Flooring Services in San Francisco

What a Bay Area floor is really sitting on

Asking costs nothing. Describe the floor and the job goes to local independent pros who do that work - up to three of them - and they come and quote it. The Handyman SF does not lay floors and never charges you.

Two questions decide the job before anyone opens a sample book: what is underneath the floor, and what is in the old one that is coming out.

What a flooring job usually covers - and what it does not

Old resilient flooring is an asbestos question before it is a demolition question

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District regulates resilient floor covering - older vinyl and asphalt tile and sheet vinyl - and the mastic underneath it as asbestos-containing material, and the survey comes before the renovation, not after. Taking up a mid-century kitchen floor is exactly the case that rule was written for.

Most of the older stock sits over a crawl space

The Sunset and the Richmond were built out largely between 1925 and 1950. San Francisco Planning's historic context statement for the Sunset records Henry Doelger alone putting up around 11,000 buildings there, at times two houses a day between 1934 and 1941 - wood-framed, over raised foundations.

That is why a flooring complaint in those neighbourhoods is so often a crawl-space complaint: bounce, slope and squeak come from what is under the subfloor. California's energy code also requires insulation when a raised floor over a crawl space is altered, which is a reason the job widens once the subfloor is open.

Questions people actually ask first

What does it cost to ask?

Nothing. You are never charged for the request or the introduction. The pro measures, looks at what is underneath, and quotes.

How quickly will someone get back to me?

A request that arrives during the day goes out to local pros the same day; one that comes in overnight goes out the next morning.

The kitchen floor is old vinyl tile. Can it just be pulled up?

Not before it is checked. The air district treats older resilient flooring and the mastic under it as asbestos-containing material, and the survey comes before the work. Ask what is being tested and what happens to the finding.

My flat in the Sunset bounces and squeaks. Is that the floor?

Often it is what is under it. That housing was built over raised foundations with crawl spaces, and moisture, rot or a sagging joist below the subfloor shows up as bounce and squeak above it. It is worth having the crawl space looked at before new flooring goes down.

It is an Eichler on a slab. Anything different?

Those tracts commonly have radiant heating tubing cast into the slab. Ask how the tubing will be located before anything is fastened into that floor.

What to ask before the old floor comes up

• What is the CSLB licence number and class, and does this scope need a permit? Numbers can be checked at cslb.ca.gov.
• If the house predates 1978: are lead-safe practices being used on painted baseboards and transitions?
• Is the existing resilient flooring and its mastic being tested for asbestos before removal?
• Is there a crawl space, and will it be inspected for moisture and rot before the new floor goes down?
• On an Eichler or any slab house: how will radiant tubing in the slab be located first?

Where these facts come from: CSLB C-15 classification, BAAQMD asbestos programme, EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting, SF Planning, Sunset District historic context, USGS, Bay Area liquefaction maps.