Hardwood Floor Installation Cost in Ann Arbor

Material is usually the biggest line. HomeGuide's 2025 guide puts hardwood at $6 to $15 a square foot before labor. Species sets most of that spread: pine runs $3 to $8, maple $4 to $12, red oak $5 to $10, white oak $6 to $12 and hickory $6 to $14.

Grade and cut come next. Clear and select boards, with few knots, cost the most. No. 2 common and character grades cost less and look more rustic. Plain-sawn boards are the cheapest to mill. Rift and quartersawn take longer to cut, so they cost more, which matters most if you want white oak (our white oak flooring page explains the cuts). Wider boards cost more per foot too, and that's the main reason a wide plank floor prices above 2 1/4 inch strip in the same species.

Engineered flooring has its own ladder. HomeGuide lists budget 3/8 inch planks with 3 core layers at $2 to $9 a square foot, mid-range 1/2 inch with 5 layers at $6 to $12, and 5/8 to 3/4 inch with 7 or more layers at $9 to $16 and up. The thickness of the top veneer decides how many sandings it will take later, covered on our engineered hardwood installation page.

Labor adds $3 to $10 a square foot for solid hardwood, by HomeGuide's figures, and $3 to $8 or more for engineered. The method moves it. Nail-down over a plywood subfloor is the cheapest. Glue-down costs more because of the adhesive and the time it takes. A floating engineered floor needs underlayment, which adds $0.50 to $1.00 a square foot to materials.

Room layout matters as much as the method. Installers often drop the per-foot rate on a big open area and raise it where a floor has lots of angles, closets and doorways to cut around. In our view, a 1920s house with five small rooms and a hall will price higher per foot than one 600 square foot great room.

Then there's finishing. Prefinished boards cost more up front but save labor, since nothing gets sanded or coated on site. Unfinished boards get sanded flat and coated after they're nailed down. Stain adds $0.50 to $2.00 a square foot. Ask whether the labor line covers sanding and coats, or whether finishing is its own line.

Whatever is on the floor now has to come up first. Removing old flooring runs $1.50 to $3.50 a square foot. Carpet and pad run $0.70 to $1.60, glued-down carpet $0.75 to $1.80, and rusty tack strip $0.40 to $0.50 a linear foot if it all has to go. Disposal can add $0.45 to $0.60 a square foot when it isn't already in the bid. HomeGuide's 2026 all-in figure for pulling carpet and putting hardwood down is $6.70 to $16.60 a square foot, and our replace carpet with hardwood page covers what usually turns up under the pad.

Subfloor work is the line that surprises people. Replacing subfloor costs $2.20 to $4.75 a square foot installed, with OSB at $2.20 to $2.80 and plywood at $2.50 to $3.00. HomeGuide puts floor leveling with a self-leveling compound at $500 to $6,000 per room. That range is huge because nobody knows how far out of flat a floor is until it's measured. The flatness a hardwood floor needs is on our subfloor repair page. A sagging joist is a framing contractor's job, and HomeGuide lists joist replacement at $350 to $1,000 per joist.

Stairs are priced per step. HomeGuide's 2025 range is $100 to $250 a step, or $1,800 to $6,300 for a 12 to 16 step staircase including carpet removal, small repairs and finishing. Our hardwood stairs page goes through treads, risers and nosing.

Patterns cost more than straight boards. True parquet and herringbone run $13 to $40 a square foot installed, mostly for the extra cutting and the boards lost to it. The layout and waste math is on our herringbone floor installation page.

Trim and furniture are small lines that add up. Quarter round runs $5.50 to $9.00 a linear foot installed, base molding $5.50 to $10.50. Moving furniture out and back is often billed per room, at $20 to $50 each.