Flooring ROI (Chantilly, Manassas, Manassas Park: hardwood floor, condo, how much)

[TextileWolf]

My wife and I live in Manassas Park in the Blooms Crossing development. We have carpet in the living and dining room that has needed replacement and are considering finally doing it. We have considered laminate, engineered wood, bamboo, and hardwoods. What flooring would give us the best ROI? We are considering moving sooner than later (maybe next year) and would be doing it to sell the house as much as anything. That said, we don't want to sink money we wouldn't get back. This would be a DIY project. Any thoughts?

[King_of_DC]

Originally Posted by TextileWolf

My wife and I live in Manassas Park in the Blooms Crossing development. We have carpet in the living and dining room that has needed replacement and are considering finally doing it. We have considered laminate, engineered wood, bamboo, and hardwoods. What flooring would give us the best ROI? We are considering moving sooner than later (maybe next year) and would be doing it to sell the house as much as anything. That said, we don't want to sink money we wouldn't get back. This would be a DIY project. Any thoughts?

I've lived in a house with laminate, carpet and hardwood... I would go hardwood. Something about that "look" that sets a place off.

Can't comment on DIY... I've only seen someone attempt to put down laminate floors and he failed... badly. It seemed easy on youtube, but in person not so much. >

[acgood]

We were faced with the same issue recently for our condo. The carpet was in bad shape and we decided to go with laminate. A nice hardwood job just wasn't in our budget but certainly the price range of your property would dictate what buyers might be expecting. I'd like to think it was a good ROI since we signed a contract before the flooring was even installed

[VADude]

I strongly suspect hardwood will give you a positive return on investment and make the place easier to sell. It's not that more expensive than a quality carpet. We used an outfit called K&K Flooring in Chantilly and got a good price. You might want to see what they would charge. I can say our hardwood floor looks great!

[Zack]

I would go with hardwood. I put a cheap floating laminate once in a bedroom and it's a major pain to repair compared to hardwood damage. The laminate is also no longer made so I can't even get replacement flooring if needed. At least with hardwood I can get unfinished pieces and stain to match.

If you buy online you can get good prices on hardwood; $2-3/sq ft less compared to a brick and mortar store. They'll usually send you samples for a few dollars to cover shipping. Only thing I would recommend against the cheap hardwood at big box stores and Lumber Liquidators. The quality isn't there and you'll end up using more due to scrap.

For the DIY part I think that hardwood is much easier to install than laminate, so long as you use a good stapler. What those laminate DIY videos don't show you is how much of a pain it is to get into corners, under door jambs, etc. whereas hardwood you can just face nail in quickly.

[7 VII 7]

Originally Posted by VADude

I strongly suspect hardwood will give you a positive return on investment and make the place easier to sell. It's not that more expensive than a quality carpet. We used an outfit called K&K Flooring in Chantilly and got a good price. You might want to see what they would charge. I can say our hardwood floor looks great!

DO NOT use K&K, they really messed our flooring up and almost had a law suit with them.

Go with engineered wood. It is much better dealing with humidity than real hardwood, especially in this area.

[FCNova]

Laminates have gotten really nice, you should look at some samples in person and see what you think. People tend to prefer real hardwood but it also costs more, so it's hard to say which will give you the best ROI. I would think it also depends what your house price point is. You probably wouldn't get a good ROI with doing laminate in a 800k SFH. At that price point people expect the higher end finishes.

[slim04]

Originally Posted by 7 VII 7

DO NOT use K&K, they really messed our flooring up and almost had a law suit with them.

Go with engineered wood. It is much better dealing with humidity than real hardwood, especially in this area.

I agree and both counts, especially K&K. They are the #1 rated flooring company in Angies, but I had a terrible experience with them. They are a huge advertiser with Angies in their website and magazine, so I suspect they are shielded from negative reviews. The one time I made a negative review for a company that advertised a lot, Angies sent me two emails and a phone call trying to resolve my issue and get me to withdraw my negative review.

Engineered wood isn't that much more expensive than quality laminates, doesn't have the hollow/plastic sound when walking on it (thus obvious to buyers it is laminate), is very inexpensive to install if you buy a floating-click style product, and you can advertise it as hardwood floors (vs. solid hardwood floors).

Installation probably won't cost you more than $2 a sq foot, so it isn't like you are saving a ton of money DIY. The downside is the same for laminates for water issues, warping, etc. Also, you maybe able to get 1 or 2 refinishings for higher quality engineered woods, but the cheaper ones have paper thin veneers, so you can't even get one. Also, if you have deep dents, it can break through to the middle layers and look very ugly.

[biggreg]

I don't usually comment much, but I also used K&K Flooring based on both a personal recommendation from a co-worker and from the good reviews on Angie's List. I had a very positive experience with them. I feel like I got a good deal and they did a lot of good (not necessarily excellent) quality work very quickly, replacing around 1000 s.f. of vinyl sheet and carpet with solid hardwood.

[7 VII 7]

I will say this. Stay away from Laminates. You will know you are walking on it compared to engineered or real hardwood. It is cheap and does not add very much to the value of your home.