Flooring in Solihull, priced in writing before anything starts.
Floors in Solihull divide between the older villa stock, where there is frequently something worth saving, and the post-war housing, where it is a preparation job.
In the Victorian and Edwardian houses the original boards are usually good quality softwood over generous joists, and a great many are still there under later coverings. Lifting, cleaning and relaying them often produces a better floor than anything that could be bought to replace them and costs less than a good engineered board, so we look at what is there before specifying.
Sub-floor ventilation is the routine check on any suspended floor, and on a Solihull plot the air bricks are frequently blocked by a raised patio, a later extension or decades of border planting that has grown up against the wall. Block them and the joist ends begin to go.
On the post-war housing the floors are solid and the questions become flatness and moisture. Most need levelling before a hard covering, and we test for moisture rather than trusting the look of a slab, because one can appear perfectly dry and still be wet enough to lift an adhesive.
Timber acclimatises in the house before it is fixed. Our flooring page covers the coverings we fit and the preparation that goes under them.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our flooring page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Solihull street to the next.
If underfloor heating is wanted, settle it before the floor build up is fixed. On a solid floor the choice is between digging out for insulation and a low profile overlay that costs headroom at every doorway, and on the generous room heights in these houses the overlay is often perfectly acceptable.
Flooring is the last trade in and the easiest to ruin, so we programme it late and protect it once down. In an occupied house we lay in sections, keeping a dry route from the front door to the stairs throughout.
On post-war stock, floor tiles and their bitumen adhesive can contain asbestos, and we check before lifting rather than afterwards.
The rooms in these houses are large, which means floor areas are large, and that makes batch consistency matter more than it does in a small terrace. We order the whole floor from one batch and check it before laying, because a colour variation across a big open plan space is obvious in a way it never is in a small room.
Part of our wider building work in Solihull.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
