UKC

Hi All, 

Thanks in advance for any answers, I got some amazing advice on heating my house a good few months ago and was cheekily hoping for more of the same. Went with wet underfloor heating in the end and am really happy with it. Have decided to go with this type of glue down flooring. Does anyone have any idea on cost? We have been quoted £2600 for 20m2 and It's more than I thought but could be fine. I was just wondering if people thought I had any room to negotiate as I'm running out of cash fast haha.

Cheers

Dan

I've been looking into using LVT but as a DIY job.

Whilst price varies, it typically seems to sell for £35 per m2 inc VAT for good stuff. Professional I'm sure can get it cheaper, but bump it up to £40 as there's other bits and bobs like edging etc. Some require separate glue, some don't.

So that's £800 for the main materials.

Not sure how complicated the room is, but it should easily take two lads half a day, but lets allow a day for unknown issues that might arise. What's the going rate, £200 per day?

So that's £1200.

Add £500 for a decent profit margin.

I reckon £1700 is a fair quote.

Now maybe your quote includes more expensive tiles, some sort of underlay (doubt it if you have underfloor heating) or something else I'm not thinking of.

Is that for the product (and underlay), or fitting as well or levelling, product and fitting?

From experience, fitting can be done if you are a reasonable diy'er. However, the floor needs to be dead flat, so dont skimp on the self levelling fluid. (Concrete floors are probably not flat.) Also there are lots of tricks that a professional will just do, where as you're learning on the job and doing it for the first time. For example cutting into skirting boards so it slides underneath. Or removing then refitting skirting boards. Or putting beading down to finish the edge. You might get a better finish by removing and refitting skirting, but it could end up damaging decorating. If its in a kitchen, are you happy cutting into the kickboards or supports etc.

Carpet is a great draft excluder, so you may expose drafty voids by the walls than need filling. You can get foam beading for the expansion gap, that helps here.

I did our engineered wood floor, and regretted it. It took a long time, and I need to do it again. (The floor is not billiard table flat. Even though the pack says there is a few mill tolerance, you end up with a few bits that move as you walk on it.)

I got some grown ups in to do the kitchen. Half a day levelling, half a day fitting and it looks very good.

Materials could be £50-60 a m2. It’s likely to need some form of liquid dpm + primer to be safe unless you can actually test insitu moisture. And a latex screed. High temp adhesive (again to be safe with the UFH). That’s a wet lay which is actually easier to DIY but is slower for an experienced fitter.

There is also a reasonable difference in cost between vinyl types. 2mm karndean knight tile vs. the 3mm semi commercial ones. Also consider bevelled edges.

over £100 per m2 seems a lot, ‘maybe get another quote.

Amtico is the vinyl flooring at the luxury end to my knowledge. Always use an approved fitter, they know the tricks and what not to do 

Make sure your price includes any underlays levelling edge trims or whatever you need, so you get an all-in cost and no surprises (or if there are any, it's their surprise not yours)

Recently had fitted amtico professionally to an open plan downstairs with underfloor heating, no regrets at all.

Seems like the secret is the leveling applied prior to installation & also the fact that there are different priced products from amtico. The spacia range is the cheaper variant rather than the signature range. Thankfully the spacia was the range that I choose & suited my decor, interior more than the options offered by the signature range.

That's really good to hear, just out of interest was your cost in the same ball park as my quote? 

that definitely includes everything including the transition to the wooden floorboards in the rest of the downstairs.

I'm honestly pretty useless and would be worried that I'd ruin it, I'm definitely more comfortable paying someone and confident this company would do a good job but just thought it seemed slightly on the steep side but I may just be being naive. 

Seems very similar, overall per sq mtr.

Really happy with the result, seems to work really well with the underfloor heating, creating a warm, welcoming feeling to the area. Also cost may be influenced as to how it’s laid, mine was a 45 deg against stone walls, so lots of intricate cutting & fitting. The fitter took a lot longer than planned due to the configuration of the natural stone walls, certainly not a task I’d like to take on.

Ended up having it fitted on the stairs & upstairs, luckily it’s only a relatively small Peak cottage.

Places like b&q or retail park flooring chains can give you a fitted quote. If you know the price of the materials at say high street shops, you can work out the labour costs.

I think its good that your honest about your abilities. I though it's just a case of measuring, cutting at right angles and finishing it neatly at the skirting. Youtube has loads of vids. The thing that got me, was a flat floor was not flat enough. Given the time and expense of laying it, then the extra time of pulling it up, number the boards, levelling and relaying, it would have been well worth getting someone in to do it right.

It seems very expensive to me, these tiles go down very quickly and you cut them with a  Stanley knife. Two guys would do 20m in a day. What are you gluing them to?

I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that, I think the floor needs something called screeding to make sure it completely level and tbeyre quite thick I think you’d struggle to cut them with a Stanley knife. But I’m no expert at all. 

I've done this job a few times, you just score them then they snap, do you know which type of tiles you are using? Screeding involves mixing some powder in a bucket and pouring it on the floor. 20m2 so like 5m x 4m right? I really think you're getting ripped off.

I fitted LVT when I built my house a couple of years ago. Everywhere except bathroom. We had Karndean stick-down tiles. Bombproof to abuse. Works great with the wet UFH. My biggest regret (from almost the entire build) was not fitting it under the skirting boards, given that I had a blank canvas to play with. No matter how precisely you cut it, there are gaps around the door architraves. 

Got click together LVT from Howdens fitted throughout granny annexe where I did underlap the tiles under the skirting and architraves, and the quality of the finished job looks a million times better. 

Not sure what you've been quoted is that steep, given price rises in labour and materials since I did my work. I sourced the Karndean myself (from Stories Flooring of Leeds). Paid just over £4k for the materials. Today the same items would be £5300. Then I got someone to screed and fit for £4300. They did a pretty slapdash job. Laid the tiles (about 120m2) in two days, but I had to get them back to remedy ill-fitting or tiles not properly stuck down. And they didn't seal the tiles at the end of the job. So about £11,000 in today's money for 6x the area that you have.

Hence if your trades folk are good, are going to do the screeding well, and take pride to do the cuts neatly (particularly if you have an intricate pattern (herringbone or 45%)), and finish it neatly so that the floor looks as expensive as it is, then I'd go for it. Just make sure they understand your expectations.

Hope that's useful. 

Cheers, it is but not square it's around a kitchen island and into a utility too, the floor is concrete where the UHF is and then the utility is floor boards. 

I have curved walls and also a slight sloping floor. Unless you are seriously good at screeding etc you are far better going with somebody who knows how to do it. Just cutting the amtico tiles to get the right curve on the walls is not a simple job.

If you are based in the Manchester- Liverpool area  I can tell you which fitter we used.

Its not cheap to get these things done well via skilled people.

Hi mate - have just booked in another quote, I definitely won't be doing it myself but am South Manchester so would appreciate a recommendation if possible. Cheers!

Just found out he retired....sorry about that and raising hopes.

no problem at all, cheers!

I have some in my bathroom (the plank type) and while installing it was as easy as laminate I wouldn't say it was better than roll vinyl - it still looks plastic.  And wasn't cheap.  For dry rooms I'd choose good quality laminate or proper wood, if I was doing the bathroom again I'd tile it.

I guess they'll cover the floor boards with plywood then self level up to the height of the plywood, not a big task. I'd get a few quotes, I've just had two quotes for a plumbing job, the first was 6 grand, the second was 3 grand. Sometimes it takes a few goes to find an honest dude.

I can't believe what the builders charge round there, my Brother renovated a house in Handforth and the costs were insane. I'm helping him build a garden office atm because his last one cost him 12 grand, crazy. I don't know any builders in the North East who get paid that much!

For what it's worth (and no doubt of interest to people reading the thread), if you end up with lino, don't use cushioned lino in your kitchen - the appliances will mangle it when you move them around. Also, self-levelling compound actually means 'smoothing compound' - it doesn't really level an un-level floor.

Is the point of LVT just that it's easier to fit than vinyl on the roll?

I just bought a roll of pretty nice felt backed, grain and edge embossed oak floorboard pattern vinyl for a fraction of the price of LVT. From standing up you'd barely tell it's not wood to look at it. Obviously it's softer to the touch but that's part of the point of it.

I suppose it's repairable if you hold onto a pack and you can layout borders and other patterns if you have the skills.

jk