Replacing carpet in a flat: checks before choosing a hard floor

A flooring sample can tell you the colour and texture you like. It cannot tell you whether that floor is permitted in your flat, or what someone downstairs will hear when you walk across it.

Before replacing carpet with engineered wood, laminate or vinyl, settle those questions first. They affect what you can order and what your fitter needs to price.

Start with the lease, before the showroom

For a leasehold flat, read the alterations and floor-covering clauses together. Permission to make some alterations does not necessarily override a separate requirement to keep floors carpeted. LEASE explains that replacing carpet with wooden flooring can count as a non-structural alteration, and that the wording of the lease determines what is allowed.

If written consent is required, obtain it before work starts. Planning or building regulations approval does not replace lease consent. If the wording is unclear, ask the freeholder or managing agent to identify the relevant clauses, or seek advice from LEASE. See LEASE’s alterations guidance.

“Quiet” can mean two different things

Is the concern the tapping sound inside your own room, or impact sound travelling through the floor to the flat below? A product description saying “quiet underfoot” does not answer both questions.

Quick-Step’s Basic Plus technical sheet reports impact sound and reflected walking sound separately. That is a useful distinction when discussing a proposed floor: ask which performance measure the supplier is referring to, and which floor-and-underlay combination was tested.

This matters locally. Wandsworth Council’s domestic noise guidance notes that some older houses converted into flats lack adequate sound insulation. For a converted flat in Wandsworth, a sensible starting point is to ask what is already beneath the carpet, rather than assume a new finish will solve an existing noise problem.

More underlay is not automatically better

Choose the flooring and its installation system together. Some products need a separate compatible underlay; others have one attached.

For example, Quick-Step says its Alpha Vinyl Pad has integrated underlay and must not have another layer added underneath. That is a rule for that product, not for every vinyl floor. Check the exact range and installation instructions before buying an acoustic accessory. See Quick-Step’s underlay advice.

Ask the supplier to explain how the proposed system meets any requirements set by your building’s management. Do not treat an attractive product rating as a guarantee of the result in your own flat.

Put the whole floor into the fitting brief

A quote for laying boards leaves room for misunderstandings if nobody has agreed what happens underneath or at the edges. Ask for these items to be addressed:

• The rooms involved, existing covering and exact proposed product.
• Any written consent, acoustic specification or installation conditions.
• What preparation is included, and how unexpected defects beneath the old covering will be assessed and priced.
• The finished floor height at doors, thresholds and adjoining rooms.
• Whether skirtings will be retained or replaced, and who will finish the edges.
• Furniture moving, disposal, access through shared areas and the order of work.

Keep product sheets, approvals and the agreed scope together. If the flooring changes during ordering, check that the replacement still fits that brief before accepting it.

Planning flooring as part of a refurbishment?

OSPM installs flooring across South West London. Send us your postcode, the rooms you want to change and any product or building-management requirements you already have. We can discuss the fitting scope before you commit to materials.

Explore our flooring service, include it in a wider property refurbishment, or tell us about your project.