Flooring Installation Greater Orlando, FL
Old carpet, tack strips and staples removed, then the subfloor leveled and prepped for hardwood, vinyl plank or laminate.
Or call (407) 928-5710
The short answer
Every flooring job in a home that currently has carpet starts the same way: the carpet and pad come out, and what is left underneath gets inspected before anyone talks about the new floor. In Central Florida, that subfloor is almost always a concrete slab, and slabs are rarely flat after years of settling, foot traffic and small cracks forming along expansion joints.
MS Floors & Cleaning handles carpet removal and subfloor prep as its own service, whether it is the first step of a larger hardwood, vinyl plank or laminate installation, or a standalone job to get a room ready for someone else's flooring, a rental turnover, or a renovation that is still in progress.
This is also the step most likely to get rushed on a budget job, because it does not show once the new floor is down. A flat, clean, dry subfloor is the difference between a floor that stays tight at the seams for years and one that starts flexing, gapping or creaking within the first year.
Real work from the MS Floors & Cleaning team.
What is included
Old carpet and padding pulled up and hauled out, exposing the subfloor across every room included in the job.
Tack strips pried up and staples pulled individually from the subfloor, since leftover staples can puncture new underlayment or vinyl.
Old glue, carpet adhesive or vinyl residue scraped and cleaned off the subfloor so the new flooring bonds or sits properly.
The concrete slab or plywood subfloor is checked for high and low spots using a straightedge, which is what determines where leveling compound is needed.
Self-leveling compound poured into low areas of the slab and screeded flat, the standard fix for the uneven concrete found in most Orlando homes.
A check for excess moisture in the slab before anything new goes down, since trapped moisture under flooring leads to warping, mold or adhesive failure.
Old carpet, pad, tack strips and prep debris hauled off site so the room is clear and ready for the next step.
Flooring Installation
Self-leveling compound and full subfloor prep come standard on every flooring job MS Floors & Cleaning installs in Orlando.
How it works
MS Floors & Cleaning looks at the current carpet, the rooms involved, and what kind of flooring is going in next so the prep work matches what the new floor will need.
Carpet and pad are pulled up, tack strips are pried off, and staples are removed from the subfloor so nothing is left that could damage new flooring or underlayment.
The exposed subfloor is checked for flatness. On a concrete slab, self-leveling compound is mixed and poured into low spots, then screeded to a flat, even surface and left to cure.
Once the compound cures, the subfloor is checked again for flatness and moisture before being handed off as ready for hardwood, vinyl plank, laminate or whatever flooring comes next.
Most homes in Orlando, Kissimmee, Clermont and the rest of Central Florida are built slab-on-grade, meaning the first floor sits directly on a poured concrete foundation rather than over a crawl space or basement. That slab was never meant to be perfectly flat, it was meant to support the structure, and small dips, high spots and hairline settling cracks are normal over the life of a house.
Any flooring installed over an unleveled slab inherits every one of those imperfections. Hardwood and laminate planks will rock or gap over a low spot; vinyl plank can telegraph a dip right through the surface. Self-leveling compound is the standard fix: a cement-based liquid poured over the low areas, which settles flat on its own and cures into a hard, even surface the new floor can sit on without flexing.
Pulling carpet up is the easy part. What is usually left behind is the tack strip nailed around the room's perimeter, hundreds of staples from the pad, and in older installs, dried adhesive where carpet was glued directly to the slab instead of stretched over pad.
Every one of those has to come out before new flooring goes down. A missed staple can puncture vinyl plank from underneath or tear new underlayment; leftover tack strip is a tripping and injury hazard the moment the carpet is gone. This is detail work done by hand, room by room, not something a quick sweep catches.
One team, both jobs
Carpet removal kicks up dust, fibers and debris that settle into every corner of a room. MS Floors & Cleaning's deep cleaning service clears that out, from baseboards to vents, so the space is ready for the next step or ready to live in again.
Where we work
More flooring services
From the blog
Straight answers to the questions homeowners ask before they hire.
A practical turnover cleaning checklist for Orlando-area Airbnb and vacation rental hosts, covering bed presentation, bathrooms, appliance interiors, and how to plan the window between guests.
Read the guideA practical look at what makes flooring and cleaning different for Apopka homes, from the mix of older and newer construction to larger lots that track in more outdoor dirt and pollen.
Read the guideA straightforward look at what baseboard installation typically runs per linear foot in Central Florida, which material holds up best to humidity, and when it makes sense to replace baseboards alongside new flooring.
Read the guideSend a few details and we will get back to you with next steps for an estimate.
