Flooring allowance - anyone know any builders?

[aworldnervelink]

So some of you have already heard that I bought a house in Pembroke. It's near completion and I am working on selecting the cabinets, countertops, floors, and lighting. What's got me irritated is that the flooring allowance is $2.30/sq ft and that does not include installation. You'd be hard-pressed to get linoleum installed at that price! Any kind of decent wood flooring runs at least in the $4-5 range. The kitchen allowance is $5000 including the cabinet installs, which is nothing spectacular. The lighting allowance is $800, which is again very low for a house of this size.

I have a feeling I'm getting ripped off here. Anyone know any builders who can speak to the general trend in these things? Anyone know a secret place to get cheap flooring?

[KBCraig]

Good != cheap, especially with flooring. I don't think you're getting ripped off on the prices you noted, but if someone promised floors and a kitchen on those allowances, you definitely got ripped off on the quote.

There's always Lumber Liquidators, http://www.lumberliquidators.com. I haven't used them, but I've heard some good reports. I think it's a matter of luck and timing to get good product at a good price from them.

Good luck!

Kevin

[Dreepa]

There's always Lumber Liquidators, http://www.lumberliquidators.com. I haven't used them, but I've heard some good reports. I think it's a matter of luck and timing to get good product at a good price from them.

I used Lumberliquidators when I lived in CA.  If you use them make sure you search through the boxes as some of the stuff sometimes has some slight damage.

[Otosan]

If the $5000 for the kitchen cabinets also includes the counter tops, well....I just installed cabinets in my house along with counter top, and no stove or such, $12k.       But I love my new kitchen ... 
$800 for lights will not buy 4 good fans,  if ya have time and can, go to Lowes as often as ya can, and sometimes you can get a real deal on discontinued lights and such.
Also, I think, you can get the "floating floor" for about $1 ~ $2 (not installed).

[Lloyd Danforth]

So....you taking your brand new kitchen to NH?

[Amos Keag]

I'm currently installing about 1,800 sq ft of this bamboo flooring in my Manchester home...http://www.lumberliquidators.com/shopping/add.asp?product_id=236

$2.85/sqft, very nice quality 5/8" solid, pre-finished.  LL was great.  Installs pretty easily, but it has been slow goin' by myself.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Most of the prefinished flooring i have installed has been the glueless pop together stuff.  I did install some Lumb. Liq. all wood stuff about 1/2 inch thick by 2&1/2 inches wide by myself. When the pieces refused to behave, I screwed pieces of wood a little over  the width of a piece into the subsurface and  drove wedges between the piece of wood and the piece of flooring I was in stalling.

[aworldnervelink]

Yeah, Lumber Liquidators has the best prices I've seen. I'm leaning towards a hickory flooring which is $4.95/sq ft. I'll probably have to hire Joel and Jack to do the installation. I've complained bitterly that the allowances are insufficient, but I really don't have much leverage in this situation.

[mvpel]

The prefinished hardwood is really easy to install - just rent the nailer, and an air compressor if necessary, cut the pieces to length, and bang away.  I finished our library floor in one evening, since I was feeling kind of cheap about the rental fee for the nailer and didn't want to go to a second day.

[Rhiannon McKinnon]

You might also check and see if there are any places that sell "used and salvaged" materials in your area (the yellow pages listing would be "building materials - used and salvaged").  We know of several such stores within an hour or so (not in NH, unfortunately....we'll certainly be seeking these places out once we move), and they always seem to have plenty of cabinets of all styles and descriptions, many of them matching and in new or like-new condition in enough quantity to outfit a large kitchen.  You might also try the big-box building supply places....when they discontinue cabinets, they'll sell off the displays set up in the store for cheap.  For flooring, try getting creative and go for salvage.  Find a house that is being renovated or torn down, and ask for the salvage rights from the contractor or owner (or find a condemned and vacant house about to be torn down and do it on the sly).  Perhaps a bit of advertising might help here....perhaps someone might even PAY YOU to do a bit of gutting or tear-out work that would include some nice old oak or perhaps heartwood pine flooring.  Of course, if you go salvage like this, you'll have to refinish the flooring, but you can rent a drum sander for about $150 and varnish it yourself, and it'll look like brand new.  One advantage of salvaged hardwood flooring is that unlike the current product that you're lucky to get three 4' long pieces of in a bundle, the old wood is much better quality, with far fewer and smaller knots, and plenty of pieces that can be up to as long as the measurements of the room you take them from.  If you can find a "used and salvaged" place, they'll also have plenty of light fixtures....keep going back and eventually you'll find some nice ones.  Discontinued fixtures from the big-box stores can be a decent bargain as well.  Also, watch the auction ads in the newspapers, this can also be an excellent source of building materials.  We've used all of the above sources with excellent success....

~RM

[BaRbArIaN]

You could get creative and find a few crates of old AOL CDs, some clear acrylic sealer and make yourself a disco dancefloor.   

You might even be able to get pieces of thin slate or granite remnants for far less than $1/ft**2 but you'd have to spend a lot of time piecing them together and sealing the edges smooth.

[Lloyd Danforth]

The 3 times as much stuff at HD is better quality stuff, but, HD sometimes has the lower quality suff like OS for 1.25-1.50.

[KBCraig]

Sam's sells snap-lock laminated woodgrain flooring, too.

And with that, I'll let you in on a little trick used by some friends of mine who own rent houses and make lots of repairs.

Sam's and the other Borgs (HD = Orange Borg, Lowe's = Blue Borg) have a certain "thing" about merchandising and quality control. Torn or damaged packaging equals damaged merchandise in their view. I know a man who practically lives at Lowe's, who also happened to need a new roof. He would prowl the aisles daily, and when he was looking at shingles, he would tear open several bundles to see if they matched. He wouldn't damage the shingles, just tear the kraft paper wrapping.

Lowe's considers such damage to be "defective merchandise", and puts it on clearance. And so, this fellow would be waiting in the parking lot at 6am every morning, when they wheel the damaged goods out. In just a couple of weeks, he picked up enough "damaged" (yet undamaged) shingles to re-roof his house.

Sam's is the same way. Every time I go in, I make a beeline for their "clearance corner". Yesterday, I saw several bundles of snaplock flooring, whose only fault was torn packaging. That reminded me of the shingle saga, and this thread.

Note: I don't advocate ripping off merchants, even big box national merchants. I present this only to make people aware that there are bargains to be had, if you're on the spot.

Kevin

[Russell Kanning]

Sounds like a guy to distance yourself from.

[KBCraig]

He's a retired manager from work, so we're not exactly buddies.

But, yeah. He was shady in various other ways, too.