How Long Does Flooring Take to Fit?

Most single rooms are fitted in two to four hours, a staircase takes the best part of a day on its own, and a typical three bedroom house is a one or two day job. The fitting is rarely the long part of the process.

What sets the date is the lead time: measuring, ordering the right roll, and waiting for it to arrive and settle.

A Rough Guide by Room

As a general shape, a bedroom or a small living room is a morning. A large through lounge is most of a day once the furniture is worked around. A kitchen in sheet vinyl is usually quicker than people expect, because there is one piece to lay rather than many.

• Bedroom or small living room: two to four hours
• Large living room: half a day to a day
• Straight staircase: most of a day
• Staircase with winders: a full day, sometimes more
• Kitchen or bathroom in sheet vinyl: two to three hours

What Makes a Job Run Longer

Stairs are the biggest single factor, and a turning step at the top or bottom adds considerably more work than its size suggests, because each one is cut individually.

A patterned carpet takes longer than a plain one, because the pattern has to line up across every join and doorway. Subfloor preparation adds time wherever boards need screwing down or a floor needs levelling, and lifting an old floor out adds time before any new one can go down.

Why the Lead Time Is the Real Timescale

From first visit to finished floor is usually a matter of weeks rather than days, and almost all of that is the product rather than the labour. A roll has to be ordered in the right width, cut, delivered and then left to acclimatise.

Most flooring is brought into the room and left for a day or so before fitting, so that it reaches the temperature and humidity it will live at. Fitting a cold roll straight off a van is how gaps appear a fortnight later.

Can You Stay in the House?

For a single room, yes, easily. The room being fitted is out of use for the day and there is some noise and dust, but the rest of the house carries on as normal.

For a whole house it is worth thinking about the order of rooms so that there is always somewhere to be, and worth accepting that the hallway and stairs will be the most disruptive part of the week.

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