# Forum Home Renovation Flooring  Entirely replacing floorboards in 100 year old house - cost?

## Karolina

I have just purchased a 110 year old row cottage.
Over the weekend I ripped up the carpet with the hope that I would discover beautiful timber floors, but unfortuantely I discovered worse for wear pine floors (I had a feeling all along that this would be the case).  There are uneven and wide gaps between some and others are warped and bent ... in short unsalvagable. 
I understand that engineered floating timber floors would cost me $80m2 (uninstalled) but how much would it cost to have new timber floorboards installed ie have the old ones taken away and new ones nailed on?

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## Craigoss

There are so many variables in what your doing, which it will be difficult for anyone to give you an idea of cost without knowing more details. 
1) Are you willing to do any of the work yourself i.e. removal and installation
2) Size of the area
3) Condition of the subfloors
4) Type of floorboards 
I've just installed select grade Blackbutt t&g flooring 85x19mm in two rooms which is about 40sq/mtr, and paying someone to polish them. For someone to install + polish, this would have cost about $150 per sqr if the floor was ready to lay. In your case you will need to pay for removal, cost of dumping, and the cost for leveling your floor. Boral recommends +/-3mm variation in floor level over a 6m area, which in a house 110yrs old is not going to happen. My 80yr old floor was all over the shop and i had to rip that up, re-level peers and rebuild the subfloors. If your not building inclined, my guess would be to get some contractors out first and get the options off them.

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## Karolina

I'm waiting for a quote already, I just wanted to get a gauge of what to expect. 
The floorboards would have to be fully installed - I'm not willing to do any of it myself. 
The area is about 40m2 and because it's not really a place I plan to live in for a long time - I either plan to sell or rent out, I'm thinking pine floors would be good. 
Otherwise if the job it too big/too hard/too exxy... my next option is to install engineered floors over the top.  I can do this myself.

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## sCORCH

I feel for you... all that anticipation just to find pine would have been a bit demoralising. 
As was said above, there's a few too many variables to suggest how much the cost would be.  It also depends how much you feel like doing yourself. 
If there is a fair bit of the pine in decent condition, it might be worth just replacing the rotted/warped/dead ones and then sanding and polishing the whole lot. 
You could do a lot of that yourself if you are DIY inclined.  Unfortunately I can't help with the cost of pine flooring, but for hardwood you're looking at up to $150/sq m installed. 
If your existing substrate/floor needs replacing first (which it sounds like it could) then sadly the costs could be much higher than that. 
I hope it goes well for you. 
sCORCH

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## Karolina

Just to update, I am getting my floorboards replaced with new pine ones. work starts tomorrow. I'm now brainstorming flooring options for the rest of my house...

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## brilliantthings

And what are you paying all up?

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## Karolina

brilliantthings - I don't know yet! 
The area I am re-doing is just over 30m2.
I was initially told to allow $1K for materials and then 2 days to do the floors at $65 per hour. 
As it's turned out there has already been some unexpected surprises - the joists in one of the rooms are an inferior timber and they have old termite damage on them (no active termites though) so they need to be replaced.  This of course means more costs and more time. 
Also I am arranging to have the electrical wiring run under the floors rather than on top of the skirting... 
So far it's taken the guy doing my floors about 5 hours to take out the old floors. He's back there today fixing the joists etc.

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## brilliantthings

Thanks. Keep us posted.

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## whippee2

Karolina,  Just a quick question, we are moving to the birkenhead area and will be after someone to sand and polish some floors for us.   Who are you using to do the job?  can you get back with what sort of results you have had?  In the past we have had a couple of crowds do floors for us and they have gone real dull over a real short period of time (say 12 months) and i have seen some at other houses that stay glossy for a heck of a lot longer than that.
Or if anyone else has any recommendations for other sanders/polishers can you please let us know. 
Thanks 
Andy

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