Hardwood flooring is a preferred choice by many people because of the beautiful finish and long durability. You might be installing new hardwood flooring or you might be refinishing existing hardwood flooring. Choosing a qualified hardwood flooring contractor is very important in getting the best quality final flooring product. Here a few tips on how to choose a quality hardwood flooring contractor presented for your benefit.

At the outset, you have to determine the total flooring area for which you are planning hardwood installation or refinishing the older hardwood floors. Are you going to place hardwood floors in the closets, kitchen, basement, all bedrooms?

Find out in detail about the differences between the various hardwood flooring materials and their relative costs. This would help you in deciding the type of flooring that you could install in your home. Various types of hardwood flooring materials, their relative strength (Janka rating), and other important details about them are provided separately in our website.

You could browse through them to get an idea about the various hardwood flooring materials. After that, you could visit the building materials supply stores in your area to find out the prices of different hardwoods. Do not be fooled by cheap hardwood flooring prices. Consulting a local flooring dealer is highly recommended to make a sound buying decision.

The next step is choosing a qualified hardwood flooring contractor. The following points might help you in your effort of how to choose a hardwood flooring contractor.

• Initial references could be obtained about hardwood flooring contractor from friends, relatives and colleagues. You could also refer to the local Yellow Pages to search for a licensed hardwood flooring contractor. Contact a local hardwood flooring distributor for references. Chances are the distributor is were the contractors buy most of their flooring products. Most of the time they will give a decent reference or lead you in the right direction.

• Talk to several hardwood flooring contractors and verify whether they are bonded and insured flooring contractors. If a flooring contractor is offering significantly lower pricing chances are they are not insured and bonded. These costs are not present in the uote and therefore the real loser is the buyer of the services is something goes wrong. Quality comes with a cost.

• Evaluate their qualifications and experience in the field. If necessary, ask them to provide references of their customers and talk to those people about the quality of service and dependability of the licensed hardwood flooring contractor.

• Appraise their behavior by the promptness of their returning your phone calls, the politeness and friendly approach of their employees and the manner in which the hardwood flooring contractors answer your questions. Their answers must be honest and straightforward and their appearance should be neat and professional.

• The office of the bonded and insured flooring contractor and the service van should be observed for cleanliness and proper maintenance. The functioning of the office should be professional and it should have samples of all types of hardwood floors. The hardwood flooring contractor should provide pamphlets or literature of the hardwood floors and photographs of the hardwood installation works done by the contractor.

• Ask the hardwood flooring contractor whether the company is registered with the professional bodies and associations of the hardwood floor industry and approved by the Better Business Bureau. Moreover, the contractor must have proper license and be a bonded and insured flooring contractor. Find out the areas in which the contractor had been specializing.

Once you have finalized on a few licensed hardwood flooring contractors for your wood flooring install, get detailed estimates from them. Compare the estimates for quality as well as price, along with the time duration required by them to complete the assignment. It is not important that you give the contract to the lowest bidder, while it may be cheaper, as discussed before there may be other issues around the low bid. This should in no way interfere with or compromise on the quality of the materials and the hardwood installation work. Assess the finishing and coating options that they offer.

One contractor might have experience in the hardwood floor install of high quality oak but might lack the skills to do the work of inlays or difficult wood cuts. Another might be competent in inlay and cut work but without the required expertise in hardwood flooring installation or finish. As such, every aspect of the quotation and the skill set of the various contractors should be carefully evaluated. Moreover, ask the contractors to spell out the procedures they are going to follow while doing the hardwood installation. This would give you a clear idea about their level of competence. After going through all the above processes, you should be able to finalize on one hardwood flooring contractor. The contractor you select should provide the best combination of quality materials, price and satisfying references.

After you had selected the right licensed hardwood flooring contractor, you should ask the contractor to draw up a proper work order contract and get it signed. The contract should clearly specify the type of hardwood installation to be done, the specification of the various materials to be used, the pricing of the materials, labor, and other items like coating and finish, the payment terms, the starting date of the work and an estimated job completion date. If you are paying any advance or initial deposit, that should also be mentioned in the contract. The advance should be the barest minimum. The payment schedule should be in accordance with the delivery of the materials and the completion of the work.

The unfinished new flooring should be delivered to your home at least a week to ten days prior to its actual installation. This time would help the hardwood to get adjusted to your house environment. Similarly, the hardwood flooring should remain unsanded for a week or ten days after the installation to adapt to your home environment. The finishing of the hardwood installation with several coats might take two to three days or even more. During this time, it might not be advisable for you and the family members to be present in the house because the strong fumes of the coating materials are likely to damage the health.

If you take all the above precautions in the process of how to choose a hardwood flooring contractor, then you would have very high quality hardwood floors that would serve you for several years. Remember that work done by incompetent contractors or with compromised-quality materials for price considerations would cost a lot more in the end than properly done higher priced hardwood floors. A quality contractor should always be licensed, insured, and bonded with the proper authorites.