Flooring installation for New York homes

We install every main type of floor, so we can recommend the one that suits the room. We look at the room, ask how it is used, and tell you what will last. Then we take care of the part nobody sees: the old floor, the subfloor, the leveling and the transitions into the next room.

Every floor is a trade-off. This is how they stack up on the things that matter most in a New York home.

In an apartment, the choice is often shaped by the building as well as the room. Many leases and co-op house rules require most of a room's floor to be covered with carpet or rugs, and many buildings care about how much sound a hard floor lets through to the unit below. We will ask about both before we recommend anything.

What is under your floor decides how the new one goes down, and it drives much of the price. New York has two main kinds of base.

Pre-war walk-ups, brownstones and row houses usually have wood subfloors on joists, often under two or three layers of older flooring. Solid hardwood can be nailed into them, and we check for loose boards, squeaks and dips first. Post-war elevator buildings and newer condos usually sit on concrete slabs. Over a slab, floors are floated or glued down, and engineered wood takes the place of solid wood.

Either way, a floor is only as flat as its base. Vinyl plank shows every dip, tile cracks over a base that flexes, and laminate joints can open over a hump. So we check the flatness across the room, then level low spots with compound or add new underlayment where it is needed. This is the step that separates a floor that lasts from one that clicks, squeaks or cracks within a year.

Older homes can hide older floors. Nine-inch tiles and the black adhesive under them, common in older kitchens and basements, are tested before anyone lifts them. Often the simplest answer is to cover them with a new floor rather than take them up.

We price the whole job rather than a flat rate per square foot, so nothing turns up as an extra later. What changes the price is the material you choose, the size and shape of the rooms, whether an old floor has to come up, how much leveling the base needs, how many doorways, closets and radiators the floor has to work around, and whether there are stairs. Access matters in the city too: a walk-up on the fifth floor or a building with strict elevator times takes more planning than a ground-floor house.

We measure and look at the base first, then give you one estimate that covers all of it.