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Flooring Installation FAQs


Flooring Contractor FAQs

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There’s no better way to freshen up your space and add value to your home. But before you update your flooring, there are many choices to make. We’ve rounded up some flooring contractor FAQs in to help you with your decision-making process. If you want more information, check out our web pages dedicated to different kinds of flooring.

No matter the flooring you choose, you can trust the qualified contractors hired by Footprints Floors to do the job right.

FAQs

The first thing to figure out when updating your flooring is what flooring is right for the space. For a bathroom or kitchen where there will be lots of moisture and potentially water on the floor, something like tile or vinyl flooring is ideal because it’s durable and water-resistant. Hardwood flooring is a classic choice for other areas of your home, but you still need to choose between solid or engineered hardwood. Consider the upkeep of different flooring and the wear — do you have young kids or pets? Does the room receive much sun? Answer these questions first to help you decide the kind of flooring that will suit your needs.

It depends! Laminate and vinyl flooring can be installed directly over existing flooring, and solid hardwood can be glued directly onto concrete. Consider factors like the age and condition of your existing flooring and whether it will serve as a sturdy base for new flooring.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not difficult to care for wood flooring. You can simply vacuum hardwood floors to remove grit and debris and use a damp cloth or mop to wipe away dust. To reduce potential scratches, ensure footwear (i.e., heels) has proper plastic caps to prevent scratches, or ask guests to remove their shoes. As a bonus, you can switch up the look of your hardwood floors at any time through staining or refinishing.

You probably bumped into three terms when looking up hardwood flooring online: "painting," "staining," and "refinishing." "Painting" is obvious, but what about the others? A wood stain, usually applied by hand, is used to darken the color of the wood. The "finishing" process involves applying varnish and a coating of sealant, which adds gloss and protects the wood. "Refinishing" is the process of redoing your current flooring finish, revitalizing, and rejuvenating it.

Refinishing or restoring existing wood floors can save you tons of money! If you have old wood flooring that doesn’t look great, it can be tempting to rip it out and start over. But wood flooring is resilient and made to last. Most damage can be repaired, and refinishing or restoring can make wood floors look new. If you’re unsure whether your wood flooring can be saved, the experts at Footprints Floors can assess it.

This is another “it depends” situation. Solid hardwood flooring is more expensive than engineered hardwood. However, solid hardwood can be sanded and refinished more than engineered hardwood, so it may last longer. Engineered hardwood is more affordable and is more resistant to moisture and humidity. If you live in a place with high humidity or greatly varying temperatures, engineered hardwood flooring may be the right choice. Both look beautiful and are easy to take care of.

Laminate flooring is a budget-friendly type of layered flooring that can be made to look like pretty much anything. It’s typically made up of wood fibers compressed into a board or a plywood board. The board is then covered in an “image” layer — basically, a photo of whatever you want the flooring to look like (stone, wood, etc), and a “wear” layer, or protective layer. Some laminate may also have a backing layer made of cork or felt. Laminate is an affordable way to get the look of more expensive wood or stone flooring. It’s pretty durable, making it a great choice for homes with pets or kids, and it’s easy to clean. However, prolonged exposure to water can cause the wood part of the laminate to warp, making it unsuitable for rooms like bathrooms.

Laminate’s wood component makes it susceptible to water damage. Vinyl is an entirely synthetic material, which means it’s waterproof. As long as laminate is installed correctly, it’s fairly water-resistant, but still probably not a suitable choice for bathrooms or mudrooms where water might linger. Vinyl is extremely durable and comes in various of colors, textures, and styles. Both laminate and vinyl are great choices for homes with high traffic from kids and pets, and they’re easy to take care of — but whereas vinyl can go in any room in your home, remember to keep laminate out of the bathroom.

There is a much wider variety of colors, textures, and designs in tile flooring than in hardwood. Tile floors have a lifespan of over a century. Whether you're looking for a traditional or modern look, there is a tile pattern to suit you. Regarding durability, aesthetics, maintenance, and cost, tile is an excellent choice. It's also considered one of the most eco-friendly options for flooring in your home.

Ceramic tiles are made up of clay or other minerals that have been tightly compressed and heated in an oven. They can be glazed or unglazed and come in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes. Porcelain tiles are ceramic tiles that have been heated at an even greater temperature, making them more durable and less porous. Porcelain tiles are better suited for rooms with high moisture content like bathrooms, but their durability makes them an excellent choice for any room. However, ceramic tile is more affordable and still offers great durability.

We hope these flooring contractor FAQs have been helpful to you as your start your flooring journey. Contact Footprints Floors for a free estimate when you've found flooring you love. You can feel confident in a job well done with our licensed and certified contractors.

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Footprints Floors provides flooring installation services for both old and new homes. We handle the demolition and removal of the old flooring, as well as the necessary prep work for new flooring. We will even remove baseboards and reinstall them after completing the flooring installation.

Covering everything from design and installation to clean up, our team helps increase the value of your property with brand new hardwood floors. Contact us today to request a free estimate!

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What Our Customers Say

We recently had LVP installed on two floors of our townhome. Clint and his team did a phenomenal job!! Our floors look GREAT! They were easy to work/coordinate with, timely, professional, and efficient. 10/10 would recommend and hire again in a heartbeat
A Ratliff 06/21/25 — google
We were planning a pretty big flooring project & honestly didn't know where to start. We went to a few stores and wandered around not knowing what we were looking for or where to begin. I found Footprint Floors online, they had great reviews so I called. Brian came to our house listened, advised & quoted out our project. He is the reason we choose this company. He was honest & kind. We weren't sure if we wanted to do the whole project because of cost. What he suggested we do, if only doing a part of the project was actually the least expensive option. We ended up doing the whole project & couldn't be happier with our decision. We went with their recommendation on a company to buy our wood, Lanham. They were great and their process was so easy. Their delivery person was also friendly & hardworking. My husband met the owner, Clint, on the first day of work. His communication throughout was great! I can't say enough about the crew that did the work. They were kind, respectful, and hardworking. I knew the crew would "clean up" when they were done but I did not expect the level of cleaning they did! I was dreading the clean up when the project was over but they made my job so much more manageable. I would highly recommend this company.
Teressa Preuss 06/21/25 — google
Brandon, Daniel, and Team were very easy to work with. Very communicative about the project, worked diligently, and the finished product looks great! Highly recommend.
Charlie McGoogan 06/21/25 — google
Dariusz was very thorough and talked through all my options with me. And the floor turned out just as described…beautiful!
Brian Prather 06/20/25 — google
Josh, Saul & the team were great! They managed to take some really awful old cherry floors and help me find a stain to neutralize the red. They put down a lot of samples to help find that color that worked best. I appreciated them taking on the challenge - The great news is if you have cherry Floors and you don’t like the red call footprints.
Kristin Barlowe 06/20/25 — google
Professional, courteous, clear communications, and great work that came in on budget and on time. I was very pleased with the entire process. Highly recommended!
ChivalricCodex 06/20/25 — google
Unbelievable service ! Fastest response time and guided us through the whole process !
Shannon Clauson 06/20/25 — google
We had some major issues with our LVP flooring coming up after it was installed a few years ago due to a bad installation. I called MANY companies, big name companies to see if anyone could come out to fix it, or give us some kind of solution. NOT ONE company would help us, but every one of them would sure give us a quote for brand new flooring. I found Mike and Footprints Floors after literally searching posts on Facebook using key words (LVP Flooring repair) and found a post someone made a year ago asking for help for the same issue and asking for referrals, and in those comments someone suggested Mike. From the first contact, he was extremely kind and scheduled a time to come and see our problems. He said it shouldn’t be too difficult to fix and scheduled a day to come back to make the repairs. He came the day he said, and pulled up big sections of our flooring and laid new planks down. He was here 3 hours and did an amazing job. He was also extremely fair on price. When the time comes for us to replace our entire homes flooring, we will be calling him. When no other company cared to help, he did. So he will now be our go-to for all things flooring. Thank you Mike.
Rob H 06/20/25 — google
Footprints did a beautiful job replacing our old tub/shower combo with a walk in shower! The finished product is exactly what we envisioned. Rich was so helpful and answered all of my many questions quickly. The installer, David, arrived every morning when he said he would and did an amazing job. Any issues or concerns I had were addressed immediately and resolved. We are thrilled with the work and would definitely recommend!!
Rebecca Leacock 06/20/25 — google
I received 3 quotes for my bathroom ceramic tile project. Footprints came in as the lowest. Dan and Ephrain were great to work with. They communicated well through the whole process. They promptly arrived at the scheduled time and finished the project in the amount of time anticipated. The floor looks great. I would absolutely call Footprints again for another small project or a larger one.
Deborah Earnst 06/20/25 — google
Really enjoyed working with Aaron and Juan! Super communicative and excellent work on our 118 year old pine floors!
John Mola 06/20/25 — google
Our experience with Dan was wonderful from the quote for our new flooring through installation. He communicated every step of the way, listened to our needs, and delivered reliably and on time. We highly recommend his services and won’t hesitate to look to him for our next project!
Amy Georgitsis 06/19/25 — google
Company was easy to work with from beginning to end. We were replacing old carpet with laminate flooring. The crew was fast, polite and cleaned up after. Would recommend them to anyone looking for floor installation.
david williams 06/19/25 — google
Footprints Floors did a good job removing our carpet and replaced with LVT, and Laminate doors. Had a few small hiccups but Bob did a great job of taking care of everything.
Jack Lambeth 06/19/25 — google
John, Charles, and the whole Footprints team were great to work with! They got the work done fast, were respectful of the residence, and happily addressed all of our concerns. We now have a kitchen floor that is level, looks great, and was completed at budget. Could not be happier!
Roy Mosby 06/18/25 — google
Dan with Footprints from Castle Rock are truly masterminds when it comes to flooring. Our wood floors were in really bad shape and now they look like new!! Dan and his crew Aldo are very professional and accountable!! They came in and took care of our needs and we are very pleased with our new floors! Amazing work all around.
Luis Rodriguez 06/18/25 — google
These guys do excellent work for a reasonable price and in an efficient manner. Their communication is very responsive, helpful, and respectful. They worked around our timing and adapted to unforeseen circumstances more than once with willingness to serve our needs. I'd recommend them to anyone needing floors refinished or replaced – I've used their service for both types of projects and have been very satisfied.
Alec Glass 06/18/25 — google
Beautiful job restoring our floors, everyone we dealt with was very professional and personable. When they were done, our house was neat and clean and our floors looked great. I recommend Footprint Floors without reservation!
Jay Gee 06/18/25 — google
Great folks to work with. Floyd and his team are very knowledgeable about flooring and proper installation. They are very skilled and efficient in getting the job done well. What stands out is their customer service. They'll treat you like family.
Jon Seebo 06/18/25 — google
Wonderful service and craftsmanship! We needed our tile shower repaired and Footprint floors came and gave us a quote, scheduled the work and completed it all in a timely manner and we are thrilled with their service! Highly recommend for anyone wanting quality floors. Thank you Footprint Floors!
Truckredford 2 06/17/25 — google

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Footprints Floors is a one-of-a-kind residential flooring installation and restoration business. We offer high quality flooring installations and, with over a decade of dedication, we have quickly become the largest flooring contractor by striving to bring a higher level of customer service and sophistication to an industry where it was severely lacking. Our family-owned business is focused on customer satisfaction and quality results, all while passing savings on to you and yours through our low overhead model.

Footprints Floors is a one-of-a-kind residential flooring installation and restoration business. We offer high quality flooring installations and, with over a decade of dedication, we have quickly become the largest flooring contractor by striving to bring a higher level of customer service and sophistication to an industry where it was severely lacking. Our family-owned business is focused on customer satisfaction and quality results, all while passing savings on to you and yours through our low overhead model.

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