Arlington Flooring: Installation, Refinishing and Repair

Arlington is the biggest city we work in and the one where the ground under the house matters most. It sits squarely on Eagle Ford clay, which is strongly expansive: it swells when it takes water and shrinks when it dries, and slabs riding on it move seasonally. That movement is usually cosmetic as far as the structure is concerned and it is not cosmetic at all to a floor bonded rigidly on top of it.

Why tile is the conversation here

More of our Arlington calls are about cracked tile than about anything else, and the pattern is nearly always the same: a tile floor mortared straight to the slab, a crack that runs the length of a room, and an owner who has been told the slab needs repairing.

Sometimes the slab does. Far more often it is doing what Eagle Ford clay makes slabs do, and the actual failure is that nothing was put between the slab and the tile to absorb it. An uncoupling membrane lets small in-plane movement happen without transferring into the tile bed. In this city we specify one as standard rather than as an upgrade.

What a membrane will not fix is genuine differential settlement — a slab moving unevenly rather than simply expanding and contracting. Telling those two apart before tiling is most of the skill in quoting the work here, and occasionally the honest answer is that the floor is not ready for tile at all.

Three Arlingtons, three sets of problems

Around downtown and the university, the stock is 1950s and 1960s: conventional slabs, smaller rooms, and a reasonable chance of original oak under the carpet. Those slabs have had six or seven decades to move, so flatness is a present-tense measurement rather than something to infer from the build date.

Through the middle of the city the 1970s and 1980s tract housing is where we do most of our carpet and vinyl plank work. These slabs are often slightly dished, which is what makes a laminate floor sound hollow if nobody corrects it first.

South Arlington and the newer developments are post-tension slabs. Steel tendons run through them under very high load, and nothing gets cut, cored or fastened into one until the cables are located. That is a safety step, and it rules out nailing solid hardwood down here the way you could in a pre-war house.

What we get called for

Tile and stone, because of everything above. Carpet, because the 1970s and 1980s stock turns over steadily and because stairs in the two-storey houses need doing properly. And subfloor preparation, which on this side of the county is more often a levelling pour than a morning of grinding.

If you are collecting bids in Arlington, ask each contractor to price the preparation as a separate line. The gap between three quotes here is almost always that line, and the cheapest bid is usually the one that has left it out and will find it on day two.