Part one covered the planning stage, assessing the room, measuring, and getting ready for a proper consultation. This part picks up from there: what to check before hiring someone to fit your floor, how to prepare your home for installation day, and how to look after the floor once it's in.
Good Questions To Ask Before You Commit
Whoever you hire to fit your floor, a few questions are worth asking upfront, regardless of who they are:
- What's the realistic timeline for the job, and does it fit around your household's schedule?
- Is there a satisfaction guarantee, and what does it actually cover if something isn't right after the work's done?
- Will they remove your existing flooring, or is that a separate job you need to arrange yourself?
- Are there any additional costs beyond the quoted price, subfloor preparation, disposal of old flooring, anything that might come up once work starts?
- Is the team employed directly, or is the work subcontracted out? This affects accountability if something needs addressing after the fact.
Getting clear answers to these before work begins avoids awkward surprises partway through the project.
Preparing Your Home Before Installation Day
A bit of preparation makes the whole process smoother for everyone involved:
- Clear the room fully, furniture, decorations, anything valuable or fragile, before work starts.
- Seal off other rooms, where practical, to keep dust and any strong odours from finishing products contained to the work area rather than spreading through the whole house.
- Remind everyone in the household to wear shoes indoors during the project, since stray nails, splinters, and general building debris are a genuine, if minor, hazard until the job's finished and the area's been cleaned.
Know Your Warranty
Before work begins, it's worth actually reading the warranty terms, both for the flooring product itself and for the installation work. Understanding what's covered, and just as importantly what isn't, means you're not caught out later if an issue does come up.
Long-Term Care Basics
Once your new floor is in, a few consistent habits keep it looking good for the long haul:
- Solid wood floors can be sanded and refinished multiple times over their life, often five or more, and with proper care can genuinely last a century or longer. How often refinishing is actually needed depends heavily on traffic, a busy hallway needs it far sooner than a quiet spare room.
- Use felt pads under furniture legs, and lift rather than drag heavy pieces, to prevent scratches and dents from everyday movement.
- Wipe up spills immediately, since standing liquid left on the surface can cause real, sometimes permanent damage to both the finish and the timber underneath.
- Vacuum with the correct attachment for hard floors, and clean with products specifically formulated for wood flooring with a neutral pH, using a damp rather than wet mop.
Hiring And Caring For A New Wood Floor: Common Questions
What should I ask before hiring a flooring installer?
Confirm the realistic timeline, whether there's a satisfaction guarantee and what it covers, whether they'll remove your existing flooring, and whether the quoted price is genuinely final or has room for additional costs.
Why does it matter whether an installation team is directly employed or subcontracted?
It affects accountability. A directly employed team generally means clearer responsibility if something needs revisiting after the job's finished, compared with work passed to a separate subcontractor.
How often does a solid wood floor actually need refinishing?
It varies considerably with traffic levels rather than following a fixed schedule. A busy hallway will need attention sooner than a quiet, low-traffic room, but either way, solid wood can be refinished multiple times over its life.
What's the single most important daily habit for protecting a new wood floor?
Wiping up spills immediately. Standing liquid is one of the most common causes of real, sometimes permanent damage to both the finish and the wood underneath.
Call us on 020 7036 0625 or request a free site visit — we're a directly employed team with fixed-price written quotes, so you'll have clear answers to all of the above from the start.
