Hardwood floor installation is an easy do-it-yourself project…right?

Today’s retailers would like you to think it’s easy. Many of them even offer free, one-hour “do-it-yourself” classes. The truth is, installing wood floors is not easy. To do it right, and well, takes a professional with plenty of experience. So why would retailers prefer you didn't know this?

To put it simply, companies like Home Depot and MacDonald Hardwoods, are in the D-I-Y business; they make money when folks decide to save money by doing it themselves. And then they make more money when you give up and decide you can't do it yourself. Between the jacked-up retail prices of the actual flooring material, all the tools and materials you'll need (and some you don't need!), and playing middle-man between you and an installer, they've got a vested interest in “helping” you do it yourself.

The first big profit center for a retailer is in selling you prefinished flooring (everything you ever needed to know about prefinished flooring ). With stronger, smoother, blemish-free finish already on the wood, they've solved the problems related to sanding and taken off your plate the most skill-intensive part of the project- the sand and finish work. The prefinished wood will cost about $1.50/ft more than raw wood, which is a little more than half the cost of sanding and finishing on site (labor and materials). Seems like a good deal so far, right? But here's the thing- that extra hard finish that's applied in a factory under sterile conditions and with aluminum-oxide in it to make it bulletproof...well, its not really bulletproof. In fact, although its hardness measures higher in lab tests, it will not withstand the normal scratch culprits (small rocks in shoe treads, dog nails, furniture feet) any better than site-finished floors. On top of this, the special factory finish has absolutely no ability to reduce dings and nicks which happen as a result of impact. A quick look at the lengthy fine print of the warranty that comes with prefinished flooring will reveal that it is no more durable, in practice, than traditional site-finished hardwood floors. Finally, and most important, there's the fact that installing prefinished floors means you'll have micro-bevels at the edge of each strip of flooring creating a slatted surface that gathers dust and dirt in its grooves and looks a little bit like a boat deck. At the end of the day, prefinished floors are almost never what people really wanted when they decided on hardwood floors.

The second way Home Depot wins when you get ready to do-it-yourself is by selling all of the tools and extra materials you'll need over the course of the project. At some point you'll decide you need some knee pads. They've got a cool looking pair on aisle ten. Want to see how your saw cuts with a shiny new blade? There's one right by the checkout. You get the picture.

Lots of guys tell a variation on the same story: how they started with a rush of enthusiasm and made great progress the first day. Then when some of the trickier parts of the installation come up, they soldier on- maybe a little too fast, and regret not getting that one cut a little further under the door jamb. Sheepishly, they admit that somewhere along the course of the project, Home Depot became less of a "supplier" in the construction sense, and more of a garage, where they return each morning to outfit themselves with tools and materials for the day's work. Let's face it- most of us enjoy shopping, and those who don't do it anyway. The DIY retailers know this and they make money selling us stuff we think we need.

But here's the biggest reason the retailer wants you to do it yourself: you're likely to give up. For every ten do-it-yourself projects, two are completed by the DIY-er (and still with dubious results). Three are aborted part of the way through; totally abandoned until a later rush of momentum scraps what was started and starts over with new material and a new plan. And on five out of ten projects, the person who started optimistically, armed with an education and a nailer from MacDonald's Hardwoods, realizes he's in over his head. There are just too many details that need to go right to make this project successful.

Sub-floor preparation and floor leveling

Understanding moisture barriers and what type to use over different sub-floors

Cutting back door jambs to allow flooring to fit snuggly underneath

Where and how to begin the installation

What to do when it is time to reverse the direction of the install

Working through hallways, around doors, and into closets

Transitioning to different types of flooring…professionally

Securing the last 3 or 4 rows when the nailer doesn’t fit between the flooring and the wall

Cutting a “rip” for the last row without cutting off your hand

So, when you decide all these things will take you too long to learn and too many tools to fit on your credit card, guess who has installers to help you? That's right! And financing to make it possible too! Home Depot, MacDonald Hardwoods, Loew's, they all will supply subcontractors to do your project. Because of the additional middle-man, you'll pay 35-50% more for the service, but don't expect for the service to be better than normal. Flooring subs hate the Home Depot jobs because there's always something the estimator forgot. One that comes up a lot is moving an appliance like a refrigerator or a pedastal sink- it must be done if the flooring is to be installed professionally, but the flooring guy is not authorized to touch what is not on his work order (especially not plumbing). This makes for projects with low morale that drag on and on. Often the homeowner settles for subpar workmanship just to get the grumpy installer out of his house for good, but make no mistake, Home Depot will get their check in the end.

So why hide the fact that a reasonably solid flooring installation (one that adds value to the home) is a little too much for the ordinary homeowner? Because there's too much money in selling the wood, then selling the tools, then selling the guys. Don't be fooled- find those guys yourself (how to find and hire the perfect contractor ), and let them estimate their own work, so they'll be accountable for the whole project. It won't be hard to tell from your first conversation with them whether they know enough to get you to the finish line quickly.