i know several of you guys are pros here, but i have a question or two: who does the floor preps for you? do you do them yourselves or do you contract that part of the job out?

i realize prepping a floor properly for wood covering is an important step, and i was curious as to how installers go about this. (good installers, that is)

is removing baseboards an option or do you guys prefer to remove them? what if they crack or break during the removal?

carpeting hides many things, what if you quoted a job, only to realize when the carpet was removed, that a section of sub-floor has to be changed?

laying wood floors can be a risky business, apparently, and after doing my own floors, i was giving this alot of thought, especially if you wanted to CYA over warranty issues, etc the floor prepping would have to be near perfect. and, after doing this work, i can see why charging $75/hour might be a reasonable rate.

I have not found anyone willing to do floor prep, up to my standards, much less industry standards. So, I like to do it myself, unless it means rebuilding the subfloor, joists and all.

>is removing baseboards an option or do you guys prefer to remove them?

That depends on the specifics of each situation and customer preference.

If you leave the baseboards on, then you'll need shoe to cover the gap.
You also lose height because you're covering part of the baseboard when you lay the floor, then putting shoe on top of that & some customers don't like that visual shrinking of the baseboard size.

However, if you take the baseboard off, it's going to be higher up the wall when put back on, leading to a problematic height difference if it runs around a corner into a different room/hall with the lower, originally placed baseboard. You could rip it all down, but then you're shrinking it again.

It pretty much comes down to what look the customer is comfortable with.

>what if they crack or break during the removal?

In older houses with the beautiful old woodwork, we like to leave it alone. If customer really wants it removed & replaced, we let them know it's risky business & no guarantee that it won't splinter, crack, break on removal.
Newer houses with cheap painted baseboards, you have to carefully cut thru the paint & caulk to get it off, scrape the lumpy paint & caulk off the bb & wall, pull the nails out, and then recaulk when it's back on. It's not usually worth the hassle when it's easier to just install new baseboards, and since material cost on that is dirt cheap, customers usually agree to just put new on.