Which floor suits the room
The room decides the floor more than taste does. Kitchens, bathrooms and hallways take water and grit, bedrooms take feet and noise, and a room with underfloor heating limits which boards will work. Before you look at colours, write down what the room does to a floor.
Wet rooms and kitchens
The guide to LVT, laminate and vinyl compares the three on core, water tolerance and repair. Laminate has a wood-fibre core that swells when it stays wet, so LVT or sheet vinyl suit rooms where water reaches the floor. The guide to flooring for kitchens and bathrooms adds tile, wood and stone.
Heated floors
If you have underfloor heating, read the guide to engineered wood over underfloor heating. You will find the 27°C surface limit, two published warm-up schedules and the point where the sources disagree on screed moisture.
Wood
Wood buyers should read engineered vs solid wood flooring before they choose a board. The wear layer and the room's humidity decide more than the species does.
Carpet, hard floors and leasehold flats
Carpet vs hard flooring covers what a peer-reviewed review says about allergens, and why a flat's lease can stop you replacing carpet.
What kinds of flooring work Wales lists
The directory sorts businesses into 10 service groups by what each business says about its own work. A business can appear in more than one group. Carpet fitting, tiling and vinyl or laminate fitting have the most listings.
- Carpet Fitters: 86 businesses
- Vinyl, LVT & Laminate Fitters: 74 businesses
- Wood & Parquet Flooring Fitters: 63 businesses
- Floor Sanding & Restoration: 39 businesses
- Floor Tilers: 91 businesses
- Resin & Epoxy Flooring: 60 businesses
- Resin Bound Driveways: 45 businesses
- Polished Concrete, Grinding & Screeding: 50 businesses
- Commercial & Industrial Flooring: 51 businesses
- Gym & Sports Flooring: 10 businesses
Domestic and commercial work
130 businesses state domestic work and 157 businesses state commercial or industrial work on their own site. Resin, commercial and sports flooring are listed Wales-wide and by region, because that work is quoted by region.
How a business earns its place in a group
A business appears under a service only when its own name, category, description or website text mentions that kind of work. Showing up in a search for a service does not count. Shops whose text mentions no fitting or installation are left out, and the methodology page lists every rule.
Where the businesses are
The directory places each business in one of the 22 Welsh local authorities by its map coordinates. The three regions below group those authorities.
| Region | Authorities | Businesses |
|---|---|---|
| North Wales | 6 | 80 |
| Mid & West Wales | 6 | 86 |
| South East Wales | 10 | 160 |
Browse by local authority
Each authority has its own page listing the flooring businesses based there. The largest are Cardiff (44), Swansea (27), Carmarthenshire (23), Rhondda Cynon Taf (23). The services page shows every group at once.
A thin area is not a bad area
A page for one service in one authority exists only when at least four businesses match, so a quiet authority may show only its overview page. If you live in one, use the regional or Wales-wide service list and ask each business whether it travels to you.
How to hire a fitter
A fitter is a contractor in your home, so the hire matters as much as the floor. The guide on hiring guide gives seven checks to make before you agree a price, drawing on Citizens Advice and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
Accreditations
31 listed businesses out of 326 show at least one accreditation or review-platform badge on their own site. The guide to flooring accreditations explains what each badge does and does not prove.
Written quotes
Citizens Advice says a quote is a fixed price, that an estimate is a rough guess, and that you should get written quotes from at least three traders. Put the same room, the same floor and the same preparation work in front of each fitter, and you can compare the lines.
What flooring costs
No published index prices flooring in Wales alone. The costs guide sets named UK price guides side by side with their dates, shows where they disagree, and lists the extras that change a quote.
A worked example: a 12m² kitchen in LVT
MyJobQuote prices mid-range LVT supplied and fitted at £50 to £70 per square metre, which is £600 to £840 for 12m². MyJobQuote prices underlay at £3 to £8 per square metre (£36 to £96 for 12m²) and waste removal at £100 to £150 when charged separately. Add those and the arithmetic gives £736 to £1,086 for the floor, with no preparation work. The sum is an illustration built from one guide's figures, not a quote, and a Welsh fitter may price it differently.
Why the same job shows several prices
Checkatrade prices the same kind of job on different terms, so its figures do not line up with MyJobQuote's. Use the range to spot a quote that is far outside the field, and ask each fitter what is in the price.
Preparing and fitting the floor
Fitting starts with the subfloor. The subfloor guide explains moisture tests, levelling lines and how long fitting takes.
Sanding and refinishing
If you already own a wood floor, the floor sanding guide explains the process, the dust and the price of refinishing. You can ask for dust extraction and a finish schedule before you book.
Rules that apply in Wales
Planning rules differ between England and Wales, so English advice found online can be wrong here. Check the Welsh wording before you order a driveway.
Front-garden hard surfaces
The Welsh rules for resin bound and resin bonded driveways follow the Welsh Government's own guidance: a new hard surface at the front of a house must be permeable or drain to a permeable area.
Dropped kerbs
A new drive also needs a lawful crossing over the pavement, which the guide to dropped kerbs in Wales explains. Your council is the highway authority, and some councils charge a non-refundable fee before they review an application.
Commercial and specialist floors
Businesses and public bodies choose floors by hazard, not by taste. Three guides cover the main choices.
Commercial types
The guide to commercial flooring types explains safety floors and how HSE says slip resistance should be measured.
Concrete, resin and gym floors
Read polished concrete vs resin floors for vendor comparisons with the claims marked, and gym flooring types for what Sport England says a gym floor must do.
Who wrote this and what is not checked
Faiz Azizan built and maintains the directory and wrote these guides from published government, consumer-body, trade-body and manufacturer sources, linked at the foot of each page, plus counts taken from the directory itself. You can see who is behind the site on the about page.
The directory does not verify prices, insurance or workmanship, which the methodology page states. Always ask for a written quote. The guides report what named sources say and mark where sources disagree or where a point could not be confirmed. Some sources are vendors, and the guide that uses them says so.
As an example of what an area page shows, 27 businesses are based in Swansea, and the page lets you compare their ratings and contact details before you ring anyone.