re: How much do you pay folks to put in flooring?

You people are nuts. This is laminate flooring. It's not tile or marble countertops.

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You people are nuts. This is laminate flooring.

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Honestly, I'm not saying it's rocket science at all. Pretty much any mouth breather could lay laminate. It's just that those mouth breathers have the right tools for the job and the proper instructions, oversight, and QA for doing so.

Much of the frick-ups are the "I didn't know"

I was looking to buy a house and noticed cracks in the tile floor in the grout. Find out that the re-modeler tried to lay tile on a softwood sub-floor...not good.

Someone bought that house, not me. I know that the whole floor has to be pulled up, strengthened, leveled, and re-laid.

Even when I thought I knew, I fricked up. I ended up buying another pier home, softwood sub-floor, and during the remodel I made sure to spec in 1/2 in hardibacker to make sure that the floor could handle the tile....but I bought 1/2 the thin-set that I needed to level and ended up paying the price (in a way). Laid the floor, 3 days later 2 bids over asking.....and during inspection I noticed the first signs of cracking grout.....felt like shite til the check cleared.

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laminate= $1.25-$4.50 sq ft
underlayment= $.10-$.60/sq ft
leveling agent= $1/sqft
Trip charges(dry time)= $150
Labor= `4 hours leveling, 2 hours, underlayment, 5 hours laminate install @ 2 guys X $20 hour

~$1,700 minimum materials
Labor = 22*20=$440.....(lots of guys can lay floor(cheap), not a specialty, the specialty is knowing what is needed for your floor(real professional))

Pay him $2500 to do your floors(all inclusive), as it would probably cost you $4000 or more

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I did laminate myself, but had quotes to have someone else do it. I want to say it was $1 a square foot for install (lowes/home depot installers). I bought a miter saw and installation tools and stayed under $1k even with flooring and underlayment at my starter house. But that was lower end flooring I admit (worked out great though). What caused the shite to hit the fan was pulling up carpet and finding out my concrete was like waves in the ocean. Thousands to have someone "fix" it, then more to rent a concrete grinder and knock down parts that were too bad to fix, or reverse the damage done by the person fixing (no one wanted to take that job on unless they were doing the install and everything as well. Ended up with only two guys that were willing and the one I chose messed it up).

I'd pay someone $500 to install, unless there's difficulties. Then I'd be prepared to pay accordingly. It took me less than a day to actually install. Took weeks to deal with the uneven concrete and grinding (and subsequent dust storm )

If not already mentioned, I have not seen any laminate manufacturer that did not specify for their warrantee that the substrate's topography maintain a variance of less than 3/16ths of an inch in 10 lineal feet in any giving direction.

Think about that for a second.

The viability of a "snap lock or click together floor" depends on a quality install and the manufacurer's have an out that 90+% of subcontractors ignore.

Yes, any "mouth breather" can sling laminate.
And any jackass can throw money down the toilet too.

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have you seen laminate flooring buckling and coming up after 1 year?

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Because whoever done it most likely didn't leave an expansion game and or put down a moisture barrier. The prep work takes longer than actually putting the laminate down.

Nothing

Do it yourself you lazy sack of arse