Are engineered wood floors really expensive?

[Cailleachian]

I had some workmen out today to quote for a couple of different bits of maintainance, one of which was laying an engineered wood floor.

The quotes for the other elements were quite reasonable, but the fitting was £3k, and no that defo doesnt include supply, which would be an additional £7k. The area to be floored is approx 50m2.

Is this reasonable - I was expecting to pay perhaps 2k for supply and fitting. The fact that his other quotes were about what I was expecting has led me to question if my expectations are out of line

I had engineered herringbone laid around 8yrs ago, 33m2 ish and that was around £5k (not inc the flooring)! I would expect planks to be cheaper to fit especially if wider width, as herringbone is more complicated and takes more time to plan and lay.

Once you included the respective costs of fitting, 12mm laminate turned out to be 10% of (not 10% less) the cost of engineered wood. Couldn't see any difference when holding the samples side by side so went for laminate.

We bought the wood from discount flooring.uk then poached a fitter from carpet right. He only charged a day rate. 400 I think for two days for 4 rooms about 40sqm.

Wow @LynneBenfield £5k for fitting!! I guess Herringbone is lovely tho and probably does require a higher skill level.

@Luckydog7 £800 for fitting seems much more reasonable. I had it in my head that the flooring would cost around £1.5K + 0.5K for fitting, but looking at some sites, I can see that I havent really considered inflation, its been a while since I had a floor done.

I had a look at a couple of sale site and I'm being quoted £34m2 for this oak flooring, which would give me a floor cost of around £1.7k, adding in underlay etc would probably take that up to £2k....to pay an additional £3k for fitting seems very high.

It was nuts, looking back. It still looks great today but five thousand pounds is a LOT of money

Not what you asked but I wanted to add, I DO NOT recommend an engineered wood floor. We bought a quality one that is thick enough to be sanded twice in the future should we want to. I thought being engineered meant it wouldn't expand & contract. Well it does and it's very annoying. I'll never have engineered wood again.

Oh, thanks for that @Spliffle would you just go with laminate then?

I'd love a real wood floor, but thats way out of my budget

We had wooden parquet engineered wood flooring put down throughout a 1 bed flat 2 years ago, cost 15k. Absolute arm and a leg. This was in London and we explored all options but all quotes were high.

We had wooden parquet engineered wood flooring put down throughout a 1 bed flat 2 years ago, cost 15k. Absolute arm and a leg. This was in London and we explored all options but all quotes were high.

I was worried about the expanding and contracting but ours hasn’t at all or if it has I can’t see it.

From memory ours was about £5k all in for 45sqm but it was 5 years ago and part of a much larger project. The floor itself cost about £2.5k of that.

@Cailleachian
We have loads of engineered wood in two houses. None of it has moved. The only issue we have is that one floor is by an outside door and the lacquer top coat is obviously worn. It needs maintenance but it’s 14 years old. We just need to get round to restoring the lacquer.

Of it “moves” TA either not laid properly or it’s getting damp snd then drying out.

It is expensive to lay. What about skirting? Is that coming off snd being replaced? What about levelling and underlay? Wood is a better product than laminate but Amtico might suit you? Depends what room and usage in my view. We have it in higher use areas in our holiday house. It’s not cheap though! Laying isn’t much different in terms of process and cost.

£7k to supply the floor is outrageous. It certainly doesn’t cost £140/m2, even with any adhesives etc. I’d suggest £2-2500 for the materials plus 2-3 days labour (going rate £2-£300/ day) so total of between £2600-£3400 should be the rough ball park.

I’m a project manager, so subcontract this kind of work out regularly.

I've fitted our own engineered wood floors in 4 different rooms now. Never done a herringbone, but fitting is very simple to do if you have the time and the tools. I can't believe the rates you're being quoted! It's not a skilled job. I should consider a change of career!

With regards to expanding and contracting, you must ensure that the fitter removes the skirting and leaves an adequate expansion gap around the perimeter.
In our new house, the previous owner had engineered wood put into the large lounge 18 months ago. The fitter did not remove the skirting, fitted the planks right up to the skirting and then used dreadful beading to disguise. The floor has already buckled due to expansion.
Please make sure that whoever fits your floor leaves an expansion gap and doesn't cut corners by not removing the skirting!

We have engineered oak flooring through our living room, hall and kitchen (in a flat) - I would never get it again. It marks so badly, especially in the kitchen, even dropping a fork can mark it. And you have to obsessively make sure all furniture has the felt covers on the feet

We’ve had one in our kitchen for 12 years and it’s held up really well. No issues and it wasn’t particularly expensive.

We have just laid engineered wood (herringbone) and it's definitely not cheap. We paid 6k for the wood and £2600 for fitting. Much more than I expected but was 90sqm and I couldn't get past the plastic feel of LVT.

Thanks all.

I'm kindof torn now. If I'm going to have to pay nearly 3k for fitting, I cant afford engineered floor and need to step back to laminate, but then paying more for fitting than for flooring seems ridiculous, so maybe I should just chuck a couple of rugs down and save my pennies for 6 months or so.

We laid our own engineered wood across 4 rooms (approx 70m2) after getting quotes for about £2-3k to lay. We took the skirting off and replaced with hardwood. It took ages as we had the kids & work but it looks great and will last for ages. As pp said, you need to lay it correctly, with expansion gaps, and prepare the subfloor properly. It’s the most stable type of wood flooring, so shouldn’t be moving at all, and will last longer than laminate.

have the contractors done a site recce? It’s possibly the quotes are high because your current floor needs work to make it level.

But if you have a decent, level floor, it’s incredibly easy to DIY if you buy the floating clock system type.

If you don’t want to DIY, look around for more quotes - £7k is insane and suggest they don’t want the job. I think your instinct about not spending that much to lay laminate is spot on - it might not look much different but it’ll wear poorly and won’t last. Engineered wood should outlast you.

I paid £400 for mine (about 40msq), and laid it myself. It's pretty easy apart from cutting out the fiddly bits to go round doorways! It took me 2 long days to do.

Those people who say their floor marks easily- did you go for the lacquered version? Mine is brushed and oiled, and marks and scratches show mercifully little. It still looks as good as the day I laid it (except, as oak, the patina has deepened).

We’ve had solid wood, engineered wood and LVT. Going for LVT again. Solid wood hates temperature changes or a bit of damp (period house), engineered wood looks lovely but has the same tread as laminate, just costs way more. Going back to LVT for combined look/durability and cost. The tread gives you the more solid feel laminate and engineered wood don’t.

Here’s a quote I got just today:

i asked for a quote for the whole upstairs of our wee cottage to be done - look like it’s been measured at 50m2.

Just for comparison sake! This is too expensive for me - with it being an old draughty property I may switch back to carpets.

I’m such a dunce I thought Antico was engineered wood, but the surveyor said it was LVT (luxury vinyl tiles) - seemed like wood to me in the storeroom!

5 years on our kitchen laminate looks appaling in places, my biggest regret is not getting it tiled. In some places the picture has worn off and it's white and in others it's chipped off and we can see mdf round the edges, then some of that got wet and swelled up.

My engineered wood doesn’t look like or sound like laminate at all, why would it?

Engineered wood has a real wood surface layer (better quality ones have thicker surface layers so that they can be sanded), so has the appearance of wood. It doesn’t have the gappy appearance of an old wood floor, agreed, but good quality engineered wood looks the same as a modern solid wood floor. Mine doesn’t have that hollow sound that I associate with laminate either because the blocks are thick, not thin flimsy laminate boards and the engineered layers are solidly glued together.

When we had engineered wood planks laid in our big kitchen extension the builder just laid them himself, didn't seem difficult and took him about a day (not all in one go as working around the other work.)
They just slotted together in The same way as the laminate ones in the utility... 5k seems a LOT