What does laying laminate cost?

“What does laying laminate cost” is nearly always answered with a figure per square metre, and that is usually where it goes wrong already. That figure is about the laying itself, and with a laminate floor the laying is rarely the biggest item. The bill is made by what sits around it: what has to go under the floor, what the old floor costs to get out, and what still has to happen along the edges and in the doorways. I name no figures on this site. What I can do is take the price apart, so you can put two quotes side by side and see which of the two is complete. How I go about the work myself is on the page about laying floors and tiling.

What a laminate floor is made up of

A laminate floor is not a single product but a stack, and every layer has a price and a risk of its own.

The floor itself

Laminate runs from thin and light to thick with a hard top layer, and you feel and hear that difference the moment you walk on it. Thicker laminate is stiffer, sounds less hollow and copes better with a dog or an office chair. The format counts as well: in a room with a bay window or a lot of corners, long narrow boards mean more sawing and more cutting waste than short wide boards do. Choose herringbone and it turns from a laying job into a fitting job, and then more material goes through it and there is more time in the same square metres.

The underlay

Something always goes under the laminate. That layer does three things at once: it takes up small unevenness, it deadens the sound and it keeps moisture out of the substrate. On concrete that moisture barrier is no extra, because damp that draws up into it from below you never get out again. On timber it is mainly the deadening that counts.

If you live in a flat, ask your owners’ association which requirement applies to sound insulation under a hard floor, and do that before anything is ordered. That requirement decides which underlay you are allowed to use. A roll that does not meet it is not cheaper, because it has to come out again.

Levelling

This is the item that most often stays outside a quote and that nearly always explains the difference between two prices. Laminate lies loose on the substrate, it is a floating floor, and a floating floor follows exactly the hump or the dip underneath it. If the substrate is not flat, the click joints start to work. You hear it creak, you feel it give, and in the places where the floor moves most the seams open up. That is not a matter of poor laying, that is the substrate showing itself.

Whether levelling is needed you cannot see from the top. You measure that with a straightedge or a laser, after the old floor is out. That is why nobody can promise it firmly beforehand, and why an honest quote should say what happens if it turns out to be needed. On a tiled floor that same flatness matters even more, because there you see unevenness back in the joints and you feel it with bare feet.

Taking out and carting away the old floor

Ripping out is work, and carting away is work on top of that. An old laminate floor with foam under it is quickly gone. Glued-down vinyl, a stuck-down floor that is fixed to the screed, or tiles that have to be chipped out are a very different job, with dust and rubble along with it. Rubble goes by weight or by volume, and it has to go down the stairs and out of the door. In an upstairs flat without a lift that difference sits entirely in the hours.

Skirting boards

Skirting is never just taken along. Leaving the existing skirting in place and finishing the edge with a quadrant bead is the quickest route and you see it afterwards. Taking the skirting off and putting it back sounds thrifty, but old skirting breaks when you pull it loose and the wall behind it is usually damaged. New skirting means sawing, mitring corners that are rarely square, fixing and painting or lacquering. That last part is a job of its own that often ends up with the odd jobs and maintenance and not in the flooring quote.

Transition profiles and thresholds

Everywhere the laminate floor stops, a finish is needed. The doorway to the hall, the transition to the tiled floor in the kitchen, the join onto a threshold or onto the bottom stair tread. If the two floors differ in height, you need a profile that bridges that difference, and that is something other than a straight profile. Count the doorways on your plan and see whether that number comes back in the quote.

Doors that have to be trimmed

The new floor plus underlay almost always ends up higher than what comes out, certainly if there was carpet or vinyl. Then the door catches on the laminate. Trimming means taking it off, sawing it down neatly, finishing the sawn edge and hanging it back, and on a door with a veneer layer or a glued-on edge that is precision work. It falls under carpentry and fitting, but with me it is the same man who lays the floor and saws the door.

Why a price per square metre can mislead

A price per square metre is a price for one of the items above. Often it is only the laying, sometimes the laying plus a standard underlay. Levelling is hardly ever in it, precisely because nobody knows beforehand whether it is needed.

That is where the trap sits. Two quotes with a different figure per square metre say nothing as long as you do not know what is in that figure. The lowest is usually the one that has counted the least, and the difference comes back as extra work as soon as the old floor is out and the straightedge is lying on the substrate. By then you are no longer in a position to compare, because the room is open and your furniture is standing in the hall.

So what you want to see is not a rate but a list. Who takes out the old floor. Who carts it away. Which underlay goes in and why that one. What happens if levelling turns out to be needed. How the edges are finished and whether the skirting is included. Who trims the doors. A quote that names those six things itself is nearly always the highest of the pile and nearly always the most honest.

How I do it

I come and look before I put anything on paper. I measure up, count the doorways, look at what sits under the current floor and where it turns into tiles or a threshold. Where I can I lift a corner of the old floor, because what is under there decides whether levelling has to happen and how much work taking it out becomes. After that you get a quote item by item, with the uncertainty visible in it instead of tucked away in one round figure.

If the room or the whole floor is going to be opened up anyway, I take the floor along in the renovation of that space. Then the order matters more than the separate items: first the services and the plastering, then the floor, and the skirting last. If you want to put your floor to me, get in touch with a few photos and the measurements of the room.