Sioux Falls Hardwood Flooring is a hardwood flooring contractor that has provided hardwood flooring refinishing and installation for residential and commercial properties across Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for 15 years. Our hardwood floor installers work with solid and engineered hardwood, custom herringbone and chevron patterns, hardwood stairs, and carpet-to-hardwood conversion. For existing floors, we offer hardwood floor refinishing, staining, maintenance recoats, board repair, water-damage repair, and full restoration. We also install tile, luxury vinyl plank, and laminate, and we schedule commercial work after hours. We are insured and bonded, and we provide free estimates.
When we refinish a floor, our drum and belt sanders connect to HEPA containment, filtration that traps the fine sanding dust. We finish the floor with one of three families of topcoat: two-component waterborne, oil-modified polyurethane, or hardwax oil.
Our wood floor installation follows National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) guidelines. Before installation begins, we read the wood and subfloor with pin and pinless moisture meters and flatten the subfloor. For concrete, ASTM F2170 testing reads moisture inside the slab. We install solid nail-down floors with cleat and staple nailers. In rooms where seasonal movement hits hardest, we quote quartersawn and riftsawn stock, cuts of the log sawn for stability.
We serve Brandon, Harrisburg, Tea, and other communities across Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties. Because a seven-month heating season pulls moisture out of wood, we specify, install, and finish floors for a South Dakota winter. You receive the moisture readings and pricing in writing before work starts. Call or use our online form today for a free estimate on our services.
Get A Free Estimate
Call (605) 799-9142 for a free on-site estimate, or request one online.
Installation
A hardwood floor that looks good for years depends largely on what happens before your installer opens a box of boards. Reading moisture, flattening the subfloor, and staging delivery help prevent problems that the flooring cannot correct later. The fastening method and underlayment is set based on the product’s specification.
Choosing solid hardwood affects the height of the finished floor and how it meets the rest of the room. We install it over an approved wood subfloor using a nail-down system. Because the finished floor sits 3/4 inch above the subfloor, we work out door trimming, appliance clearances, and transitions to tile before the boards go in.
Engineered hardwood gives you several installation options, but the right one depends on the subfloor and what the product calls for. We glue down, nail down, or float the floor accordingly. A floated floor locks together and rests in place without fasteners. Over a slab, the glue-down goes in once ASTM F2170 testing clears it, and we specify the adhesive and any underlayment to the manufacturer’s requirement.
Replacing carpet with hardwood can uncover movement in the subfloor or older flooring worth saving. Conversion starts with complete removal of the carpet, pad, tack strips, and embedded staples, which opens the base up for inspection. We screw down panels that move and fit transition thresholds at each doorway. Old-growth boards, the tighter-grained lumber of older forests, sometimes survive underneath and are worth restoring instead.
A herringbone, chevron, border, or medallion pattern needs to land evenly in the room so you do not end up with a short, awkward cut along one wall. Every pattern starts from a line snapped down the center of the room, which keeps it balanced at both walls. Herringbone sets rectangular boards at 90 degrees in a staggered zigzag, while chevron mitres the board ends to a point so each row meets in a continuous V. We cut and fit borders and medallions on site to the room’s dimensions. Pattern work is priced separately.
Hardwood stairs need to match the floor at the landing while fitting the dimensions of each individual step. We hand-sand the stairs because a floor machine cannot reach the corners, edges, or nosings, the rounded front edge of each tread. We fit tread and riser stock to each step and match the stain and sheen to the floor at the landing.
Refinishing & Restoration
Hardwood floor refinishing takes worn coatings and old stain back to bare wood, which is what makes a full color change possible. Lighter is a screen-and-recoat, for a finish that is dull but sound. Heavier is a full restoration, for structural damage or too little wood left to sand. We first work out which of the three the floor needs, because a maintenance coat over a floor that needed sanding will not last.
A standard refinish lays two coats in the wood’s natural color and takes 2 to 4 days on site. We run both drum and belt machines and step through every abrasive grade without skipping one, because a missed grade leaves scratches that show once the finish or stain goes on. Every sander runs on HEPA-filtered dust extraction, so dust control is standard and carries no upcharge.
Restoration recovers a floor whose wear, past sanding, and structural defects go beyond what a coating can fix. We first measure how much wood is left to work with so thin historic floors are preserved rather than sanded away. When boards need replacement, finding matching stock may mean sourcing old-growth oak in the original width and cut.
The stain color can look different on the floor than it does on a chart, so we confirm it on a sample board laid on your own floor before any stain goes down. We stain in DuraSeal and Minwax colors, including Natural, Early American, Jacobean, Classic Gray, and Ebony. Oak takes color evenly, while maple and birch usually need a conditioner first to keep the stain from appearing blotchy.
Repair starts with reading the distortion and drying the structure. Cupped boards have raised edges, crowned boards rise through the center, and the two call for different drying schedules. We wait until the wood has dried back to the moisture level the rest of the floor holds.
A floor with light surface wear may only need a screen and recoat when the existing finish is still sound. A screen-fitted buffer scuffs the old finish before one compatible topcoat goes on, and many waterborne systems permit limited use the following day. A screen and recoat does not remove deep damage or change the stain color.
Localized squeaks, loose boards, gouges, or a small group of damaged planks do not always require sanding the whole room. Repair addresses only the affected area. We lace replacement planks into the floor with the end joints kept irregular, then match the grain and cut so the work disappears. Depending on material availability and finish matching, many localized repairs are completed in one visit.
The topcoat you choose affects the floor’s wear resistance, odor, color, curing time, and how future spot repairs are handled. Topcoats come from three families. A two-component waterborne, Bona Traffic HD or Loba 2K Invisible, is mixed with a hardener at application and provides strong wear resistance, low odor, and minimal ambering. Oil-modified polyurethane, DuraSeal on most of our jobs, adds a warm amber cast but cures more slowly and smells stronger. Hardwax oil, Rubio Monocoat or Osmo Polyx, soaks in rather than building a film and spot-repairs without a full recoat.
Sheen is a separate decision because it changes how much light and wear the floor shows. Matte scatters light and hides most wear, satin sits in the middle, and semi-gloss is formal and the least forgiving. Dry is not cured. On a typical waterborne system, sock traffic is fine at about 24 hours, shoes at 48, and furniture at 72, while rugs stay off until the 7-day cure.
Before the boards go down, the moisture difference between the flooring and the subfloor matters more than either reading alone. We measure both on the same visit, using a pin meter below the surface and a pinless meter across a broader area. There is no single right number, because species, season, climate, and the manufacturer's specification set it between them, though in this region it commonly lands around 6 to 9 percent. What does not move is the gap between the two, which NWFA caps at 4 percent on narrower boards and 2 percent on planks 3 inches and wider.
Before delivery, the flooring needs to adjust to the conditions it will experience in the occupied house. That is what acclimating to equilibrium means, so we establish 60 to 80 F and 30 to 50 percent relative humidity, or RH, first. Wood stored in an unheated construction space adjusts to conditions that disappear after move-in. Readiness often takes about a week, but the meter reading decides when the flooring is ready.
An uneven or loose subfloor has to be corrected before the flooring goes down. We check flatness with a straightedge against the NWFA tolerance for the system being installed. Nail-down with fasteners 1 1/2 inches or longer allows 1/4 inch over 10 feet; glue-down, floating, and shorter fasteners tighten that to 3/16 inch over 10 feet. We bring high spots down, fill low spots with self-leveling compound, and secure loose panels first.
With wider solid planks, the fastening method affects how the boards can move. We favor cleats over staples because a cleat flexes with the board, while a staple holds rigid. Before fastening anything, we lay several rows loose, a step called racking out, so we can distribute the grain and stagger the end joints. That preparation keeps the finished floor from showing a repeating pattern.
Product Types
When you are choosing a floor from a showroom sample, the color and grain are only part of what will matter once you live on it. The sample shows both, but it cannot show how hard the floor wears, how much it moves with the season, or how well it hides daily life. Those qualities come down to the format, species, grade, texture, and how the log was sawn.
A maintained solid floor commonly runs 40 to 70 years, making it a good fit when you want wood that can be renewed repeatedly. Solid is a single piece of wood through its full thickness, most often 3/4 inch, and that thickness allows 4 to 6 sandings across the floor’s life. The trade-off is where it can go: on or above grade over a wood subfloor, never below grade, meaning never below ground level.
Concrete, below-grade rooms, and compatible radiant-heating systems can call for flooring that moves less as conditions change. Engineered flooring has a real-wood wear layer over a cross-laminated core, which keeps it stable, and many engineered products are approved for installation in those locations. The wear layer runs 2 to 6 mm and sets how often the floor can be sanded.
When you want to avoid sanding dust and a finish cure schedule inside the house, prefinished boards arrive already cured from the mill. Nail-down and floating prefinished floors can generally be used as soon as installation is complete, while glue-down systems follow the adhesive manufacturer’s return-to-use schedule. Each board has a small bevel, so the seams stay visible, and the color is whatever the catalog offers.
New work that has to meet a floor already down is usually what tips the choice toward a site-finished floor. After installation, the floor is sanded flat as one plane, which closes the seams and allows any stain color. The cost is days of sanding and cure.
When you care how new hardwood was sourced or need material that matches an older floor, the source of the wood can shape the choice. We source FSC-certified hardwood, milled from forests managed to Forest Stewardship Council standards, where a documented chain of custody matters. Reclaimed stock is the other route. It comes from older buildings and barns and may include tight-grained material that is difficult to source new. It can also help us match older widths, profiles, and character.
Species
In a busy room, dents can become obvious under daily traffic. We match the species to the traffic using the Janka scale, which rates dent resistance. Hardness is not the only route, though. A textured surface hides the dents that a harder species only postpones.
For a floor that will see family traffic, red and white oak lead here because they are hard enough on the Janka scale, take stain evenly, and can be matched decades later. Maple and birch run lighter in color, and hard maple rates above both oaks on the Janka scale. Most Sioux Falls homes finish red oak, white oak, maple, and birch in light and mid-tone colors with a matte or satin sheen. In the newer developments toward the south and west, wide-plank engineered flooring is the common choice.
| Species | Janka hardness | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Hickory | 1,820 | Entries, mudrooms, homes with dogs |
| Hard maple | 1,450 | Kitchens and busy hallways |
| White oak | 1,360 | Whole-house; most requested here |
| Red oak | 1,290 | Whole-house; easiest to match on repairs |
| Black walnut | 1,010 | Bedrooms and low-traffic rooms |
Grain, Grade & Texture
Once the species is settled, the floor’s appearance and wear come down to three things: how the log was cut, what grade the boards run to, and what texture is worked into the surface.
How the boards are cut and how wide they are affect how much your floor moves. Plainsawn is the common flat cut, while riftsawn and quartersawn boards come from nearer the log’s center, so the grain runs closer to vertical. That is why quartersawn moves about half as much across its width as plainsawn. Width compounds the movement because a 5-inch board changes more at each seam than a 3-inch board in the same house. The trade calls boards below 3 inches strip and boards at or above 3 inches plank.
The grade helps you choose how much natural variation you want to see and what you want to spend. Grade describes appearance, not strength, because the same species has the same hardness throughout. Select and better runs uniform, with few knots and long boards. #1 Common has moderate variation and mineral streaks, while #2 Common, sold as character grade, has knots and shorter boards for less.
A smooth floor is sanded flat and left flat, which is what most people picture when they picture a wood floor. Because the surface shows scratches soonest, busy households often pair it with a matte sheen or choose a textured surface instead.
A wire brush strips the softer early wood and leaves a shallow relief that hides fine scratches. This is what we steer entries and mudrooms toward.
For a floor that looks rustic and older than it is, the boards can be scraped by hand to create an undulating surface. Hand-scraping hides wear the way wire-brushing does, although it holds a little more dust in the grain.
Commercial
Commercial floors have to be ready when customers and staff come back, which means the calendar shapes the specification as much as the floor does. We phase the work after hours and over weekends.
Offices, retail businesses, clinics, and restaurants need floors chosen for their expected traffic and installed without stopping business. Across the metro, we match species by Janka hardness and choose the sheen according to how much scuffing the room will show. We sequence installation by zone so the business can keep serving customers while the floor goes in.
Reopening by Monday may be possible after a Friday start when the site conditions are suitable and the fast-cure finish is compatible. As each area clears, we release it for use rather than waiting to hand back the whole building at the end.
For a business on Phillips Avenue or the blocks around it, the original floor may still be worth uncovering and restoring. The area is full of century-old commercial buildings, and original maple or oak is often still there under later coverings. We work on those floors in stages around business and dining hours, so a storefront does not have to close for the duration of the work.
Other Flooring
Some rooms belong on tile, LVP, or laminate rather than wood. Whichever floor you choose, we give it the same careful subfloor work, because the base often decides how long the finished floor lasts.
Cracked tile or grout often starts with movement in the subfloor, so your tile needs a stable base. We set porcelain, ceramic, and natural stone to ANSI A108, the American national standard for tile installation, over cement backer board or an uncoupling membrane that helps isolate the finished tile from minor movement below.
Lower levels and wet rooms expose flooring to moisture that can put wood at risk. Luxury vinyl plank is waterproof, which makes it the safer specification for those spaces. Its SPC core, a rigid stone-plastic blend, resists dents and holds the plank flat. In busy homes and rentals, we look for a 20-mil (about 0.5 mm) wear layer.
Active households need a floor that can stand up to daily wear, and laminate uses an AC abrasion rating to show its wear resistance. We recommend AC4 or higher for those homes. Its high-density fiberboard core floats over the subfloor rather than fastening to it. Unlike vinyl plank, laminate should not meet standing water because the core swells and will not recover.
Pricing
These are our published Sioux Falls rates, so you can check any proposal against them. Where a job lands inside a range comes down to the material, the condition of the room, and how much prep the floor needs first.
What moves your price: Tack-strip carpet removal and haul-away is $1 to $2 per sq ft. Glued-down flooring removal runs $1.50 to $4 per sq ft, because crews must take the remaining adhesive off the subfloor. Staple pulling, patching, and other repair-level subfloor preparation adds $0.50 to $2 per sq ft. Damaged subfloor panel replacement is $2.50 to $5 per sq ft.
A small-job minimum applies under roughly 200 square feet, since setup and mobilization stay the same. Stairs, closets, and rooms with many cuts carry a higher rate than open areas. Furniture moving and appliance disconnects are priced separately.
For a free consultation, call (605) 799-9142, or use the quote form to request a proposal for your rooms.
From the first visit through final walkthrough sign-off, Sioux Falls Hardwood Flooring works to a schedule you can see.
Your project starts with a free estimate, which we can usually book within a few days. During the on-site measure, we record the room dimensions, inspect the subfloor, and assess the existing flooring so the proposal reflects the work involved.
Because flooring can look different under changing light, we leave the sample boards in the room where they are meant to go. You can compare the species, finish, and stain in your own daylight and lamplight before deciding.
Before you approve the work, you receive an itemized proposal that shows the materials, preparation, removal, and finish separately, usually within 24 hours. The proposal defines the included scope and price. If we uncover concealed damage or you request a change, the additional work is documented and approved in writing before it proceeds.
Flooring material needs time to settle to the conditions inside your house before installation begins. We deliver it about a week ahead, then confirm the schedule once the readings support the start date.
Most projects take 1 to 5 days on site. We install containment and clean at each day’s end. You receive written dates for when the floor can handle foot traffic, furniture, and rugs.
Winter Care
Over the winter, two things work against your wood floor: dry indoor air and the grit that comes in on boots. A hygrometer is the small gauge that reads indoor humidity, and it is the cheapest way to stay ahead of the dry air.
Small gaps between boards often appear during the coldest part of winter. A January average around 18°F, along with below-zero nights throughout the winter, pulls most homes under the 30 to 50 percent band. Boards shrink in January and the gaps close again by July; a whole-house humidifier reduces the swing. A gap up to roughly 1/16 inch that closes by summer is normal, but gaps that stay open deserve inspection.
Road salt and sand tracked across a wood floor can scratch the finish. Sioux Falls gets about 45 inches of snow a year, so place a sturdy doormat inside and outside every entrance to catch the grit before it reaches the wood. Sweep or vacuum on a hard-floor setting before the grit causes scratches. Clean with a lightly damp mop and pH-neutral hardwood cleaner, and avoid wet mops and steam.
Below Grade
Finished basements are common in Sioux Falls, but wood flooring in your below-grade room needs its own specification. The plank is only as good as the slab reading under it, so before specifying anything, we run ASTM F2170 along with ASTM F1869, a companion test that measures how much moisture rises off the surface.
Concrete can release moisture long after placement, so the slab needs to be tested before the flooring choice is settled. We set a humidity probe to the depth ASTM F2170 prescribes and give it the 24 hours the standard requires before reading it. Many flooring manufacturers set a 75 percent slab RH ceiling, though product limits govern. A high reading calls for a sheet or coating that blocks slab moisture, called a vapor retarder, or a floating floor instead of adhesive.
The moisture test results determine how a below-grade floor should be installed, and these rooms call for engineered hardwood. Glue-down works when the test results and the adhesive’s limits agree; when they do not, a floating install is the alternative. An insulated subfloor panel separates the finished flooring from cold slab temperatures. Where a basement has flooded before, SPC rigid core is the safer choice.
Service Area
If you own an older Sioux Falls home, the floor under the carpet may be worth restoring. Sioux Falls housing stock splits roughly in two, and the halves ask for different work. In established neighborhoods, including McKennan Park, All Saints, Tuthill Park, and the older grid running toward Falls Park and the Old Minnehaha County Courthouse, the carpet often covers narrow oak strip flooring. In houses of that era, the red or white oak is typically 2 1/4 inches wide, nailed tight, and finished in place.
Missing boards can make an otherwise restorable floor much harder to repair. The sanding is rarely the difficult part. Sourcing is. When boards are missing, we have to match flooring milled decades ago in the same species, width, and cut, much of it long discontinued. We then work the replacement boards into the existing run until you cannot find the seam.
Newer houses on the south and west edges of Sioux Falls call for different flooring work, and the boards are wide. Much of the flooring is 5- and 7-inch engineered plank with a factory finish. That width shows at the seams sooner in a new floor than it does in an old strip floor. Many Sioux Falls homes also have finished or unfinished lower levels, which means we need to take a reading from the slab first. Across a metro of roughly 290,000 people, growth in Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties keeps work on both kinds of homes active.
Reviews
FAQ
Solid hardwood installation costs about $8,000 to $16,000 for 1,000 square feet at $8 to $16 per square foot. Engineered usually costs less, and removing existing carpet adds $1 to $2 per square foot.
Engineered hardwood can go over concrete with a glue-down or floating system. Solid cannot be fastened to a slab directly; it needs a wood subfloor built over one first, and never below grade.
Sanding and coating a typical floor takes 2 to 4 days. After the last coat, a two-component waterborne finish generally allows sock traffic at about 24 hours; oil-modified polyurethane needs closer to 48.
Usually. We set containment and phase the project room by room so part of the house remains usable. Kitchens and single-bathroom homes are scheduled carefully, and finished rooms stay closed through cure time.
Refinish while there is still wood to sand above the tongue, the interlocking edge partway down each board’s side. We measure that first. Replacement is the call when a floor has been sanded too thin or damage runs into the subfloor.
On-site estimates are free and come back as an itemized, fixed-price proposal. Coverage and bonding are in place, with documentation on request. The flooring and finish products carry their manufacturers’ own warranties.
A maintained solid floor commonly runs 40 to 70 years on a 7-to-10-year refinish cycle. Engineered depends on its wear layer. Luxury vinyl plank is durable but cannot be refinished.
We match species, cut, width, and grain, then lace the new boards in with irregular end joints and carry the finish wall to wall so the repair disappears into the floor.
We do, and we price furniture moving and appliance disconnects separately so they appear as their own line on the proposal.
Schedule a visit to your property in Sioux Falls or a surrounding community. We will measure each room at no charge and prepare an itemized, fixed-price proposal based on the agreed scope.
Call us at (605) 799-9142 to talk through your project, or send us the quote form when it suits you.
