I am thinking of getting our flat floor redone as it is more than 10 years old and looking ugly. Currently in some rooms it is parquet floor and in other some PVC type of flooring.

Could someone give me a rough idea of how much it would cost to get two average Swiss rooms + small kitchen + small corridor redone? Want to be aware so I don't get taken for a ride when I start contacting local cowboys.

We are looking at this style for replacement. How long would a workman typically take to get it all done? Does he do one room at a time so you can move furniture out of one room to the next?

Flooring costs are all over the ballpark - you really need to look at a few different suppliers, decide what you want and determine if the cost differential really gives you something over less expensive products, or not.

To give you an idea, when we renovated this place I put in oak parquet in the bedrooms. I had wanted solid hardwood, but apparently that is no good for underfloor heating systems due to the risk of warping. So I went with a local flooring company, used the thickest top-layer parquet available, sandable some 4 (or was it 6?) times. Cost was something like CHF 280 (or was is 380?) per m2.

Older, wiser now - I was in Hornbach the other day and saw some very nice parquet for under CHF 80 per m2 - exact same quality. Oh how I wish Hornbach had been around at the time we renovated...

Labor costs will also vary depending on what kind of flooring needs to be taken up.

As with all renovations, get at least 3 quotes. (Hornbach has lists of local contractors, by the way.)

ETA: We did the work before moving in - so the contractor had an easy time of it. If you need to move furniture or work around things, that may add to your costs. These issues should be discussed when you get a quote done.

For the existing parquet - it's only 10 years old you should be able to get it sanded down to revive it. The good quality stuff is able to be sanded several times to give it a lifetime of up to 50 years (so we were told!) The cheaper the parquet usually the thinner the wood and the less the number of sandings it will take. Ours is the "middle" grade so should be able to take 2 sandings and last for around 30 years.

So, I would say if your existing parquet is just looking a bit sad, it's worth just getting someone to see if it can be sanded down and replacing the other parts.

In terms of cost this will vary on the type of pattern you choose (if you choose the one with larger pieces of wood it costs more), then the type of wood you choose (anything from maple to oak), the uniformity of the grain - so you can pay more and have fewer knots in the wood for example giving a more even colour. We didn't choose that as we actually like the variations in the wood but apparently this is the current trend to have as uniform as possible.

When we had our house done this was before we moved in, so no furniture issues, but overall it only took the guy a couple of days to do our whole lounge, dining, living area - one day to strip out the old carpet and put down the underlay and then it took him another day to do the laying of the floor, and then he did the skirting boards a bit later as we were having other work done too. We had our bedroom done a while later and that was all finished in a day (quite a small room though).

Basically I would just check out a few places and compare prices - but make sure you are comparing like with like (same quality wood etc.) It's probably cheaper to go to Germany I imagine, but we just used the local guy as it was so convenient to go to his showroomn the village and to get a date with him when he could come.

Thanks both of you for all the info. Sanding is not an option as they are very thin and top layer is damaged and coming off on some. I don't like the pattern either. I want the simple long ones as posted in the image.

I'd expect the cost suggested by melloncollie to be fairly accurate to be honest - remove old plus cleanup plus relay new would be around 300 francs per square metre.

Depending on how old your underfloor heating is, you might also want the system flushing while you do work on the floor as any blockages can be repaired at that time.

Good news is that it's tax-deductible as you appear to own your own place.
Double good news is that you might find someone over the border who does it for less.

300 francs per square metre is too much for me

No under floor heating. It is rented property in one of those multi flat buildings. Some people in our building have redone the flooring and the building agency picked half the bill. I will be contacting the building agency and it it possible that they have their own fitters which might make it lot cheaper.

Very soon after I moved into my new flat, my very new parquet floor developed dents - from chairs, shoes, I suppose. It seemed to happen very easily - is this because the parquet is too thin? I tried to take care, etc, but still.......

Depends a little on whether you are wed to real wood or not. We fitted some high-quality laminate flooring to our house in the UK and were very happy with it. This isn't the sort of flooring you buy at Ikea -- it's much higher quality, better finished and very durable.

We used Quick-Step Perspective flooring and were very happy with it. From memory, the price was around £50-60 per m2 including underfloor insulation/padding and fitting. We didn't have furniture in the house, but it took around 4 hours from start-to-finish to do three rooms, a hallway, and a bathroom.



They don't sell their products in Switzerland, but they sell them across the border in France and Germany so you could import them yourself.

just to make sure - should it be rented apartment - you should not attempt to do any changes on yourself until you have approval from landlord.

We had 0.5m2 parquet demage in our flat when we quit contract. Since floor was about 12years old - we had to pay time+materials for 1m2 of floor + 1/4 price of sanding/lackering etc.. was something around 900chf for that repair only.

We also painted apartment before return - still wasn't good enough and "swiss painter' had work .. charged us some 1/10 of orginal price as paining is expected to last 10 years and wasn't done for last 9.

So it all depends when your floor was fixed last time - you may get away with no dollar to pay or ...better not

Your name is very appropriate to this thread.....