Four Tips to Find a Great Floor Pro

December 17, 2009

What could be more embarrassing than a houseguest mistaking the new hardwood floor in your dining room for a giant pepperoni pizza. With egg on your face, you try to explain that it was a botched job by your incompetent flooring contractor. Here are four tips for the next time you pick a floor installer:

1. Ask. Gather recommendations for floor guys from everybody you know. Okay, use the Yellow Pages, if you must).

2. Research. Check with the Better Business Bureau and any governmental agency that regulates contractors (usually the state) for complaints. A person may not be a serial killer, but if he butchers too much wood, there should be multiple complaints against him.

3. Look. Check his work. Try to visit more than one of his customers, and preferably not just homes he recommends. It helps to look at a floor that is more than a year old, to see how it is holding up. Walk the floor in your socks--you can detect flaws with your feet. There are three basic elements to a good wood floor--installation, sanding and finishing.

• Installation: Do you feel ridges between some boards? This could indicate excess movement, perhaps caused by a weak subfloor and joist system, a moisture problem, or poor nailing of the boards. There might be minute gaps between boards. A little might be expected, but too much could indicate a poor putty job when it was finished.
• Sanding: With plenty of natural light, look at the floor from all angles for uneven sanding. Butt joints might not be smooth; there might be ridges along the walls (a different sander is used on the edges); you might see slight rolling, like the Atlantic Ocean on a calm day, indicating an old drum sander perhaps with a bad bearing--or you might see severe rolling, like the Atlantic in hurricane season, which indicates that the person sanding was really incompetent. (It happens--drum sanders are voracious eaters of wood).
• Finish: Look for overlaps, missed spots, drips, etc.

4. Interview. Ask about the credentials of the people who actually do the work--take caution if it's a crew of newbies. Ask if he has a regular maintenance schedule for his sanders (as noted above, bad bearings mean bad sanding). Ask about their process--the number of sandings, the grits of the sandpaper on each pass, the types of machines used. You should have researched finishing procedures online so that you have a good idea of the accepted process for your surface.

Picking the right floor man is a huge responsibility. Do your research, don't be detracted by cost--this is one area not to scrimp. Your floors can be the centerpiece of your home--nice enough to eat off of.

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