There is usually a wide spread between the highest and lowest flooring quote a homeowner collects, and the number itself rarely tells you which one is right. This is how to read a flooring bid in the St. Louis area: what a real written estimate contains, the questions that get honest answers, the red flags worth walking away from, and why the cheapest per-square-foot price often costs more by the end. Almost all of it applies to any contractor you hire.
Get Three Quotes, and Make Them Comparable
Three is the right number. One gives you no context and five turns into a research project. The trap is that three quotes only help if they cover the same work. If one includes pulling and hauling the old carpet and another does not, you are comparing a floor to a floor plus a dumpster, and the cheaper one looks smarter than it is.
The fix is simple. Write your scope down once - rooms, square footage, what is coming out, what is going in, stairs, transitions, furniture and appliances - then hand the same list to everyone. Ask each company to price it line by line. If a company will not itemize, you already have your answer about how the rest of the job will go.
What a Real Written Estimate Includes
A number over the phone is a guess. A one-line quote on the back of a business card is a guess with letterhead. Here is what belongs on paper before anyone takes a deposit from you.
- The product by manufacturer, collection and color, not just carpet or LVP. Ask for the spec sheet.
- Square footage actually measured, the waste factor used, and who covers the difference if the measurement is off.
- Removal and disposal of the existing floor, including whether hauling it away is in the price.
- Subfloor prep: leveling, plywood, moisture testing on a slab, and what happens if rot or damage turns up.
- Transitions, thresholds, stair nosing, quarter round or base shoe, and whether existing trim is reused or replaced.
- Furniture and appliance moving, and who disconnects a gas range or an icemaker line.
- Start date, number of working days, and what the crew does about dust and containment.
- Warranty in two parts: the manufacturer's on the material and the company's on the labor, in writing, with a length.
- A payment schedule. A deposit toward material is normal. Most of the money up front is not.
One line gets skipped constantly: the change-order clause. Old floors hide surprises. A slow leak under a dishwasher, joists that need sistering, three layers of vinyl stacked up in a kitchen. You want the estimate to say what happens when that turns up, in dollars and in writing, before a crew is standing in your kitchen with the floor open.
Questions That Get Honest Answers
| Instead of asking | Ask this |
|---|---|
| Are you licensed and insured? | Can you email me the certificate of insurance with my name on it? |
| Do you do good work? | Can I see two jobs like mine that you finished in the last year? |
| How much per square foot? | What is the total installed price for my scope, with prep and disposal listed? |
| When can you start? | How many working days will my job take, and who is on site each day? |
| Do you guarantee it? | What does your labor warranty cover, for how long, and how do I make a claim? |
Two more that people forget to ask. First, who is actually doing the installation? Some companies run their own crews and some subcontract, and both can produce good work, but you should know before the truck pulls up. Second, is there a lead installer whose name you will have? A crew that stays through the whole job and answers the phone is worth paying a little more for.
Why the Cheapest Square-Foot Number Usually Is Not
The low bid is often low because something was left out, not because that company found a way to work cheaper. The most common omissions in this market are old flooring removal, subfloor leveling, quarter round, stair work and haul-away. Add those back in and the spread narrows fast. Sometimes the bid that started lowest finishes highest.
Then there is material substitution. A quote naming a category instead of a product line lets anyone deliver the cheapest thing in that category. Carpet is the classic case: two carpets that look identical in the store can have very different face weights and very different lives, and the pad underneath is a separate spec that is easy to quietly downgrade. Ask for names and numbers. On installation work generally, labor is where the real quality difference lives and it is the hardest thing to see in a quote.
None of this means you should pay the highest bid. It means you should compare complete, itemized, installed numbers. When the scope truly is identical, taking the cheapest itemized quote is a perfectly good decision.
Collecting quotes right now? Ours comes itemized, so you can set it beside the others line by line.
Get a free in-home estimateRed Flags
- A price that is only good if you sign today. Flooring is not a limited-time product.
- A large deposit, or a request for cash. Money toward material is normal; half or more up front is not.
- No physical address, or a showroom that turns out to be a phone number and a truck.
- A quote with no product names anywhere on it.
- A measurement taken by eye, or off a floor plan, without anyone walking the house.
- Reluctance to put the labor warranty in writing.
- A crew that arrives with no plan for the old flooring or for dust containment.
St. Louis Details Worth Asking About
A few things are specific to this market. Ask how the installer handles acclimation, because wood and even some vinyl needs to sit in your house before it goes down, and our swing from muggy summers to dry winters is exactly why that matters. Ask what expansion gap they leave at the walls. Anyone who cannot answer those two has not thought much about the houses here.
Ask about your basement if it is part of the job. Many basements around here have taken water at least once, which pushes you toward waterproof products and away from anything with a wood core. Ask about the subfloor if the house predates the 1940s, since joisted floors over a basement move. And in any home built before the early 1980s, ask what they do if they find 9 by 9 tile or old black adhesive that may contain asbestos. The right answer is that they stop and bring in an abatement contractor, not that they scrape it up.
Financing is fair game too, since a real project often lands above the budget you started with. Reputable companies offer it through a third party and are plain about the terms; ours sits on the financing page. The routine questions usually live on a company's FAQ page, which is a quick way to see how a company thinks before you ever call them.
How We Handle It at Veteran Flooring
For what it is worth, here is our process. Our sales team measures every room, looks at the subfloor, and writes the estimate with the prep, the trim, the disposal and the product line spelled out, so you can set it next to anyone else's and compare like for like. Dale, the owner, is a veteran, and we have worked out of the showroom at 149 Weldon Pkwy in Maryland Heights since 2015. You can read what customers say on our reviews page, learn about the crew on our about page, or see the work we do in Creve Coeur and across the metro.
Ask us the same questions you ask everyone else. If a company hesitates on any of them, keep calling. A free in-home estimate should cost you nothing but an hour, and you should walk away from it with a written number you actually understand. Call (314) 897-4383 when you are ready to start.
