Floor removal & demo in Talty, TX

Two things. First, the whole order comes from a single dye lot and gets racked and blended as we install, so there's no visible batch change halfway across the room. Second, the slab gets flattened properly before we start, grinding highs, filling lows, because on a Talty-sized floor a gentle wave in the concrete reads as a shadow line under raking light from the windows.

We'd usually talk you out of it. Talty houses are slab-on-grade on Houston Black clay, and solid wood on slab has to be installed over a plywood layer, which raises the floor height and still reacts to the seasonal moisture swing. Engineered wood gives you the same real wood surface with far more dimensional stability. If your heart is set on solid, we'll explain exactly what it takes first.

Our own installers. All About Floors has been doing this for 30 years, the core crew has been together for 20, and we have never subcontracted an installation to anyone. Labor carries a one-year warranty. On a house the size of most Talty builds, the install runs several days, and it's the same faces in your home each of those days rather than a rotating subcontract crew.

Occasionally. A floating floor can go over sound, fully bonded tile in some situations. What stops it more often is height. Every inch you add changes door swings, thresholds, the transition into adjoining rooms, the clearance under a dishwasher and the fit of a refrigerator into its opening. You also inherit whatever is wrong with the old floor, flatness and cracks included.

With containment set up properly, most families stay. We build plastic barriers at the openings, seal the registers and returns in the work zone so nothing travels through the ductwork, and grind with vacuum attached at the tool. Expect noise, and expect the work zone off limits during the day. Demolition done without any of that is what people mean when the dust never seems to end.

It might be, and it should be tested rather than guessed at. Nine-inch tile and black cutback adhesive were both common then, and either can contain asbestos. Intact and covered, they are not a hazard. The risk comes from grinding or sanding them dry. We sample and test before anything is disturbed, and a positive result goes to a licensed abatement firm before we return to prep and install.