San Diego County flooring questions, answered straight

Top Tier Custom Floors works throughout all of San Diego County, with most projects in Rancho Santa Fe, Del Mar, La Jolla, Santaluz, Solana Beach, Carmel Valley, and Encinitas, and regular work in Carlsbad, Coronado, Point Loma, Poway, and the City of San Diego. Projects outside that range are considered case by case rather than promised automatically.

See every area we serve →

Yes. Top Tier Custom Floors holds California contractor license #1099373, a C-15 Flooring and Floor Covering classification, in active status. The license can be verified independently through the California Contractors State License Board at cslb.ca.gov. Homeowners should verify any flooring contractor's license there before signing a contract.

More about the license and the owner →

Owner Stone Peters installs personally, alongside the same small crew he has worked with for years. There's no sales team quoting work that a separately hired crew then installs, which is the standard model at large flooring retailers and the usual source of the gap between what was promised and what gets built. The person who quotes the job is the person who lays the floor.

About Stone Peters →

No. Estimates are free, and Stone gives them after walking the space. Nobody can quote flooring properly off a photo. How flat the subfloor is, how much moisture is in it, and what's hiding under the old floor all change the job. Skip those and you get change orders halfway through.

Request an estimate →

Four things move the number, in this order: how much has to come out first, how flat the subfloor is underneath, which material you pick, and how many square feet there are. Removal is the biggest swing — pulling carpet is a morning, while pulling tile that was thin-set straight onto a slab is days of demolition and haul-away. Subfloor work is the next one: manufacturers require flatness within 3/16 inch over 10 feet, and grinding and leveling a slab to get there is its own line item. Material then varies by a wide margin between vinyl plank, engineered hardwood, and a pattern floor, and pattern work carries a 15 to 20 percent waste factor against 5 to 10 percent for straight plank. Stairs are quoted per step rather than per square foot, because every tread is a custom piece. Top Tier Custom Floors measures the space and writes an itemized estimate from what is actually there, and the estimate is free.

For most homes, 1,000 to 2,000 square feet of prefinished hardwood or vinyl plank takes 3 to 7 working days. Finishing the boards in your house adds roughly 3 to 5 days for sanding, coats, and cure before furniture goes back. A full sand and refinish of an existing floor is 3 to 5 days on site. A standard 14-step staircase is 2 to 4 days. Removing tile that was glued to a slab, or leveling a subfloor that is out of tolerance, adds to all of those. Stone walks the space and gives you the actual dates before anything starts.

Usually yes. The work goes room by room so your house keeps running, and the work area gets sealed off. Sanding and refinishing is the exception. That makes fine dust and the finish smells for several days. If you have a baby, someone with breathing trouble, or only one bathroom, it's often easier to sleep somewhere else on the finishing days.

Mostly it depends on how close to the water you are. Houses in Del Mar, La Jolla, Encinitas, and west Carlsbad sit in damp air all year, so engineered hardwood is the safer pick. Its layered core barely moves. Inland, in Escondido or Poway, the air swings from damp winters to dry summers. Solid hardwood handles that well and you can sand it back several times. If the place is a rental, or you have big dogs, or spills are just part of life there, vinyl plank with a 20 mil wear layer or better usually beats both.

If the boards are solid hardwood, still sound, and have enough wood left above the joint, refinishing saves material that's usually better than what you can buy now. Replacing wins when the boards have curled too far to flatten, water has got into the subfloor, pet urine has soaked deep in, or the floor has already been sanded as far as it goes. Stone pulls a vent cover and measures what's left before quoting either way.

Neither one wins outright. They just fail differently. Vinyl plank is waterproof all the way through, so it suits kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and any house with pets or small kids. Laminate holds up better against scratches and dents, but its core is wood fiber. If water reaches that core, it swells and never recovers. Pick based on which kind of damage your house is more likely to cause.

Herringbone uses rectangular boards meeting at 90 degrees, producing a staggered zigzag. Chevron uses boards mitered at both ends that meet point to point, forming one unbroken V — which is why it costs more to lay.

The full answer, with waste factors and cost drivers →

Yes — ask us about our warranty when we quote. What we can offer is tied to the material you pick, so it gets agreed and written into your estimate before anything starts rather than promised vaguely up front. The materials carry whatever warranty the manufacturer gives them, separately. Either way the workmanship is Stone's: a floor that fails because the slab was wet or the subfloor was never flattened is a floor he comes back and redoes.

With professional meters, and the readings get written down. Proper equipment and written records are what hold up if a manufacturer disputes a warranty claim. It is the difference between saying the slab was dry and proving it.

Why the readings get documented →

Yes, and most San Diego County homes are slab-on-grade. Engineered hardwood glued straight to the slab is the usual approach; solid hardwood works over a properly built plywood subfloor above it. Either way the slab has to pass a moisture test first.

Solid vs. engineered, and what subfloor prep involves →

Almost always it's how the floor was laid, not bad material. When a floating floor buckles, whether vinyl plank or laminate, it means nobody left a gap at the walls, door frames, and cabinet bases, so the floor had nowhere to go when it grew. Gaps in hardwood usually mean the wood never sat in the house long enough before it went down. Both are avoidable, and both turn up in the first year.

A garage floor that was prepped and coated properly runs 10 to 20 years before it needs another coat. Prep decides that far more than the epoxy does — a coating over bare or acid-washed concrete commonly fails within one to three years.

Why preparation is the entire job →

Talk to Stone about it at the estimate and he'll tell you exactly how it will be handled on your job. Mention pianos, safes, large aquariums, or anything needing specialty equipment then, so it's planned for instead of discovered on the first morning.