Floor Installation Quotes

As expected the quote for installing the floor by the company who did the detailed moisture content analysis was the most expensive. One of the others has not responded at all and the 3rd appears very cheap. We are going to accept the expensive one on the basis that they are specialists and seem to know what they are doing.

The proposal seems to be that they will use a damp-proof membrane to isolate the new floor from the existing sub-floor and it's varying moisture content, float the floor on the concrete areas (i.e. no fixings at all) and angle-nail through the tongue of the T&G boards on the wooden subfloor.

Another benefit of this company is that they claim to be able to under-cut the skirting boards to slide the flooring under them in order to avoid having to cover the required expansion gap with beading around the edges of the room. Jan and I still can't get to grips with this idea of the need for an expansion gap. In our experience with wooden floors they only ever seem to shrink, not expand. We can only assume that these organisations like to cover themselves against the effects of leaking washing machines and overflowing baths, neither of which seem very relevant in our case.

Obviously, in order to fit this floor, the subfloor needs to be sound and as level as possible. There was an area in the opening to the new lounge where the floor levels were not right, and some boards needed replacing. This has been done this weekend, leaving just a couple of boards under the stairs (access holes to plumbing) left to do.