New Westminster · About 35 minutes from Maple Ridge

Flooring installation in New Westminster

New Westminster has the oldest housing stock of anywhere we cover. Character houses in Queen's Park, Sapperton and the West End can have three generations of flooring stacked on top of each other, sitting on a subfloor laid before plywood was common.

Free Estimate (604) 787-5557

In a house like that, laying the new floor is the quick part. What decides whether it lasts is getting down to something sound: taking the old layers out carefully, dealing with what's underneath, and bringing the surface flat enough for a modern click floor.

Uptown and Quayside have plenty of condos as well. There the job is simpler, though the strata's noise rules still set which underlay can go down.

What's under the layers

Carpet over lino over the original floor is routine here. Sheet vinyl, vinyl floor tiles and their adhesives from before about 1990 can contain asbestos, and BC's workplace safety rules require hazardous materials to be identified before renovation work disturbs them. So an old sheet or tile layer is sampled and lab-tested before it's pulled up. If the result is positive, that layer is removed by a licensed asbestos abatement contractor, and the new floor goes in once they're finished.

Plank subfloors and sloping rooms

Pre-war houses often have board subfloors, laid on the diagonal, with gaps between the planks. A click floor laid over boards that are cupped, loose or gapped follows every edge, so a plywood overlay goes down first to give it a flat, solid base; some flooring instructions require one over any board subfloor. Rooms that have settled over a century can be levelled to take out the dips, but a floor that bounces or has dropped along one wall is a joist or beam problem, and a carpenter needs to see it first. Plywood and levelling both add height, so plan at the measure how the new floor meets doorways, stairs and the next room.

Original trim and heritage rules

Queen's Park is a heritage conservation area, and some houses elsewhere in the city carry their own heritage designation. Those controls mainly cover the outside of a house, so interior flooring is generally unaffected, but check with the City of New Westminster if your property is designated. Inside, tall original baseboards are often worth keeping. They can come off and go back on over the new floor, or stay where they are with a small moulding added along the bottom to cover the expansion gap. Old fir trim can split when it's pried off, so which approach suits yours is decided at the measure.

Most asked for in New Westminster