A new wood floor is a bigger ticket than a sand, and the pricing is less obvious, because you're buying two things at once: the boards themselves and the workmanship that puts them down. Here's how the money actually breaks down, with a real quote from our books to show it in practice. If you're costing a sand rather than a new floor, that's covered in our floor sanding cost guide.
The Two Halves of the Price
As a guide, excluding VAT:
- The boards: anywhere from £30 to £150 per square metre. That's not us hedging, it's the honest truth about the wood market: a sensible everyday engineered oak sits at the lower end, and premium wide boards from the top makers sit at the other. The board you choose is by far the biggest lever on the total, which is why you'll always have real samples in your hands, and both totals on one page, before you decide.
- Fitting straight planks: £30 to £50 per square metre. Where a job lands in that range comes down to the layout: how many door frames need cutting around, how many thresholds, and whether the floor is glued down or floated on an underlay.
- Fitting herringbone or chevron: £40 to £70 per square metre. Pattern floors are always glued down, no exceptions, and the range is all about complexity: the size and shape of the room, how many cuts the layout forces, and whether there's a border. A border is beautiful and it's hand work, block by block, so it pushes the fitting to the top of the range.
Everything else on the quote is the supporting work, and it's itemised so nothing hides in the headline rate.
The Supporting Lines
- Removing the old floor. Lifting the existing floor and clearing the waste is priced as one job: £400 covered the lot on the whole-ground-floor quote below.
- Subfloor preparation. Levelling and moisture checks are the part nobody sees and everybody's floor depends on. What yours needs is confirmed at the site visit and priced up front.
- Skirting, beading and thresholds. Refitting skirting after the new floor goes down is typically around £300 as a job, or the edge is finished with matching quadrant beading instead. Threshold strips at each doorway are small money individually, but a floor that runs through six doorways carries six of them, which is one more reason two identical-sized homes can quote differently.
- Waste. Where there is no strip-out, waste is a small line, £50 or so, and nothing at all if you would rather deal with it yourself.
- Parking. Charged at cost, nothing if you can sort a space.
A Real Worked Example
This is an anonymised quote we sent this spring, for a whole ground floor of 56 square metres, old floor out, new floor in. It was a glue-down installation with a genuinely complicated layout, running around a kitchen and through a lot of doorways, which is exactly the sort of thing that places a job in the upper half of the fitting range:
- Remove the existing floor and clear the waste: £400
- Fit the new floor: 56 m² at £45 = £2,520
- Refit the skirting: £300
That is £3,220 of works before the boards. Then the wood, and this is where the choice lives:
- With a quality engineered oak at £60 per m², the whole job came to £7,896 including VAT.
- With a premium wide plank at £75 per m², it came to £8,904 including VAT.
Same works, same hands, about £1,000 between the two floors, and the client got samples of both in their own light before choosing. That's how the decision should be made: with the real boards in your hand and both totals on one page.
And remember it's a guide, not a bill. A single room is a much smaller number than a whole ground floor, a floor that doesn't need stripping out saves two lines at once, and beading instead of skirting refitting saves another. The site visit is free, the quote is fixed, and it's itemised precisely so you can trim it to the number you want to land on.
Before You Price a New Floor, Check What's Under the Carpet
The cheapest beautiful floor in London is the one you might already own. If there are sound original boards or parquet hiding under your carpet, sanding and finishing them costs a fraction of a new floor, and it's the first thing we check on a site visit. Our floor sanding page covers that work, and the sanding cost guide has those numbers.
If it is a new floor you're after, you can try the look before you spend a penny: upload a photo of your room to the floor visualiser and see any of the 21 Staki colours laid in your own room, planks or herringbone.
Installation Cost Questions, Answered Straight
Does the price include the wood itself?
Can I buy my own flooring and just pay you to fit it?
Does herringbone or chevron cost more to fit than planks?
Would restoring my old floorboards be cheaper than a new floor?
What does the quote process look like?
Measure the room, take the two halves of the price, and you've got an honest budget for a new floor. Then get the samples in your hands.
Call us: 020 3131 0122
Email: [email protected]
Or book a free site visit. Samples you can hold, a fixed itemised quote within 48 hours, and straight advice on whether you even need a new floor at all.