Hardwood linoleum throughout the whole house

Rehabbing, Fix and Flip, Rental Properties
1

Has anyone ever placed hardwood-style linoleum throughout an entire house, condo or apartment?

Obviously people would consider putting real hardwoods throughout a nice house…so complete coverage of a house in hardwoods is an option. But with lower-end housing, it wouldn’t be smart to waste your money on NEW or even laminate [pressed wood] hardwood flooring.

But imagine if you had lower-end housing or apartments…I’m talking section-8 or lower income RENTAL housing…and you put the hardwood-style LINOLEUM throughout the whole thing when the carpet or existing flooring needed replacing…that would (a) be cheap, (b) still look good because it does look like hardwoods…though it’s obviously not and (c) be dark, relatively neutral in color, and easily cleanable … so it’s a great way to prevent stains, spills & rips that occur on normal carpet.

What do you guys think?

Don’t forget I’d be doing this in lower-income rental housing…

Thanks!

2

How much is it per square foot? Berber and commercial grade carpet is about $.99- $1.99/ sq ft with padding being anywhere from $.30- $.70/ sq ft. Those are retail prices and don’t include installation.

I contemplated using stained and stamped concrete floors in one of my apartment buildings. If I could of feasibly put in radiant floor heating, I would of had almost indestructible flooring!

3

The thing to do down here in Texas is put ceramic tile through out the house. This can be done for about $2.00 - $3.00/sqft. For a 1500 sqft house you should pay about $3,000. To carpet that house will be about $1500, but once you have it tiled you never have to deal with flooring again. The Hispanic tenants just love it and the sales pitch to the others is that the high end homes are all being built with tile through out.

4

Ceramic tile is nice, but I couldn’t imagine it being in the bedrooms. Most “new” houses - from the entry level track house to the custom mansion - in this area still have carpet in the bedrooms even if the rest of the house is tiled or has something else…so that I’ve seen anyway. I know that one of my relatives just had her 5000 square foot Florida home done entirely in ceramic tile…but I imagined that being more of a Florida trend than Texas trend. Florida tends to be quite a bit different than Texas, design wise. But you know…with all these Mexicans here…as you said…if they love it, that’s what counts. Who does your tiling, if you mind me asking? You can PM me if you’d like, or share it. Thanks

5

Is that $2-$3/ sq ft for tile with installation to? I pay more than that for just the tile in my rehabs. $15- $20 with installation for the middle- high end properties, of course going up to no limit from there.

6

No way would all tile work up here in CT…floors would be way too damn cold in the winter…lol.

7

I live in an old warehouse that I bought to rehab and sell as a SFR. I liked it so much I decided to just keep it. Of course the ground level floors were concrete. I had radiant floor heating tubes put in then poured concrete ontop which was acid stained to look like marble with inlay. Since the ceiling is like 30 ft above the floor, I save a lot of money on heating and cooling since I’m not heating from above (a lot of unused space). So I wouldn’t use any stone type floors in excess in any place where it gets cold (Not Florida or Texas) without radiant floor heating.

8

Would you mind posting a couple pictures of that place? Its hard for me to imagine a warehouse becoming a SFR…so I’d like to see it. Maybe you’re going for a hip, urban type of unit?

9

Google something like “Warehouse Lofts” or “Warehouse Residence.” They are very cool places. I will send you some pictures of mine when I figure out how to post pictures.

10

I catch the closeouts at the big box and stock up on tile at 69 cents a foot. It sits in the garage until I need it.

My installer charges $3 to demo and install, as long as the place is empty. His work is easily good enough for the high-end market, although I would spend more on the tile for a high-end property.

11

Currently rehabbing my first property, and I’m going ceramic tile throughout.

If the tenants want carpet, remnants are cheap, area rugs are nice. It’s not in a flood zone, though it did flood about 10 or more years ago, ( Not during Katrina ), so I’m not taking any chances.

I plan on just using a strip of different tile to separate one area of tiles from another area ( of dif. color, but neutral) tiles.

I could be crazy, like I said, this is my first. lol

12

Where are you in Louisiana, EN?

Keith

13

I’m in Slidell, about 17 miles south of New Orleans. Pretty much took a direct hit from Katrina. The house I’m redoing had an enormous white oak fall through it, lots of damage.

14

Hi,
I’m in Mi. so it would be too cold for tile throughout but I too am trying to come up with flooring that is more tennant resistant. We have actually had to replace carpet after 6 months…more than once. Dogs having puppies, crack pipes being dropped…no, we don’t allow either lol.
Now we are completely remodeling a rental home. We have redone the already exsisiting hardwood floors that were burried under carpet and linoleum-They have turned out beautiful.
I know homes are different than apartments but hardwood floors are pretty enduring. If it works well in the house we are thinking about using hardwoods in our apartments as carpet needs to be replaced. Has anyone done this and wouldn;t it be cheeper in the long run, attract better tennants and we can probably charge higher rents.
To the original poster----I wouldn’t use linoleum throughout as from our experience tennants tear this apart as well. Do you all feel like zookeepers sometimes?

One worry I have about cermic (we thought about it for bath and kitchens, like our home…however when its wet its very slippery. Get a drunk tennant dropping a beer and it just seems like a lawsuit to me???
Wendy

15

I probably wouldn’t put hardwood in a rental for fear of scratches and warping. All of the furniture moving in and out would cause some deep scratches in the wood and would be expensive to refinish. Also, if a careless tenants spills something and let’s it soak in, the wood will warp. Of course in NYC or LA where the high end rents are $50,000/month, hardwood seem reasonable.

With ceramic throughout, I’d be worried about a tenant dropping something heavy and cracking some tiles. I’d also fear a disgruntled tenant allowing that heavy something to be a hammer a few hundred times.

I think of cheap carpet as a drop cloth for the tenants to screw up at which point you just roll it up and throw it away to put down a new drop cloth for the next group of inevitable messes. I think the best way to go for the average low - middle tenant is either something virtually indestructible (concrete or diamond plate steel) or something cheap and easy to replace (carpet).

16

yes, I guess your right. We personally have wood throughout and six kids and I havn’t redone any of it for six years but upstarirs where the teenagers live, it does need to be refinished because of them moving furniture and yes they move furniture as much as tennents would lol
Wendy

17

I carpet all my units with the exception of one.

All my rentals have hardwood floors underneath, and once, I rented them out fiinished, but after one or two tenancies, had to be refinished, due to tenants dragging furniture resulting in deep gouges. Since it takes more than a few days to refinish, takes longer to turn an apartment over compared to rolling up a carpet, and replacing it, in one short afternoon.

One unit though is tiled. This is a basement unit, and flooded in the past. I found this better than linoleum since messy tenants would even ruin linoleum. I grew up with linoleum floors my dad installed, and they’re difficult to repair in a few years when they break, like small holes, and cracked areas. With tiles, you buy a few extra ones, and just replace a few here and there.

My dad tiles now instead of using linoleum.

In this tiled unit, one tenant decided to replace my tiles with “imitation hardwood” tiles, and I allowed it. After it was done, I thought it looked terrible compared to the plain “off white” ones I had before. With the off white, the units looked clean and big after it’s washed and waxed. With colorful throw carpets thrown in, the place looked spectacular.

When the tenant leaves, all I do is wash and wax, get new throw carpets.

The reason I felt “imitation hardwood” tiles looked bad was it doesn’t feel at all like floor tiles. The best analogy I can give is I’m looking to go out with a sexy girl, but wound up with a tranvestite in drag, looking nothing like a women. All I can say is “yikes”.

In summary, its’ been there, done that.

18

I agree with Danny 100%. We have tried everything and have decided that cheap carpet is the best way to go in rentals. We are even putting cheap carpet in the bathroom and kitchen (without pad). The only exception is in our low income apartments - we simply paint the wood floors. Low income tenants can tear up new carpet faster than I can lay it and quite frankly they DON’T DESERVE CARPET! We also do not refinish wood floors in rentals, because they get all scratched up.

Lowe’s usually has a very attractive cheap Berber for 45-55 cents per square foot. Sometimes, they even have discoutinued carpet for about 30 cents. We do not change the pad when we change the carpet unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY and of course we don’t change the tack strips either.

Good Luck,

Mike

19

I have been putting down $.99/sqft laminate in every property that I have been buying and rehabbing lately, even the most low income stuff. It holds up well to tenants and all of their disasters, and wears much better than wood and looks alot better than carpet. Be sure not to get the really cheap stuff or you can end up with snapped tounges and low resistance to withstand water, Do not put it in bathrooms, be sure to put vinyl or tile entries in because laminate does not have the best abitliy to cope with standing water.

I was contemplating putting down the same same vinyl in some of mine but vinyl has a tendancy to tear, when idiots drag furniture over it.

I am curious as to what other people pay for installation, I pay

.37/sqft vinyl
3.25 yd carpet
1.80/ft tile
1.70/ft laminate, though I typically just have one of my regular employees do it for 15/hr and it ends up about .90/ft

20

Eric,

When you say laminate, are you referring to a pergo type flooring?