Bit woah at cost of fitting vinyl flooring!

[Sallycinnamum]

We are having 35sqm of Camaro herringbone flooring fitted downstairs.

The flooring is coming in at approx £500 but I'd be interested to know if the fitter costs are reasonable.

He's given us a quote of £500 to fit the vinyl and £300 for the smoothing compound with another £130 to apply the compound so £930.

We're in the london suburbs and he does come highly recommended but the fitting costs were a bit of a surprise. Is this about right price wise?

Having our Herringbone fitted ended up costing £850 (North of England) it was a big surprise to us too and we wouldn't have gone for Herringbone had we realised the cost to fit before purchasing.

It does however look lovely.

I have had experience of both very good fitters of this kind of flooring, and a cheaper fitter. The difference is very, very obvious. If it were me, and I could afford it, I would pay the difference.

LVT is famously costly to fit

I appreciate a great deal of skilled work goes into fitting it but I was a bit gobsmacked at the cost, which is why I wanted to get other people's opinions. Seems maybe that is roughly the right price then.

You need to level, then wait a day. Then do the tiles. The pattern is demanding.

@BarbarAnna well part of the reason we have to have new flooring is our ceramic tiles weren't fitted very well and have moved so much they've cracked so you're bang on about paying for a decent fitter.

We were quoted over £1k to supply and fit karndean in our study. No special pattern. So I am not surprised.

We don’t have any flooring in there still!

My husband is a flooring fitter and we too are in a London suburb. I've checked the figures very quickly and tbh they seem about right. Two visits will have to be made. One for the screeding and then one for the fitting. Therefore two days wages. My husband too is highly recommended and decent fitters are demand atm. I hope you enjoy your new floor.

We had about 45 sq m and cost just under 3k in herringbone. Knocked me sideways when I first started getting quotes. We're in East London.

Thanks for your replies-its really useful and thanks @muttonjeffmum from a fitter's viewpoint. Looks like it's about right then. Better raid the piggy bank!

This is why we are going for sheet vinyl flooring (decent quality and plank wood effect) it will come in at around a third of the cost of lvt, and whilst it might not last as well I'm not convinced lvt will last 3 times longer.

We have herringbone effect lino in the kitchen which is 30 years old and knowing the previous owner probably the cheapest they could get, and whilst it isn't in perfect condition now, it doesn't look terrible.

I’m paying pretty much the same, an hour north of London.

The screed cost is frustrating as the cost of the compound is really cheap. But I personally feel like if I tried to use self levelling on the floor myself, I would end up in a right mess! So happy to pay for someone not to mess it up!

When you look at it as a day rate I think it’s fair for someone you know will do a good job.

We've had two more guys out today so I'll see what their quotes are like but dont expect them to be any cheaper (prob more expensive!)

One of them told me he's spent the last 30 years ripping parquet herringbone out as it went out of fashion and 9 out of his 10 jobs now are putting it back in!

@Sallycinnamum that’s funny 😄 We have our original parquet still and I love it

We had vinyl put down at £13/msq and labour at £14/msq. If we'd gone for LVT it would have been at least £27/msq for the flooring and at least that again for the fitting.

Our living room is 35msq - I'm too scared to consider LVT or actual wood for fear of the cost!

250 a day labour costs here in Yorkshire plus all materials. DS has just had a 16x12 foot living room done in Polyfloor vinyl like planks including all the floor plyboarded underneath and the joints screened for £833.OO.

I Paid £750 for Karndean herringbone in an area less than half the size with the same fitter and same preparation. Herringbone takes time and the product is expensive too.

I’d say that’s cheap, if anything. For LVT to look good it needs top notch prep and laying and that’s where the cost is. Even the high end products are relatively inexpensive to buy, but fitting properly comes at a price

@StormBaby when we bought our house (a 1930s semi) I was convinced when we ripped up the manky carpets there would be beautiful parquet underneath but sadly just old floorboards.

When we removed the ply board covering the fireplace we were convinced there would be a beautiful er fireplace behind. Of course not, it was a hole in the wall covered in soot!

The previous owners ripped anything original out so local tradesmen have done well out of us in the past 8 years!

We got quoted £22k to supply and fit amtico to the downstairs of our house. We went with standard cushion flooring (on a roll rather than individual tiles) with was much, much cheaper. Paid £8k for the entire house incl 80/20 wool carpets and underlay upstairs, floor levelling and screed.
This is in the North East. So no I'm not surprised at your quoted fitting cost.