Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I did the install on about 1200 sq.ft of wood myself. Took about 2 months (slow-going, doing it when I had time). I got a "more expensive wood" and it still cost less than $4000 out of my pocket. And it looks awesome. I had very little prior DIY experience. I learned as I went.
However, I know that the DIY mentality doesn't work for everybody. You may need it installed quickly since you can't necessarily lose 1200 sq ft of living space for 2 months.
I bought my wood from a place that rhymes with DimpleDoors.com :P
my issue is with the verbosity needed to describe them (the entire range of them) in ways to make it sound like they are actually comparable to a real wood floor.
I repeat though... ersatz crap trash.
I put one of those in too and I didn't think it was trash, but hardwood wood have not handled the conditions of my house. But no one except an idiot would think it was real wood.
We did about 1,000 sf of engineered hardwood over slab. Including flooring, normal labor, and grinding down the slab where it wasn't level so the wood would set right, it cost us about $9500 from our local Carpet One franchise.
Re Home Depot: we had ordered from them for flooring on a previous project, but ended up taking it all back because of horrible warping issues.
Re: engineered vs. plank- it's not recommended down here that you go plank over slab down here because of the moisture issue, so unless you're willing to put a wood sub floor in, it's engineered if you want hardwoods.
Reminds me of an older family member that had Sears replace her roof on her house and garage. She paid 20k. Yes 20k to roof a 1200 sft ranch and a 2 car garage. The true cost at the most would have been 5k. Avoid Sears beers that causes tears.
We had installed floating Manningham prefinished oak engineered plank over Gypcrete (light concrete over plywood sheathing) carrying imbedded radiant heating tubing which carries heated water. Three years later the oak finish looks great with minor blemishes where we dropped sharp or heavy objects.
The heating system manufacturer recommended engineered wood because of structural integrity over this system. No pets or regrets so far. This is not junk.
I have had oak floors that we liked too, but they were much more affected by seasonal humidity and heating system.
I just got a free in home quote by a large company that rhymes with "beers". The engineered wood is $3.14/sqft. The total sqft I need is 1,050. The grand total for the wood with installation is SIXTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!!!!! He told me if I paid 30% right then and there they would give me $1,000 off or a 1,250 Beers in store credit.
This has to be a joke, right? I thought it costs 2-4sqft for installation plus the price of the wood/tile not smurfing 11/sqft?
He first told us a bit over 20k. But my wife pointed to the website and said you have a 20% off right now. To which he said, oh I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll be honest I've never been on their site.
Yowzers that's an insane estimate! I got about 650sqft floor replaced with 4" wide white oak planks, site-finished with 4 coats poly for $4,000 (ended up being slightly more b/c I had to replace some bad plywood subfloor as well). When I got the estimate I was told using pre-finished would end up costing the same (more for materials, less for labor). Surely you can find some true craftsmen in your area who specialize in flooring and will probably do a better job for way, way less. I live in Atlanta, so things are slightly expensive here, but you should be getting out of this for no more than $7-8k max.
Ok I didn't insult anyones intelligence by buying anything from Sears. I posted this on another site and somone worked for Floor and Decor (the place that had the wood tile I wanted). I just got 1200 sqft of it, mortar, grout and delivery for 3,119. I have a few people I'm going to call and get an estimate to get it installed sometime in September. Hopefully no more than 4k to install. The wood tile of this brand was being closed out. I got it for under $2 sqft.
I'm glad I didn't get the wood and got what I wanted in the first place.
This is my floor for life so I went with an A+ BBB rated installer and it was $5000 for 430 sq feet. I looked for 2 years and finally found just the right product. So happy but it was all shot when there was one badly mis-colored board placed right smack dab in the middle of the living room floor. All the color variations and imperfections show it's real hardwood but this board matched nothing in any way. Also several board installed with holes in them. No surrounding knots - and even if there were - knots are ok, holes in the floor are not. We spend our lives patching up holes. That was unacceptable. Company owner is meeting with me this week to take a look. Such a beautiful floor tarnished by the installers not tossing what would have amounted to 10 boards. I would have paid for 10 more full boxes if I had known. All I can do is recommend everyone use those three "curing" days to open every box and go through every board and toss your own or stay home for two days and monitor the installation. I opened only one box and checked only the top few boards. I would highly recommend this floor with these exceptions.
Warranties are one of those things where you never find out how they are until after the paperwork is signed and the job is done. I had a guy I know put in about 1000 squ ft of laminate. The laminate came from the wholesaler he uses and was 1.80 a squ ft. Looks great and doesnt ding when you drob anything on it. He charged $1,000 in labor for the job.
Question, did you have a BMW or something in the driveway? I had a few guys come over for quotes for an AC unit last year and the one day my BMW was in the driveway (wife had it during the other quotes) the guy quoted my THREE TIMES the other 4 quotes.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The true cost at the most would have been 5k. Avoid Sears beers that causes tears. 
