Every flooring bid answers one question: what does it cost to install? The more important question — what does this floor cost per year of service? — never appears on the bid sheet. After 68 years of installing commercial floors, we can tell you the cheapest line item is frequently the most expensive floor.
The three numbers that matter
Installed cost is the bid. Maintenance cost is the janitorial reality: stripping and waxing VCT twice a year, recoating wood, replacing carpet sections, buffing and sealing. Replacement cycle is how many times you'll pay for this floor again before the building comes down.
A floor that costs half as much but lasts a third as long and needs four times the maintenance is not the economical choice. It just books its costs where the capital budget doesn't look.
Rough service lives, from experience
- Terrazzo: 40–75 years. Maintenance is a neutral cleaner and an occasional re-polish.
- Ceramic and porcelain tile: 30–50 years installed correctly; grout is the maintenance story.
- Polished concrete: 20–40 years with periodic re-honing; no coatings to strip.
- Luxury vinyl tile: 10–20 years in commercial service; low maintenance while it lasts.
- Commercial carpet tile: 7–15 years; individual tiles swap out, which stretches the effective life.
Match the floor to the building's horizon
A leased retail space with a five-year outlook justifies different flooring than a school corridor the district will own for sixty years. The mistake we see most often is spending short-horizon money in long-horizon buildings — installing a 12-year floor in a 60-year corridor buys the same floor five times.
Get a lifecycle comparison for your project
We'll price your project across two or three systems with honest service-life and maintenance numbers for each — send us a message or call 260-483-6389.