Who best to lay a floor?

dllive

Hi. I went into a flooring shop to discuss a quality wood laminate floor. As a rule of thumb, is it cheaper to get the flooring shop to lay the floor, or a general handyman? Ill get different quotes, but interested to hear your comments.
Thanks

stueyhants

In my experience shops don't tend to employee fitters direct but sub-contract the work out to fitters who also do work direct for other custommers. I would think you are likely to pay slightly more for a fitter through the shop but then you are more likely to get someone fairly decent rather than getting some random fitter from the yellow pages (this is a generalisation I know but more often than not is true !)

mvteng

To give you an idea, our joiner charged £15 per square metre about 3 years ago

phill99

You would be better getting a supply and fit price. the reason being is that if something goes wrong with the floor, then you have only got one company to deal with. If you have a seperate supplier and fitter then they will end up blaming each other and nothing will get done. It may cost you a bit more, but you will have longer team peace of mind.

dllive

Thanks guys.
phill99 (or anyone!): Can you recommend any companies?

new_home_owner_3

I had some fitted last week by a general handyman builder he charged me 120 pound, the rooms 10 x 14 foot, im well chuffed.

RuthnJasper

I've just had some work done in my kitchen and bathroom. Big name company (won't name and shame) but it was a catalogue of disasters (just received compensation) and ineptitude lasting well over a month. A couple of years ago, my mum had similar work done on her house (we live separately, but in the same village) and got the local reputable independent chap in. He finished work in under a week, was efficient and friendly, and couldn't be faulted on the quality of his work. I'm in a Housing Association property, so my hands were tied as to which building firm I had to go for but, had it been my choice, I'd have picked the local chap. I find that these smaller, independent folk (and, yes I appreciate that there ARE cowboys out there) are good because word-of-mouth spreads quickly and they rely on the quality of their completed jobs in order to secure future work.
(Plus which, the local man wouldn't have dreamed of breaking into my bedroom and doing what the big-firm builders did to my duvet :mad:)!

If you're in a more rural area, is there a Parish Magazine (available in libraries, sometimes pubs, etc.) or other local publication where tradesmen advertise?

Whatever you decide, good luck to you and I'm sure your new floor will look lovely. xx