We get asked some version of “how do I know you’re any good” maybe twice a month, usually by someone who already got burned once. It’s a fair question and most companies answer it badly, with a line about quality and craftsmanship that tells you nothing.
So here’s the version we’d actually use. These are the twelve questions we’d ask a flooring contractor if we were the homeowner, including if that contractor was us. Some of them we answer well. One of them we answer with a flat no, and we’ll get to that.
Ask these of every company you’re considering. The answers will sort them faster than any review page.
1. Will the person quoting this job be in my house while the work happens?
This is the first question for a reason. A lot of flooring problems we get called in to fix started with a salesperson who sold the job, handed a work order to a crew, and never came back. The crew doesn’t know what was promised. The homeowner doesn’t know who to call. Nobody owns the mistake.
At Vilchis, Mario comes out to measure, writes the quote, and then runs the crew that does the install. If a company can’t tell you plainly who will be standing in your living room on day three, that’s worth noticing.
2. Is the crew yours, or subcontracted?
Related but not the same. Plenty of outfits bid the work and then farm it out to whoever is available that week. The result is uneven. You might get a good crew. You might get three guys who met that morning.
We don’t subcontract. Our crew has been our crew for years, which is less a sales point than a practical one: they know how we handle a transition at a doorway and we don’t have to re-explain it every job. If a company does use subs, that’s not automatically bad, but you want to know it up front and you want to know whether the subs carry their own insurance.
3. Can I see your general liability certificate and your workers comp?
Ask for the documents, not the reassurance. Any legitimate contractor can email you a certificate of insurance the same day, and most of us are used to sending them straight to an HOA or a property manager.
The workers comp piece matters more than people think. If someone gets hurt in your house and the crew isn’t covered, that can land on your homeowners policy. We carry general liability and workers comp on every crew member and we’ll send proof to anyone who asks.
4. Does my job need a general contractor license, and do you hold one?
Most residential flooring work doesn’t require a state general contractor license. In North Carolina, the threshold under General Statute 87-1 is $40,000 for the total cost of the project, labor and materials combined. A typical room or even a floor of a house usually lands under that.
Where it matters is a whole-house renovation or a job bundled with other work. If your project crosses $40,000, the contractor managing it needs a license from the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors, and the Board’s site has a free lookup where you can search by company name, including partial names. It’s also worth knowing the Board runs a Homeowners Recovery Fund for people who lost money to a licensed general contractor who did dishonest or incompetent work. Splitting one big project into two smaller contracts to stay under the line is not a workaround, and the Board watches for it.
5. Do you take moisture readings before you start?
Here is where the answers get technical and where bad contractors get vague. Wood and concrete both hold moisture, and installing over a subfloor that reads too high is how you end up with cupped boards or a gap down the middle of a room six months later.
We take readings on the subfloor and on the material, every job, and we won’t start if the numbers are wrong. If a contractor shrugs at this question, that’s your answer. It matters even more in Durham’s newer subdivisions where hardwood is going over a concrete slab, because a slab can read fine on the surface and still be giving off moisture from below.
6. How long will the material sit in my house before you install it?
The answer should be a number of days, not “we’ll see.” Wood moves with humidity, and Triangle summers and winters pull it in opposite directions. Material delivered on Monday and installed on Monday has not adjusted to your house yet.
We’ve written up how long hardwood should acclimate in a Triangle home in more detail. The short version is that skipping it is the most common cause of gaps and squeaks that show up half a year after everyone has gone home.
7. Is this a fixed price or a range, and what makes it change?
A range is not a quote. “Eight to twelve a square foot” means the number you pay gets decided later, usually after the old floor is already in a dumpster and you have no leverage.
Our quotes are fixed price in writing, emailed within a day or two of the measurement. Anything that could change the number gets named in advance. If another company gives you a range, ask them to put a fixed number on it and watch what happens. If you want to sanity check whatever you’re quoted, our 2026 hardwood installation cost breakdown for Durham and our refinishing cost page have real per square foot numbers you can hold a bid against.
8. What happens if you pull up the old floor and find something bad?
Every honest flooring contractor in Durham has opened a floor and found rot, a failed subfloor, old asbestos tile, or a patch job from 1978. In older houses it’s routine. We’ve documented what tends to be under the floors in 1940s Durham bungalows, and it’s rarely nothing.
The question isn’t whether surprises happen. It’s what the contractor does about it. You want to hear that they’ll stop, show you, price the fix, and get your sign-off before continuing. What you don’t want is a crew that quietly covers it and bills you at the end, or one that uses it as the opening of a negotiation you can’t walk away from. We check for subfloor problems during the measurement specifically so this comes up before you sign instead of on day one.
9. Who moves the furniture and the appliances?
Small question, surprisingly expensive answer. Some companies include it. Some charge per room. Some leave it entirely to you and don’t mention it until the morning they arrive and your piano is still in the dining room.
Get it in writing. Same for the old flooring: find out whether haul-away and disposal are in the price or added later. These are the line items that turn a cheap quote into an average one.
10. What does the warranty actually cover?
There are two separate warranties on almost every floor and companies blur them constantly. The manufacturer covers defects in the material. The installer covers the installation. A manufacturer will not pay for a floor that cupped because nobody checked the slab, and an installer isn’t responsible for a finish that was bad in the box.
Ask for both in writing, ask how long the installation warranty runs, and ask what voids it. Many manufacturer warranties are void if the material wasn’t acclimated or installed to spec, which loops back to questions five and six.
11. How do you handle dust, and what does cleanup include?
Sanding a floor makes a staggering amount of fine dust and it gets into cabinets, closets, and the top of the refrigerator. Dust containment systems help a lot. They do not make it a spotless job, and anyone who tells you otherwise is overselling.
Our sanders are dust contained, and we also run a cleaning crew that can come through after the install and get the house back to livable. We added that service because sawdust kept turning up in places we hadn’t touched, and handing someone the keys and leaving felt like half a job. Most flooring companies in Durham don’t offer it. Ask whoever you’re considering what “cleanup” means in their quote, because for some companies it means sweeping.
12. Can I see a job in a house like mine, and talk to that homeowner?
Not a portfolio of someone else’s stock photos. An actual address or a set of photos from a house with a similar age, layout, and floor type. A 1950s Forest Hills bungalow and a Southpoint new build have almost nothing in common underneath.
We keep a gallery of our work and we’ll put you in touch with past customers. We also publish a day by day log of a whole-house job in Durham so you can see what the sequence actually looks like before you commit to living through it.
The one we answer with a no
We don’t offer third party financing. No in-house credit, no twelve months same as cash.
We take a deposit at the start and the balance when the work is done and you’ve signed off on it, and we accept checks, major credit cards, and bank transfer. Some homeowners use a card for the flexibility. We can also phase a project across two budget years, main floor now and bedrooms later, and quote it that way so you can see both pieces before deciding.
If financing is the thing that makes your project possible, we’re probably not your company, and we’d rather say that now than six weeks into a conversation.
What the answers tend to sort out
Run these twelve past three companies and you’ll notice the spread isn’t really about price. It’s about how specific anyone is willing to be. The companies that answer in numbers and documents are a different category from the ones that answer in adjectives.
We’d also say this, because it cuts against us: the cheapest quote isn’t automatically the bad one, and the most expensive isn’t automatically thorough. We’ve seen good work come out of small operations with no website. What we haven’t seen is good work come out of a company that wouldn’t answer question one.
A related read, if you’re weighing a national retailer against a local crew: where the price difference actually goes between big box flooring installation and a Durham crew.
Ask us these questions
We’re a flooring company in Durham, NC and we’ve been installing and refinishing floors around the Triangle since 2009. We do hardwood, laminate, LVP, epoxy, floor coatings, and tile, plus residential cleaning after the install.
The estimate is free and in person, the quote is written and fixed, and nobody is going to pressure you to sign that day.
Vilchis Hardwood Floors 237 Obie Dr, Durham, NC 27713 (919) 794-1116 [email protected] Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Serving Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Apex, Morrisville, Garner, and Wake Forest.
Request a free in-home estimate
Frequently asked questions
Do flooring contractors need a license in North Carolina? Not for most residential flooring jobs. A state general contractor license is required when the total project cost reaches $40,000 or more, labor and materials combined, under NC General Statute 87-1. You can verify any licensed general contractor through the NC Licensing Board for General Contractors.
How many flooring quotes should I get in Durham? Three is a reasonable number. More than that and the quotes start blurring together. Make sure all three are quoting the same scope, because a bid that excludes subfloor repair, trim, and haul-away will always look cheaper than one that includes them.
What should a flooring quote include? A fixed price rather than a range, the material and grade by name, square footage, subfloor prep, trim and transitions, furniture moving, haul-away of the old floor, and an estimated timeline. Anything missing is a question to ask before signing.
Is the lowest flooring quote usually a bad sign? Not by itself. It becomes a problem when the low number comes from excluding work that will have to happen anyway. Compare scope before comparing price.
How long does a flooring job take in a Durham home? A typical 1,000 square foot hardwood install runs three to five days. LVP and laminate are often one to two days for the same area. Refinishing existing hardwood usually takes three to four days because of dry time between finish coats.
Does Vilchis Hardwood Floors offer free estimates? Yes. We come to the house, measure, look at the subfloor, and email a written fixed-price quote within a day or two. No charge and no obligation. Call (919) 794-1116.
