How To Choose a Hardwood Floor Professional

You will want to check these 15important points when choosing your hardwood floor refinisher.

• Precious timely advice should be willingly offered at no cost.
  
  Expect a professional to take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour simply to assess your flooring restoration needs. He should have a number of pertinent questions to ask you regarding your expectations and lifestyle in relation to your hardwood floors.
  
  See what are they willing to give you at no cost to yourself. Again look for time devoted to answer your questions. An abundant outpouring of information is a sign not only of experience but one of confidence.

• You will want to see a detailed printed quote outlining all the aspects of the proposed work.
  
  A flooring professional will not just run out a tape measure and scribble a quote on a form. Each quote should be tailored to the specific needs of your floor and home setting. The initial quote should be impressive and most informative. A quote that you will use to compare all other gathered estimates to. Expect a quote anywhere from 5-10 pages from a trustworthy source. A detailed quote can easily take up to an hour or two to compose.
  
  Each floor presents its own challenges to refinish. For this reason a “blanket“ price per square foot cannot always take into account all of these factors. When pressed to give a price (most often over the phone) per square foot an expert will hesitate and kindly explain the above. What some do though is set a price per square foot covering virtually all eventualities. This is often an exaggerated price to compensate for the unseen that is forcibly passed onto you the client. Therefore a detailed and lengthy initial assessment of your floor is a sign that he is seeking to charge you exactly what is needed.
  
  A hasty assessment lacking details can be to the undoing of the flooring refinisher. When actually called in to do the job, he discovers an unforeseen challenge requiring more work and materials to complete the work. The tendency is to cut corners as you the client are not paying now for the extra work he needs to do to complete the project.

• You should be made aware of the different options available to you as a homeowner.
  
  From the very first encounter when making an assessment of your restoration needs options should be explained. Again these would be outlined and commented on in the detailed quote.

• Another sure sign that you are close to finding that ‘ideal’ floor refinisher is that:
  
  He will address and explain his own limitations. He will also outline the limitations of the finished product as to appearance.
  
  You should be informed of how the floor will perform in the years to follow. This should be put into writing and too would appear in the quote.

• An informative website
  
  This can be another important indication that you are nearing the end of your search. You should be able to read or download free informative documents explaining procedures and options.

• A tradesperson that is not only a good listener but an excellent communicator
  
  This is truly the type of person you will want attending to your floors needs. Problems and challenges present themselves without warning. Can they easily be dealt with?

• You will want a signed and detailed guarantee.
  
  We understand that engaging a hardwood floor specialist is like entering into a relationship. Time and precious resources will be devoted to this. Entrusting your precious home setting to a crew is not something you want to do without due caution. Security is always an issue and understandably so. In addition, like in all working relationships we want to be able to solve problems — easily without anxiety. Problems can arise, how will they be handled? See: Our Unique Guarantee

• Ask to see his work truck/van and equipment.
  
  Immediately this will tell you volumes. Do not be shy. If they cannot keep their work vehicles and equipment in order, what will be done in your home? See our video: Our Mobile Workshop.

• You also want to look for a company that is fully and adequately insured.

• Honesty
  
  This is seen when a cash deal is offered by the client and refused by the flooring professional. Understandably we all want to save money. Bypassing the GST though by some should immediately raise an important question in the minds of all. Will he then deliver all that he has committed to? How will I know? We have had clients insist to do a cash deal and when we refused they admitted that they were testing us and the resounding “NO” was what they wanted to hear. Several valued clients actually worked for “Revenue Canada” and congratulated us on our firm stance when we kindly refused to omit the tax.

• Timely and prompt responses to all requests and appointments.

• Refusal to compromise.
  
  At times flooring professionals are asked to cut corners for the sake of economy and will hesitate for two important reasons. They are 1) the end value of the finished product and 2) the pride and reputation they themselves seek to maintain. This means that a professional will kindly insist the best way to do the job and explain why. Granted it may be more expensive, yet better for you the client.

• Realistic testimonies and references.
  
  Of course it is easy to “toot your own horn”. Anyone can claim to be something yet we are all naturally a little suspect when the self praise is too lavish or seemingly too good to be true. It is best that another praise you.

• Complete ‘dustless‘ refinishing options should be offered and in some cases insisted upon.

• Ideally you will want to meet the person or persons who will actually be doing the work.
  
  If the owner/operator himself is the one initially assessing the floor and doing the quote and will be working on your floor then, you can be sure that you are onto something good.

Conclusion

Well here you have it. Right from the source. No we are not shy to lay out in detail what even we ourselves should be doing. We fully understand that these same criteria will be used to measure us.

Knowledge is really a protection. The apprehension you once felt will eventually give way to trust and confidence. Trust and confidence that we hope will not be misplaced. We wish you the best in your quest.

If you would like to read further you may want to see the article: Why Choose Us?