A free measure and quote is a home visit — usually 30 to 45 minutes — where an installer measures every room properly, checks what is underneath your existing floor, and leaves you with an itemised, fixed price for supply and installation. No deposit, no obligation, and no charge whether you go ahead or not.
It is not generosity. Flooring cannot be priced accurately from a floor plan: two houses with identical 100 m² footprints can differ by thousands because one has a slab 8 mm out over two metres and the other does not. The measure exists to find those things before they find you.
What Actually Happens, Step by Step
- We confirm what you are looking at. Which rooms, which products, roughly which price band.
- We measure room by room. Not the floor-plan number — doorways, wardrobe recesses and hallway returns all get measured, because all of them get paid for.
- We check the subfloor. Flatness, moisture, and what is currently down. This is the part that moves your number most.
- We check the practical things. Stairs, lift access, parking, whether the furniture is staying, and — in an apartment — what your by-laws actually say.
- We talk through the options in your band, including the ones that cost less than what you walked in wanting.
- You get the quote in writing, itemised. Not a single number on a business card.
The measure also adds 8–10% to plank quantities for cuts and wastage, more again for herringbone or diagonal layouts. Carpet works differently: it comes off a roll 3.66 m wide and you are billed on what has to be cut, so a 12 m² bedroom can take closer to 14.6 m² of carpet.
The Subfloor Check Is the Part That Changes Your Number
Everything above is arithmetic. This is judgement, and it is why the visit is worth 40 minutes of your Saturday.
- Flatness. Laminate click joints start failing early over high spots greater than about 3 mm across a 2-metre span. Levelling a slab that is out of tolerance runs $25–45/m² and is the single biggest variable in hard-flooring quotes.
- Moisture. On Sydney slabs, moisture comes from below as well as above. A test is $150–300 flat and is close to mandatory on any slab under 12 months old; if it tests damp, a barrier adds $25–50/m².
- What is already down. Old carpet or laminate removal is $15–35/m². Tile or glued-vinyl demolition is $40–80/m² and is the most under-budgeted line in a renovation.
That list only looks like bad news, so here is the half that runs the other way: floating floors can often be laid straight over sound, level tiles, removing the demolition line entirely and taking $40–80/m² out of the job. Whether yours qualifies is exactly what gets answered at the measure.
What Is on the Quote When You Get It
| Line item | What it covers | Typical Sydney range |
|---|---|---|
| Flooring supply | Your chosen product, in m² including wastage | Varies by product |
| Underlay | A separate line for laminate and carpet; usually bonded to the plank on hybrid | Laminate $6–18/m² · carpet $8–25/m² |
| Installation labour | Laying, cutting, joining, finishing | $25–45/m² |
| Scotia and trims | Perimeter finishing, priced per linear metre | $5–15 per lm |
| Subfloor preparation | Levelling, moisture barrier — or an explicit exclusion | $25–45/m² if required |
| Removal and disposal | Old floor out and taken away | $15–35/m² · tile $40–80/m² |
| Stairs | Priced per step, separately from floor area | $80–140 per step |
| Furniture | Moving and returning, if we handle it | $100–300 · free if you clear |
A quote without these lines is not cheaper — it is just incomplete, and the missing money finds you after the furniture is back in. If one quote comes in $1,400 under another, the first question is which of these eight lines it is missing.
A full guide to installation costs and the hidden lines that move them is coming soon on this blog. In the meantime the complete flooring and carpet cost guide sets out what each product runs per square metre in Sydney, with deeper detail on hybrid flooring cost and laminate flooring cost.
What “Free” Actually Means
No charge, no deposit, no obligation to decide on the day. The measurements are yours to take to another retailer and compare line for line. The trade, plainly: we do it free because we would like the job, and because a measured quote converts better than a guessed one.
How to Get the Most Out of the Visit
- Have a rough budget band in mind. Even “around $70 a metre” saves twenty minutes of wrong samples.
- Know your by-laws if you are in an apartment. Most Sydney strata schemes set acoustic requirements for hard flooring, and approval depends on the complete tested system rather than the plank alone.
- Say if the slab is new. Under 12 months and a moisture test is almost certainly needed — better in the quote than discovered on install day.
- Ask about the rooms you are not doing yet. Jobs over about 80 m² attract a better per-metre rate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a free measure and quote include?
A room-by-room measure, a subfloor check for flatness and moisture, a look at what is currently down and whether it needs removing, a discussion of products in your budget band, and an itemised written quote covering supply, underlay, labour, trims, prep and removal. No charge, no obligation.
How long does it take?
Usually 30 to 45 minutes; longer with stairs or a lot of small rooms. The quote follows in writing, because the roll and plank layouts get planned properly first.
Is it really free, and am I obliged to buy?
Yes and no, in that order. No charge, no deposit, no obligation to proceed. The measurements and the quote are yours to compare wherever you like.
Do I need to be home?
Someone does, ideally whoever is making the decision. Half the value of the visit is the conversation about how the rooms get used — which floors the dog walks on, whether the hallway is the route from the back door to the kitchen.
Can the price change after the quote?
It should not — that is the point of measuring properly. The quote is a fixed price for the scope written on it, and changes only if the scope does: you add a room, switch product, or something genuinely hidden appears once the old floor is lifted.
Can you quote from photos or a floor plan instead?
We can give you a budget range from a floor plan, which is useful for deciding whether a project is a this-year or a next-year job. It is not a quote. Nothing in a photograph tells us whether the slab is flat, whether it is dry, or whether the tiles can stay — and those three answers separate a $6,500 job from an $8,500 one.
Book Your Free Measure and Quote
Ranges get you budgeting; a measure gets you a number. Book a free measure and quote and we will come to you — our own installers, not subcontractors, with a 1-year installation warranty on every job.
Or visit us: Belrose Shopping Centre, Shop 1.10 (02 9486 3502) or Hills Super Centre, Shop 85B, 16 Victoria Ave, Castle Hill (02 8606 4840).