Upgrade your home with top-notch hardwood installation services

Including materials and professional installation, homeowners in the St. Louis area can generally expect hardwood flooring to cost approximately $9-$16 per square foot, depending on the flooring and installation method selected.

Prefinished hardwood - where the color and protective finish are applied by the manufacturer before installation - can start around $9 per square foot.

Unfinished hardwood that is installed raw and then professionally sanded, stained, and finished in the home typically starts around $12 per square foot and increases depending on the product and project.

Wood species, plank width, installation pattern, subfloor preparation, finishing system, and other project requirements can all affect the final price.

Both can be excellent products. The better choice depends on where the floor is being installed and what you want from it long-term.

Solid hardwood provides tremendous versatility and can typically be sanded and refinished multiple times over its life. That makes it an excellent long-term flooring option in the appropriate environment.

Engineered hardwood is constructed differently and tends to experience less movement and fewer seasonal gaps. It can also be used in certain locations where traditional solid hardwood may not be appropriate.

The tradeoff is that engineered hardwood does not always offer the same refinishing versatility as a traditional solid hardwood floor. Rather than automatically recommending one over the other, we prefer to evaluate the location, conditions inside the home, and the look the homeowner wants before making a recommendation.

Yes, but the type of hardwood matters.

Traditional solid hardwood is generally not installed directly over concrete because of moisture concerns and the challenges associated with attaching solid wood directly to the slab.

Engineered hardwood is designed differently and can be glued directly to properly prepared concrete using the appropriate installation system. If your home has a concrete subfloor, we can evaluate the conditions and recommend a hardwood product and installation method appropriate for the space.

A professional hardwood installation crew can generally install approximately 250-400 square feet per day, although the actual production rate depends heavily on the floor and the home.

Subfloor preparation, room layout, installation method, and plank width all affect the schedule. For example, installing traditional 2.25-inch hardwood requires considerably more individual boards than installing 4-inch flooring over the same square footage, so the narrower floor can take substantially longer.

Quality should always take precedence over speed. As a general planning estimate, approximately 250 square feet per day is a reasonable starting point for many hardwood installation projects.

Often, yes - but proper acclimation is determined by moisture readings, not simply by counting days.

The purpose of acclimation is to allow the moisture content of the hardwood to reach an acceptable relationship with the moisture content of the subfloor and conditions inside the home.

You may hear rules such as 'hardwood needs to sit in the house for a week.' While allowing time for acclimation is often a good practice, time alone does not tell us whether the flooring is actually ready to install.

Luminous Flooring uses professional moisture meters to measure the hardwood and subfloor before installation. Those readings are recorded and kept with the project documentation. In many situations, a week provides sufficient acclimation time. In others, the flooring may require more or less time.

We do not guess - we measure.