Redoing your floors,
step by step.

Whether you are replacing a worn carpet or redoing a whole ground floor, the job follows the same order. Skipping a step does not save time: it is the one that resurfaces later, as a tile that sounds hollow or a board that lifts.

1. Removal. The old covering, its skirting boards and its adhesive are removed, then the rubble is cleared. It is at this point that you discover the real condition of the substrate.

2. Diagnosis of the substrate. Concrete slab, timber floor on joists or solid ground: each has its own rules. We check flatness, moisture and, on a timber floor, stiffness.

3. Levelling. A levelling compound for small defects, a screed when several centimetres need taking up or insulation has to be incorporated.

4. Laying the flooring. Glued tiles, glued or floating parquet, clip-together laminate, resilient flooring: the technique depends on the material and on what it covers.

5. Finishing. Skirting boards, threshold strips between two materials, adjusting the doors: it is these details that make a finished floor.

The same flooring is not laid in the same way on a concrete slab and on a timber floor. On a slab, the question is mainly flatness and residual moisture. On a timber floor, common in the farmhouses and chalets of our valleys, it is movement that counts: the joists deflect, the timber moves with the seasons, and a rigid covering glued directly onto it ends up cracking. You then choose a floating floor, or slip a decoupling mat under the tiling.

A ground floor on solid ground or above a cellar deserves a moisture reading before any water-sensitive covering, such as parquet. And if the floor sits over a basement, a garage or an unheated crawl space, this is the time to insulate: once the new covering is laid, nobody will come back underneath. Our guide to ground floor insulation details the three possible techniques.

One last point, a regulatory one: in a building whose building permit predates 1 July 1997, an asbestos survey by a certified operator is compulsory before the work. Old floor tiles and some tile adhesives are precisely among the materials concerned.

A levelling compound is a fluid mortar poured in a thin layer. In our quotes, the usual case is a self-levelling fibre-reinforced compound of about 4 mm, which smooths out the joints of an old tiled floor, small bumps and holes. When the differences are greater, we move to a thick fibre-reinforced compound, able to take up as much as 20 to 30 mm depending on the products.

Beyond that, it is a screed. Our quotes include several kinds: liquid screed to restore the level of a floor, lightweight screed on a floor that could not bear the weight of a conventional screed, insulating screed laid on a polystyrene board for a cold ground floor. It is also in a screed that the pipes of a water underfloor heating system are embedded.

Levelling compound and screed must dry before laying. The time depends on the thickness, the product and the temperature on site: we follow the manufacturer's technical data sheet and we measure moisture before laying a parquet. In a mountain house that is weathertight but not yet heated in the depths of winter, this drying takes longer than in summer; better to put it in the schedule than to discover it.

There is no best flooring in absolute terms: only materials that are more or less suited to a room, its use and its substrate.

Tiling remains the choice for the entrance of a mountain house, where people come in with snow on their shoes, and for wet rooms. Its price depends first on the tile and its format; everything is detailed in our guide to the price of laying tiles.

Parquet, most often engineered, brings real wood into the living areas. An old solid parquet in good condition can often be kept: sanding followed by varnishing gives it a new surface without replacing everything. Our laying prices are detailed in the guide to the price of laying parquet per m².

Laminate appears in 40 of our quotes: an 8 mm board laid floating and clipped together on an underlay, for bedrooms and upper floors. The so-called hydro versions cope better with water splashes.

Vinyl floors, in planks or tiles, remain rarer on our projects. Their advantage is thickness: a few millimetres including the underlay, which often avoids planing the doors when renovating over an existing floor.

Over underfloor heating, tiling is the most efficient because it transmits heat well. A parquet or a resilient floor may be suitable if its manufacturer declares it compatible, with suitable laying: a check to make before choosing, not after.

Where do these figures come from? From 53 of our quotes, drawn up between 2024 and 2026 for houses and apartments in Savoie and Haute-Savoie, from which we extracted every flooring line: 217 distinct prices after removing duplicates between variants. The ranges below leave out isolated cases and are rounded. They are stated excluding tax; the right-hand column adds the 10% VAT that applies to a home more than two years old.

Two items are counted separately. The threshold strip, between two floor coverings or at a doorway, comes to €45 to €50 excl. VAT each, fitted (€50 to €55 incl. VAT). The skirting boards, when they are not included in the price of the flooring, cost €30 to €35 excl. VAT per linear metre (€33 to €39 incl. VAT).

Three caveats on these figures. The screed rests on only eight quotes, and its price depends first on its thickness and the insulation incorporated. Engineered parquet appears in only a single quote: the range is indicative, and the gap comes from the value of the board, from €25 to €60/m² excl. VAT depending on the lines of that quote. Finally, vinyl floors are too rare on our projects to draw a reliable price from them: we prefer not to publish one.

Example: a 30 m² living room. With the median values from our quotes (removal of an old tiled floor at €20, thin levelling compound at €21, laminate fitted at €75/m² excl. VAT), the budget comes to about €3,500 excl. VAT, i.e. €3,800 incl. VAT, excluding skirting boards and thresholds. The same living room in very large format tiles on a thick levelling compound falls between €5,400 and €6,900 excl. VAT.

Skirting boards hide the expansion gap left around the edge of a floating floor: they are chosen with the flooring, in wood, in paintable MDF or cut from the tiles. Threshold strips provide the junction between two materials or two heights. And when the new floor is thicker than the old one, the bottom of the interior doors has to be planed so that they open without rubbing: a line you will find in our quotes, and which a serious estimate does not forget.

As for timescales, a floor is redone room by room. A bedroom in laminate on a sound substrate is dealt with quickly; a ground floor with screed and tiling means waiting for drying between two stages. We set the schedule after the visit, once the substrate is known.

In a home completed more than two years ago, redoing a floor falls under the 10% rate, labour and materials invoiced by the company. The 5.5% rate is aimed at energy renovation: it applies to ground floor insulation carried out at the same time, and to the related work that it makes indispensable under the conditions set by the tax authorities. A floor covering that you buy yourself stays at 20%. The detail is in our guide to VAT on renovation work.

A floor covering on its own does not qualify for energy renovation grants. Ground floor insulation, however, can benefit from energy saving certificates (CEE) under certain conditions: one more reason to decide on it while the floor is open.

The chalet or farmhouse with a timber floor. Old joists move: we check their condition and stiffness before choosing between a floating floor and tiling on a decoupling mat. It is often here that a lightweight screed replaces a conventional screed, too heavy for the floor.

The entrance and the ski room. Snow, grit and de-icing salt are hard on a parquet. We recommend porcelain stoneware tiling there, whose surface does not become slippery when wet.

The old single-storey house on solid ground. Terracotta tiles, sealed tiling, rising damp: the damp is treated and the insulation question settled before choosing the flooring, otherwise a new parquet ends up warping.