I needed 1500 square feet of hardwood flooring done. I chose a Vintage product as Floorwood Solutions recommends (by sheer coincidence, my brother used to work for Vintage Hardwood so I knew that they manufactured an excellent product). It was solid sawn engineered (3/4 inches i.e. 19 mm thick vs 13 mm for the “crafted engineered”- by the way, the Vintage brochure refers to it as “structured”).
I chose engineered rather than solid wood due to its tolerance for greater variations in humidity. It is more expensive, of course. In case you are checking out the photos and are curious, the wood selected was hickory and the finish Old Mission.
The wood plus installation cost about $9 per sq ft. Once the extra wood for anticipated waste was added (Floorwood adds a minimum percentage for this because they work “tightly” with the quantity of wood ordered) and HST applied, this turned out to be about $16000. By the way, Floorwood says that in the Toronto area $10/sq ft pre-tax should get you quality wood plus installation.
I saved money (I am guessing about $1500) by removing the carpet and screwing down the subfloor myself (Floorwood gave me guidelines: 2 inch screw length, 6-8 inch spacing between screws, use flooring screws only – you can buy a container of 1800 at Home Depot for about $45). The subfloor was already nailed down but should be screwed down to eliminate creaks. It took 3-1/2 days to put in the 2300 screws correctly (they can’t stick out) and the work is hard on the back. You can save additional money by buying and installing the moulding yourself but I was not up to the task since I had been painting on weekends all summer.
I had a bad surprise in discovering that the mezzanine’s bannister nosing (the strip of wood that acts as its base) was higher than the flooring would be; so I had it raised. In the end, I ordered 3 extra jobs (including raising the nosing and the doorstop moulding job) that cost another $3000.
The initial quote is done via email. So they depend on you to make accurate measurements. Some clients will find it an unusual process but it saves time. This way of doing business means there is less time spent by the installers on the selling process and more time allocated to actual installation. The quote is revised when Robert makes a visit to measure prior to installation.
As for the installation, the quality of work was fantastic.
Other posters who have obtained multiple quotes have said that Floorwood’s rates are competitive. But the prospective client will have no idea as to the quality of the work that will be done. I did not bother obtaining other quotes. I had already concluded from the fact that Floorwood (alias patrob) provides free advice/info on redflagdeals.com’s special hardwood flooring section and that there are over 100 reviews on Homestars with an exceptionally high average rating (10) that Floorwood should be my contractor.
Of course, you probably have already heard through other reviews that the reducers (the pieces that serve as transition to another type of flooring e.g. ceramic tiles) are custom made on site. Robert and Darek spend 10-20 minutes cutting, shaving and testing each reducer to ensure that it fits just right. Some contractors, to save time, use slosely matching store-bought T reducers that are nothing more than“humps”. Those are not cheap and they are a tripping hazard.
Robert and Darek are conscientious and take pride in their work. I believe that they are motivated by a desire for the customer to be happy with the job.
As a testament to that motivation, I can point to three “extras” that they did to make the job look better:
1) They rerouted a visually unappealing electrical cord for our installed stairlift so it would be neatly and discreetly tucked away, by directing it into the unfinished basement from its transformer box at an outlet in one room and pulling it back up at the base of the stairs in another room;
2) They rerouted the TV cable via the unfinished basement so that it exited at the desired location;
3) They fixed a badly installed door which previously was always a tight close so that it would close easily. This had nothing to do with the job but it bothered Robert.
I did not ask for those “extras”. They volunteered to do them.
In my opinion, if you live in the Toronto area, Floorwood Solutions should be your preferred hardwood flooring contractor. Just be aware that you have to book the job two months in advance.
