Greater Lansing
Floors & subfloors
The floor you can see is the cheap half. What decides the price is what is under it — whether the subfloor is sound, whether something has been getting at it, and for how long. Laying a new finish over a failing deck buys the materials twice.
What is actually wrong
A floor that feels soft, springs underfoot or has lifted at a seam is generally not a flooring problem. It is a subfloor problem wearing a floor’s clothes, and the cause is nearly always water that has been getting in slowly — around a toilet base, under a bath, at a dishwasher, at a door threshold.
That is why a quote for this work starts by lifting a corner rather than by measuring for material. Laying new flooring over a subfloor that is still failing produces a floor that looks finished and moves in eighteen months.
Where this stops
When it is not a handyman job
This is at the top of the page rather than the bottom because getting it wrong costs you a wasted visit. Insured, and no contractor license is claimed or implied — the Michigan residential builder license is not held.
- Structural joist replacement is a licensed builder’s scope and is not taken on; a failed joist is reported and referred rather than boarded over.
- No tile-setting on large-format or wet-area installations beyond repair scope.
- Anything under a suspected asbestos floor covering or mastic is licensed abatement work and is arranged separately.
The work itself
What actually gets done
Subfloor repair and replacement, including the sections around a toilet flange that have gone.
Luxury vinyl plank and sheet vinyl supply and installation.
Transitions, thresholds and trim so the new floor meets the old one properly.
Toilet pull and reset with a new seal, which is nearly always part of a bathroom floor job.
Levelling and patching before anything is laid.
This work sits inside General Repairs, which carries the invoiced price bands for the trade with the sample size printed beside every figure.
What it costs
There is no price list for this, and here is what actually decides the number.
The same three words describe a twenty-minute job and a two-day one. Rather than publish a figure that is wrong for one of them, here is what moves it — so you can work out roughly which end of it you are at before anybody comes out.
How much of the subfloor has actually gone, which is not knowable from the top and is the reason this work is quoted after a look rather than over the phone.
The room. A bathroom is a small area with a toilet, a vanity, a bath and four transitions in it; an open bedroom is a bigger area and a simpler day.
Whether the fixtures come out and go back, which they usually do.
The material, and whether you are supplying it. Plenty of customers buy their own flooring and that is shown on the quote at no charge.
Whether there is a leak still running underneath it, which stops the flooring job until it is fixed.
How to get a real number
Somebody comes out, looks at it properly, and you get a fixed price in writing with the work set out line by line and the exclusions written down as plainly as the inclusions. Coming out to do that is not charged for, and neither is working out what is wrong. If something is found once a wall or a floor is open, it is priced as a written change order and you decide before the work carries on rather than after it is billed. Materials are supplied at cost with the receipt attached, first-time customers get 10% off labor, and labor carries a one-year craftsmanship warranty.
If this is happening right now
What to do in the next five minutes, and what happens when you ring.
Before anybody arrives
- Press it and photograph where it gives. The soft area is where the story is, not the stain.
- If the soft patch is round a toilet, stop using that toilet until somebody has looked. Every flush is going into the floor.
- Do not put a rug over it. It hides the spread and the spread is the diagnosis.
Call the business line
(517) 505-7135Answered Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 18:00. There is no out-of-hours line and this page is not going to invent one — outside those hours, leave a message with the address and what is happening, and it is picked up in the morning.
On the call you get asked what is happening, what else in the building is affected, and whether it is still getting worse. That is how it gets decided whether this is our job at all — and if it is not, you get told that on the phone rather than after somebody has driven out.
- No trip charge
- No call-out fee or minimum
- No diagnostic fee
- No charge for a return visit
True across all 84 written quotes this company has issued. Most contractors in this market charge to turn up.
Or send the detailsWhen the right answer is not this company
- You can smell gas
- Leave the building and call the utility from outside. Not us, and not later.
- Water you cannot stop
- Your main shut-off first, then a licensed plumber. Every minute of this one costs money.
- Sewage backing up, or several fixtures at once
- A licensed plumber with a camera. That is the shared line, not a fixture, and a cable down one sink will not touch it.
- Sparking, scorching or a burning smell at an outlet or a panel
- Breaker off, and a licensed electrician. Electrical work here is repair and like-for-like replacement, and this is neither.
- No heat, or heating and cooling equipment that has failed
- A licensed mechanical contractor. That trade is not offered here at all, and knowing that in one phone call is worth more than a visit.
Where this is being asked for
One town has enough behind it for a page of its own.
This work is done everywhere on the coverage list. These are the towns where the enquiry record and the job record both have something specific to say, so they get a page that says it. The rest do not, because a page with nothing true on it is worse than no page.
Questions people actually ask
My bathroom floor feels soft near the toilet. What is that?
Almost always the wax seal under the toilet has failed and has been leaking a small amount at every flush, into the subfloor rather than out onto the tile. The repair is to pull the toilet, cut out and replace the failed subfloor, put a new seal in and reset it, then re-lay the finish. It is a routine job and it gets considerably less routine the longer it runs.
Can you lay a floor I have bought myself?
Yes, and it is common on larger jobs. Client-supplied material is shown on the quote at no charge, and the labor is quoted as normal. The one thing worth knowing is that materials you supply yourself are not covered by the craftsmanship warranty — the work on them is.
Book a floor or subfloor assessment
Photograph the area and then stand on it and tell us what it does — soft, springy, hollow underfoot, or solid but marked. Say what is underneath, a basement, a crawl space or a slab, and whether anything has ever leaked near it. If a room has a smell that comes back, say that too; it is usually the most useful sentence in the message. Coming out is free and there is no trip charge.