Decision guide
How to evaluate a hardwood quote
How do I tell a good hardwood flooring quote from a bad one?
Six questions that separate a company that has done the diligence from one that intends to discover the problems after your deposit has cleared. Any "no" is a red flag.
First
What actually decides this
Was anything measured before the price was set?
A price quoted without moisture readings and a substrate assessment is an estimate of a building nobody has examined.
Is the price closed or open?
Open-ended change-order language transfers the cost of missing diligence onto the homeowner, after commitment.
Who actually performs the work?
A crew that will not be there next season has no stake in how the floor performs next season.
Decide
The decision tree, in the order we walk it
- Do they moisture-test at the free estimate, and document the readings? → If no, stop here.
- Do they require a minimum 72-hour acclimation in the actual space? → If no, the warranty is decorative.
- Is the price fixed in writing, with no open-ended change-order language? → If no, the quoted number is not the price.
- Are the installers salaried employees, or day-labour subcontractors?
- Will they refuse the job if the substrate or conditions are wrong?
- Is there true lifetime workmanship warranty language in the contract itself?
Answer
What we recommend
Run all six against every quote you hold, including ours. The self-assessment scores the full twenty-four-criterion framework and tells you which questions to go back and ask.
- Any company that cannot or will not provide these is optimizing for speed and lowest bid, not for decades of performance.
Provenance
Where every claim on this page comes from
- The Intelligent Homeowner's Decision Framework — installer checklist
- Climate Mastery — what to demand
- The Intelligent Homeowner's Decision Framework — fixed price