring under the skirting. This is expensive. Is this part of your fitting quote? What about how the wood joins other flooring? How are you doing the thresholds? You could get another carpet!

Thanks all for the very useful comments. Particularly interested to hear that beading looks awful as TBH I was considering this as one way of lowering the cost! Going to ask for a breakdown of the quote…

We've got distressed oak engineered wood which was just over 3k for about 50 square metres. I definitely think you can do it cheaper.

Our skirting boards we're horrible so we had them removed and new ones refitted over the new floor. It looks much better than beading. Definitely worth costing up.

We have oiled solid Canadian maple through our ground floor (except kitchen). Cost thousands, looks fantastic. We have re sanded once in 7 years and it came up like new.
I have to say though, I do regret having wood in the hall. I think tiles are a much more practical choice.

Moomin can I ask what difficulties you have with wood in the hallway?

I agree re wood in hallway as you can't wash it as easily as tiles (risk of warping) and small stones/mud scratches it. We now use our tiled utility room as our main entrance to reduce this rather than the door straight into the hall.

is laminate a better option then? or des that warp as well?

Yes exactly what Choccy said. I have a no shoes indoors rule, but it still gets scratched and dirty. I have ended up using carpet runner over the highest traffic areas, which rather defeats the point if paying a lot of money for a gorgeous floor. Plus it is more of a pain to hoover.
Next house I am having tiles.

We have oak in the hallway and it has been totally fine- although it is highly lacquered. Agree definitely need to take skirting boards off! We ended up just buying new ones and the man that fitted them back on didn't charge any extra.

We have solid bamboo (highly lacquered too).

Milly Molly do you mean 1926 trading company ltd in daventry? You must be near me, they do a distressed Tuscan range and it is described as hand distressed , did you manage to negotiate a discount?