Based on aggregated data, replacing carpet with hardwood in a 400-square-foot room costs about $3,020 to $10,355, with a typical job landing near $6,230. The new floor itself is only part of that: solid hardwood installation runs $2,500 to $8,000 for the same room. The rest comes from taking the carpet out and putting the room back together around a hard floor: carpet, pad and tack strip removal, staples, subfloor fixes, transition strips at each doorway, shoe molding along the walls, and moving the furniture twice.
A carpeted room was never built to carry a wood floor. Carpet hides squeaks, dips, particleboard and old stains, and a half-inch of pile covers almost every edge. Hardwood shows all of it. This page prices the conversion in the order the work happens, so each line can be checked against a quote. The material question, carpet against hardwood over 30 years, is covered separately in carpet vs hardwood cost.
The Conversion Bill for One 400 sq ft Room
Every figure below is anchored to the national project data used across this site. The low column is a simple stretch-in carpet over sound plywood with the owner moving the furniture. The high column is a premium floor with real subfloor repair.
| Line item | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carpet, pad and tack strip removal, with haul-away | $120 | $300 | $720 |
| Subfloor refastening, staple pull, spot repair | $75 | $300 | $800 |
| Solid hardwood, materials and installation | $2,500 | $5,000 | $8,000 |
| Transition strips (3 doorways or floor edges, $10–$30 each) | $30 | $60 | $90 |
| Shoe molding, about 74 linear feet at $4–$6 installed | $295 | $370 | $445 |
| Furniture moving, out and back | $0 | $200 | $300 |
| Conversion total | $3,020 | $6,230 | $10,355 |
| Hardwood as a share of the total | 83% | 80% | 77% |
The hardwood line is about four-fifths of the bill. The other fifth is the part a per-square-foot floor quote leaves out: roughly $520 to $2,355 of tear-out and finish work, about $1,230 on a typical job. Those lines barely change with the wood. A $6 oak floor and a $20 walnut floor go into the same room with the same strip of tack strip to pull and the same 74 feet of wall to trim.
Three things push a job outside this table. Each one is priced further down:
- Leveling, when the subfloor is out of flat.
- A concrete slab in place of a wood subfloor.
- Stairs, which are priced per step and can cost as much as the room.
Step 1: Carpet, Pad and Tack Strip Removal
Carpet removal prices at $120 to $720 for a typical single-room job when billed on its own. When the flooring installer does the tear-out as part of the conversion, it commonly prices at $0.25 to $1.00 per square foot, because the crew, the truck and the haul-away are already on site.
A carpet conversion takes out more than carpet:
- The carpet is cut into strips and rolled. A 12-by-12-foot room of carpet and pad rolls up at between 60 and 100 pounds.
- The pad is usually stapled to a wood subfloor along its seams and edges. Each staple left behind is a high spot that a hardwood board will rock on, so a hardwood job carries a staple pull a carpet-to-carpet job does not. Pulling and disposing of tack strip and staples adds about $0.10 to $0.30 per square foot when it is priced separately.
- The tack strip runs around the whole perimeter, nailed into wood or, on a slab, shot into the concrete with masonry nails. On wood the nail holes vanish under the new floor. On concrete, a strip pried off carelessly can chip the slab surface, and those chips are patched before a glue-down floor goes over them.
- Glued-down carpet changes the line entirely. Scraping carpet adhesive runs $3 to $5 per square foot, or $1,200 to $2,000 on 400 square feet, which turns the cheapest step into one of the largest. Glue-down carpet is most common on slabs, in basements and in older multi-family buildings.
Whether the old carpet is glued or stretched in is the one question that moves the tear-out line more than the room size does. Lifting a corner of carpet inside a closet answers it, and shows what the subfloor is made of.
Step 2: What the Subfloor Turns Out to Be
The carpet was the only thing between the room and its subfloor, often for decades. Once it is up, four findings decide whether the hardwood can go straight down or whether a second job comes first.
| Finding under the carpet | What it means for hardwood | Typical cost (400 sq ft) |
|---|---|---|
| Sound plywood or OSB, no squeaks | Hardwood goes straight down | $0 |
| Squeaks, loose sheets, popped nails | Screwed back down to the joists | $75–$300 |
| Soft spot at a door, bath or radiator | Cut out and patched | $100–$500 |
| Particleboard underlayment | Removed and replaced with plywood | $800–$2,000 |
| Dips beyond tolerance | Leveled | $400–$1,200 |
| Widespread rot or water damage | Full subfloor replacement | $1,200–$4,000 |
| Concrete slab | Engineered floor, or plywood sleeper subfloor for solid | $800–$2,000 for the sleeper |
Particleboard is the finding that surprises owners most. Carpet was often laid over particleboard underlayment, which costs little and is flat enough for a pad. Wood-flooring installation guidelines exclude particleboard as a nailing base for hardwood, because it does not hold a flooring cleat. In a carpeted house, particleboard means a removal and a new plywood layer, priced at $2 to $5 per square foot in published plywood repair and replacement data. It also lowers the floor by the thickness of the removed layer, which changes the heights at every doorway.
Flatness is the second. For nail-down hardwood over wood, the published industry tolerance is about 1/4 inch over 10 feet, or 3/16 inch over 6 feet, and glue-down and floating installations are held tighter, at 3/16 inch over 10 feet. Carpet and pad hide a dip of that size completely. Leveling runs $1 to $3 a square foot on typical prep and up to about $6 where dips are deep.
Rot and water damage are the third. Full subfloor replacement runs $900 to $3,000 for a typical room, about $3 to $10 per square foot. Isolated soft spots usually sit beside an exterior door, a toilet or an old radiator. Refastening a squeaking but sound subfloor is far cheaper, at $75 to $300.
Old flooring under the carpet is the fourth. In homes built before about 1980, carpet was sometimes laid straight over 9-by-9-inch vinyl tile or sheet vinyl stuck down with black cutback mastic. Both can contain asbestos; the EPA asbestos guidance names vinyl floor tile and flooring adhesives among the household products that may contain it. Professional testing runs about $200 to $600 a visit and licensed abatement about $5 to $20 per square foot. These are figures about how the two cases price, not a handling procedure: removal is governed by state and federal rules. The broader picture for bonded layers is in floor removal cost.
Step 3: The Hardwood Itself
The flooring line is the one most shoppers have already priced. Based on aggregated data, solid hardwood installed in a 400-square-foot room costs $2,500 to $8,000, typically about $5,000, which is roughly $6.25 to $20 per square foot. Of that, materials account for about $1,200 to $4,000 and labor about $1,100 to $3,500.
Three choices move the line within that range:
- Species and grade. Red oak strip sits at the bottom; hickory and maple in the middle; walnut, wide plank and exotics at the top. The full species table is on the hardwood installation page.
- Prefinished or site-finished. Sanding and finishing the floor in place adds roughly $2 to $4 per square foot, or $800 to $1,600 on this room, and several days of curing time.
- Underlayment. Nail-down solid hardwood goes over a paper or felt underlayment. Floating and acoustic underlayments cost $0.30 to $3 per square foot, and acoustic grades are often required on an upper floor or in a condo.
Solid hardwood is delivered several days ahead of the installation and left in the room to acclimate for 3 to 7 days. Carpet goes in the day it arrives, so this step catches converters off guard. In practice the boxes often go into an adjoining room while the carpet is still down, and the tear-out is timed for the end of the acclimation window.
Waste is the other line carpet buyers have not met before. A straight-lay hardwood floor is ordered with about 5 to 7 percent extra; a diagonal or herringbone layout with 10 to 18 percent.
Step 4: Heights, Doorways and Thresholds
This is the step where a carpet room and a hardwood room differ physically, and where most of the small surprise charges come from.
Finished height. A common residential carpet is around a 1/2-inch pile over a 7/16-inch pad, so its top surface sits close to an inch above the subfloor before it is walked on. Solid hardwood is 3/4 inch thick plus a paper underlayment. Engineered hardwood runs about 3/8 to 3/4 inch, and click-lock vinyl plank a few millimeters. The new floor therefore usually finishes at or slightly below where the carpet sat, not above it. Particleboard removal or an added plywood layer changes that arithmetic, in either direction.
Doors. A door hung over carpet was cut to clear the pile. After a hardwood conversion the gap under it usually grows, so doors seldom have to be trimmed. The exception is a room where a new plywood layer has been added under the wood. Trimming a hung and painted door then runs about $30 to $70 per door. Separately, the door casings and jambs are undercut so the boards slide beneath them, at about $5 to $15 per doorway. That is a clean-looking detail and it is routine on a hardwood job.
Thresholds. A carpet edge meeting a kitchen or bathroom floor is finished with a metal edge strip and the pile simply folds over it. A hardwood edge meeting a tile or vinyl floor of a different height needs a reducer, a T-molding or a threshold, at about $10 to $30 per strip. Where the hardwood stops at carpet that stays, as when the living room converts and the bedrooms do not, a carpet-to-hardwood transition piece finishes the seam. Each doorway, each change of floor, and the top of any stairway is one piece.
Floor registers. Heating and cooling vents cut through a carpeted floor are cut again through the hardwood. A register that sat on top of the carpet is often swapped for a flush-mount one sized for wood.
Step 5: Baseboards and Shoe Molding
Carpet installers usually leave the baseboard set slightly above the subfloor so the carpet can be tucked under it. That gap turns out to be useful in a conversion. The hardwood slides under the baseboard, the expansion gap at the wall disappears beneath it, and a thin shoe molding or quarter round covers whatever shows.
| Trim route | Typical cost (400 sq ft room) | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Keep baseboard, add shoe molding | $295–$445 (about 74 linear feet at $4–$6) | Baseboard sound and raised for the carpet |
| Keep baseboard, add quarter round | $220–$520 ($3–$7 per linear foot) | Same, rounder profile |
| Remove and reinstall the old baseboard | $0.50–$1.50 per linear foot to remove, plus reinstall | A shoe-free look is wanted |
| New baseboard throughout | $400–$1,500 per project | Old trim damaged, dated or too short |
Choosing between shoe molding and new trim is the largest decision on this line. A $295 shoe-molding job can become a $1,500 baseboard installation once old painted trim tears the drywall paper on its way off. Baseboard that was caulked and painted to the wall is the version most likely to.
Stairs: Priced Per Step, Not Per Square Foot
A carpeted staircase cannot be converted at a square-foot rate. Each tread is cut, fitted and nosed by hand, and the price is quoted per step.
| Stair route (13-step straight flight) | Per step | Flight total |
|---|---|---|
| Strip the carpet and pad | $2–$20 | $26–$260 |
| Refinish existing hardwood treads found underneath | $25–$100 | $325–$1,300 |
| New hardwood treads and risers | $100–$300 | $1,300–$3,900 |
| Laminate on the stairs, for comparison | $60–$150 | $780–$1,950 |
| Vinyl plank on the stairs, for comparison | $40–$100 | $520–$1,300 |
The cheap middle row is often not available. Many carpeted stairs are built from construction-grade treads: pine, plywood or a square-edged board with no finished nosing, made to be covered. Lifting the carpet at one tread shows which kind the staircase has. Curved, winder and open-sided stairs sit at the top of each range.
A full 13-step flight in new hardwood can cost as much as hardwood for the whole 400-square-foot room below it. Many houses convert the main floor and keep the stairs carpeted, or replace a worn stair carpet in kind; that route is priced in the cost to recarpet stairs. A runner over new hardwood treads is the in-between version. It keeps the wood visible at the edges and puts fabric where the feet land; see stair runner installation cost.
What It Costs by Room Size
The 400-square-foot bill scales to other areas as follows. Tear-out uses the bundled rate of $0.25 to $1.00 per square foot. Hardwood uses $6.25 to $20 per square foot installed, the national range above. Trim assumes shoe molding along the perimeter, and the totals include refastening ($75 to $300) and, at the high end, $300 of furniture moving.
| Area | Tear-out | Solid hardwood installed | Transitions + shoe molding | Conversion total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 150 sq ft (bedroom) | $38–$150 | $940–$3,000 | $195–$305 | $1,250–$4,055 |
| 300 sq ft (living room) | $75–$300 | $1,875–$6,000 | $275–$445 | $2,300–$7,345 |
| 600 sq ft (living, dining and hall) | $150–$600 | $3,750–$12,000 | $470–$750 | $4,445–$13,950 |
| 1,000 sq ft (main floor) | $250–$1,000 | $6,250–$20,000 | $850–$1,350 | $7,425–$22,950 |
Two things the straight multiplication does not show:
- Small rooms hit minimums. Many hardwood installers set a minimum job of about $1,500 to $2,500, so a single bedroom often prices at the minimum rather than the per-foot figure. Converting two bedrooms in one visit costs much less than two separate visits.
- Trim grows more slowly than floor area. A 1,000-square-foot open main floor has far less wall per square foot than three bedrooms of the same total area. For the same reason, the share of the bill that is not flooring falls from about a quarter in a single bedroom to about an eighth to a sixth on a whole floor.
Measuring area and perimeter before asking for a quote is covered in how to measure a room for flooring.
Solid, Engineered, or a Wood-Look Floor
The finish lines of a conversion do not care what goes down. The tear-out, refastening, transitions, shoe molding and furniture moving cost the same for any floor: about $520 to $2,355 in the 400-square-foot room. Only the flooring line changes, and so does the number of years it buys.
| Floor replacing the carpet (400 sq ft) | Flooring line | Full conversion | Typical | Rated life |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solid hardwood | $2,500–$8,000 | $3,020–$10,355 | ~$6,230 | 50–100 years |
| Engineered hardwood | $1,500–$5,500 | $2,020–$7,855 | ~$4,430 | 20–40 years |
| Vinyl plank (LVP) | $1,500–$5,500 | $2,020–$7,855 | ~$4,230 | 10–20 years |
| Laminate | $900–$3,200 | $1,420–$5,555 | ~$3,030 | 15–25 years |
Engineered hardwood is the cheaper real-wood conversion by about $1,800 at the typical point. It is also the only real-wood version that goes directly onto a concrete slab. Solid hardwood over a slab first needs a plywood sleeper subfloor at $2 to $5 per square foot. On a ground-floor slab room, that one fact usually decides the choice. The trade-off is the veneer: a thin wear layer gives fewer sandings, as set out in engineered vs solid hardwood cost.
Vinyl plank and laminate are not hardwood, and a page about replacing carpet with hardwood has no reason to pretend otherwise. They are included because they are the most common substitute once a conversion quote comes in. Both cost about the same as engineered wood or less, and both are tolerant of moisture in ways solid wood is not. Both are also replaced at the end of their life rather than sanded back, which puts them closer to carpet than to hardwood on the long-run arithmetic. Below grade, solid hardwood drops out of the comparison altogether; see best flooring for a basement.
The Cheapest Conversion: Hardwood Already Under the Carpet
Many houses built before wall-to-wall carpet became standard have a hardwood floor underneath it. Where that is the case, the conversion becomes a refinishing job. Refinishing runs $3 to $8 per square foot, or $1,000 to $4,000 for a typical project. That is a fraction of the $3,020 to $10,355 new-floor conversion.
A floor that spent years under carpet usually carries four kinds of damage:
- a row of tack strip nail holes around the perimeter, filled during refinishing;
- staple holes from the pad, filled the same way;
- dark pet stains, which sanding does not always remove; replacing boards and refinishing to match runs about $400 to $1,600;
- color differences where rugs or furniture shaded the wood, which a full sanding usually evens out.
A 3/4-inch solid floor tolerates 4 to 6 full sandings across its life, so one sanding to recover it from under the carpet spends little of that budget. How the sanding budget lasts is covered in how long hardwood floors last.
Doing the Tear-Out Yourself
The demolition half of a conversion is the half most owners take on themselves, and it is the part that saves real money without touching the floor’s installation. For the 400-square-foot room:
| Task taken on by the owner | Professional line avoided |
|---|---|
| Cut, roll and remove carpet and pad; pull tack strip and staples | $120–$720 |
| Remove old shoe molding or quarter round (about 74 linear feet) | $37–$111 |
| Move furniture out and back | $100–$300 |
| Gross saving | $257–$1,131 |
| Less: utility knife, pry bar, pliers, gloves, knee pads | $50–$125 |
| Less: curbside bulk pickup, where offered | about $79 |
| Net saving | about $55–$1,080 |
The typical net saving is a few hundred dollars, most of it from labor. The time cost is mostly staples and tack strip, not carpet. A 150 to 300 square foot room of stretch-in carpet comes up in 1 to 2 hours, but pulling every pad staple flush can take as long again. That step is where an owner-done tear-out falls short of what a hardwood installer expects to find, and where some installers add a prep charge on arrival. Glued-down carpet changes the trade: hand-scraping adhesive off 400 square feet is a full day or more of labor, which is why it is priced at $3 to $5 per square foot.
How Long the Conversion Takes
| Phase | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| Hardwood delivered and acclimating (overlaps the steps below) | 3–7 days |
| Carpet, pad, tack strip and staple removal | 2–6 hours |
| Subfloor refastening, patching or replacement, if needed | 0–3 days |
| Solid hardwood installation | 3–7 days |
| Engineered hardwood installation, for comparison | 2–4 days |
| Sanding and finishing, site-finished floors only | adds several days of work and curing |
| Shoe molding, baseboard, transitions | 1–2 days |
A single room typically runs one to two weeks from delivery to furniture back in. Prefinished floors sit at the short end and site-finished floors at the long end. Carpet-to-carpet replacement, by comparison, is usually a one-day job, and planning a conversion on a carpet timeline is a common source of a missed move-in date.
What It Costs in Different Cities
Labor is the half of the conversion that moves with geography; the boards, trim and adhesive are priced nationally. Applying each metro’s labor factor to the typical tear-out and flooring lines, while materials stay flat:
| City | Labor factor | Carpet tear-out (typical) | Solid hardwood, 400 sq ft (typical) | Engineered, 400 sq ft (typical) | Solid minus engineered | vs. National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago, IL | 1.33 | $390 | $5,425 | $3,730 | $1,700 | +33% |
| Minneapolis, MN | 1.27 | $375 | $5,295 | $3,630 | $1,660 | +27% |
| Philadelphia, PA | 1.12 | $335 | $4,965 | $3,390 | $1,570 | +12% |
| Phoenix, AZ | 0.99 | $295 | $4,680 | $3,185 | $1,495 | −1% |
| Tampa, FL | 0.87 | $265 | $4,415 | $2,990 | $1,420 | −13% |
Labor adjustment factors are derived from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025): the median ratio of local to national hourly wages across the trades that do this work. How this is calculated.
Because tear-out is almost entirely labor, it moves with the metro more than any other line on this page. Engineered hardwood keeps its price advantage everywhere, but the size of the gap changes with the local labor rate. How the factors are derived from wage data is on the methodology page.
Is the Conversion Worth It?
The cost data supports a narrower answer than “hardwood always pays.” On aggregated figures:
- The conversion is a one-time cost. Carpet’s tear-out returns every 5 to 15 years, when the carpet is replaced, and it comes back as $120 to $720 per room on top of the new carpet. Hardwood rated for 50 to 100 years pays that tear-out once.
- The money returns slowly. It comes back through avoided carpet cycles and a resale premium, and both take years. A household selling soon after converting pays the whole $6,230 typical bill and captures mainly the resale share. The year-by-year version of that arithmetic is in carpet vs hardwood cost.
- Rooms do not have to convert together. Converting the living areas and leaving bedrooms and stairs carpeted is the most common pattern in the data. It also keeps the costliest per-area lines, stairs and small-room minimums, out of the first project.
- The carpet’s own condition sets the timing. A carpet near the end of its life is about to cost a tear-out and a new installation anyway, which makes the conversion’s extra cost smaller. How to read where a carpet sits in its range is covered in how long carpet lasts.
Related Costs
- Hardwood floor installation cost: species, grade, method and labor by the square foot
- Engineered hardwood installation cost: the slab-friendly real-wood option
- Carpet removal cost: tear-out on its own, by attachment and room size
- Subfloor replacement cost: when what is under the carpet will not take a wood floor
- Baseboard installation cost: when shoe molding is not enough
- Floor removal cost: removal of bonded layers found under the carpet
- Carpet vs hardwood cost: the 30-year comparison of the two floors
- All flooring costs · Methodology
Last updated: October 2026. All figures reflect aggregated national data and are not a quote or an inspection of a specific floor. Actual cost depends on the subfloor, the carpet’s attachment, the floor chosen, trim, stairs and local labor rates. See the methodology page for how figures are calculated and sourced.