I’m thinking of having a Kahrs pre-engineered floor installed in my apartment. My flooring contractor, whom I trust, warned me that this would expensive; he said that, with some luck, he may be able to get the flooring for about $7/sf. But later, on line, I found a place called www.floorshop.com out West that sells the model I want for 2.70/sf. Even with the shipping from California to Massachusetts, it comes out below *half* of what my contractor had estimated.
Any experience with these floorshop.com folks? They sound almost too good to be true…
Thanks!
Jill
Replies
May be a dumb question here, but that never stops me, of course! Any chance that the price was including installation? Because you have to figure at least double the materials for installation. And, if not, ask the guy who gave you the price what he would charge for installation alone if you get the materials. It never hurts to ask.
The price my contractor quoted me was definitely just for the wood; the quote included an additional $2K for the installation, plus some extras...
In that case, one possibility is to ask for a 2 bids from your installer, one with the materials included, and one without. Get a couple other bids, as well. Also, check on the warranty for both defects in the floor and problems with the installation. Be leary of cut-rate distributors that can't or won't back their product.
On the other hand, it isn't unheard of for installers to "sweeten the pot" on jobs they don't want or with materials they don't want to work with. We had heartpine floors put in our cabin, and we ordered the wood directly from the company who milled it, and then got an "install" bid from someone the company recommended that they knew had installed heart pine floors in our area. While it was a very expensive floor by our standards, the company salesperson told me it was not unusual for a few installers to quote a floor price cost that was more expensive than it could be purchased for by the homeowner, sometimes several times so! The floor place you mention, though, isn't a mill, it's a distributor. Make certain of the quality - sometimes there are "seconds" or they're passing off #3 as #2, etc. You can't be too careful. I'm suspicous of that much price difference, because when we have dealt with professionals, usually everyone's in the same ball park with numbers. They sometimes get a discount on materials, which means we can have a professional job for just a small amount more, done in 1/2 the time it would take us. No, make that 1/10th of the time it would take us.
We always quip that if we were to form a construction company, our motto would be "We're not very good, but we're slow."
Incidentally, we decided on heartpine after seeing it in Fine Homebuilding, and went with a company that advertises in that magazine. We scrimped on other things, and waited several years to be able to afford it, but it is a magnificent floor, and we are happy we waited.
My point to all of this is, it might be best to be frank, but polite with the installer, and to question the floor supplier. Good luck!!
Are you sure that you are talking aboutthe same product.
I did not see anything on that site that cheap except some laminate.
Check with your floor guy again.
That web-site has a lot of different Kahrs floor systems and prices. You guys may be talking about 2 different floors.Ditch
Jill
The guy installing may not want to install what he does not sell you. Also what the other poster said.
Make sure your comparing apples to apples.
Doug
Last week I priced Kahrs, click together, floating floor. This was in Southern Vt. The retail price was $6.60 and my price was about 10-15% less. When I lived out West I installed some Kahrs Beechwood that was in the $3.50 range about 2 yrs ago.