Cork Flooring

[parkgate]

I wish to have cork flooring installed to the upper floors in my house.

To fit 50 sq metres I have been quoted £1,700 plus VAT a total of £2,040.

This seems expensive to me - does anybody think this price is reasonable?

Thank You.

[Job and Knock]

Without more information it's impossible to say. The price you have been quoted includes all the prep work and (presumably) allow for the time and labour to shift all the furniture and lift existing flooring before they prep, as well as the time to put it all back again. Without knowing how much prep work they will have to undertake it is difficult to quantify what a firm will charge

Were you aware that the sub-floor needs to be perfectly dry, solid, even and clean and that unevenness in the sub-floor of more than 2mm over a metre is unacceptable? On planked floors that means the installer will almost certainly have to clad the existing sub-flooring with a layer of 6mm plywood screwed or nailed at 150mm centres, whilst on concrete floors or tiles they normally need to lay a polythene DPM. Then on top of that they will often screed, whilst at the end of installation they may also need to seal the cork. So it isn't just rock-up and put it down like carpet. Found this out the hard way when I installed my own cork flooring (roll) on a house many years back, got it wrong (laid straight onto a planked floor), and subsequently had to redo the job.

I'm not saying that the quote is high or not, just that without the full spec it's hard to say

[parkgate]

Thank you for your reply.

The floor is clear of carpet, gripper boards and furniture.

Included in the quote is the laying of 6mm birch ply and fitting a 3mm cork underlay,and trimming and refitting 4 doors and cutting under the architraves.

But I take you point.

The total cost will be about £5,000 - so I am wondering whether it would be cheaper to fit engineered oak.

[wes56]

theres all kinds of cork but the most common type is probly cork tiles which more or less are laid like any other tile - ceramic or plastic. thing is you can buy the cork tiles in different sizes or even in rolls and different thickness.

on the face of it your price seems high for labour only but like J&N i havent seen the site.

[parkgate]

Thank You.

The contractor has agreed a £200 reduction.

The tiles are Wicanders Cork Comfort.

I still think this is expensive - but finding a contractor is very difficult - they seem to be in great demand!