Hardwood flooring
Hardwood Floor Installation in Los Angeles
Solid and engineered wood floors, laid by a licensed flooring contractor.
A new wood floor is only as good as what sits under it and how each board is fastened. We start every installation by looking at the subfloor — wood or concrete — and checking moisture in both the subfloor and the flooring before a single board goes down.
Waltco Development holds a California C-15 Flooring and Floor Covering licence alongside our B General Building licence, so the same company that plans the job is licensed to install the floor.
Solid or engineered: how we decide
Solid hardwood is one piece of wood from top to bottom. It can be sanded and refinished many times over its life, and it is usually nailed down over a plywood subfloor.
Engineered hardwood has a real wood wear layer bonded to a stable core. It moves less with changes in humidity, which makes it the usual choice over a concrete slab, over radiant heat, and in rooms where the air changes a lot through the year. It can be glued down or floated, depending on the product and the slab.
We recommend one or the other after we have seen the subfloor, not before.
Fastening methods
How the floor is held down depends on the product and what is underneath it.
- Nail-down over plywood or another wood subfloor
- Glue-down over a flat, dry concrete slab
- Floating installation over an underlayment, where the product allows it
- Moisture barrier or sound underlayment where the subfloor or building calls for one
Licensed and bonded — CSLB #625535
How we run the job
- 01Check the subfloor for flatness, moisture and loose areas.
- 02Bring the flooring in and let it settle to the room before it goes down.
- 03Lay out the rows so the boards line up with the main walls and doorways.
- 04Install, cutting around door casings and leaving an expansion gap at the walls.
- 05Fit thresholds, base and shoe moulding, then walk the floor with you.
Our work
Solid & Engineered Installation: job photos
Questions
Frequently asked questions
- Can hardwood go over a concrete slab?
- Yes. Over a slab we usually use engineered hardwood, glued down or floated over a moisture barrier, after checking the slab is flat and dry enough.
- Do you install flooring we buy ourselves?
- We can, once we have seen the product and its installation instructions. The written estimate states who supplies the material.
- How is a new floor installation priced?
- Describe the job with "Get your estimate". You get a ballpark from our own price list before the site visit, then a written estimate once we have measured and seen the floor.