Del City’s housing went up fast in the 1950s and early 1960s for families working around Tinker, and oak strip flooring came standard in nearly all of it. Sixty-odd years later those floors have usually been carpeted, occasionally covered in vinyl, and sometimes simply worn down without ever being refinished.
Restoration suits them well. The wood is good, the layouts are simple and open, and the square footage per house is modest enough that a whole-home project stays within reach for owners who assumed it would not be. A typical Del City ranch can often be restored end to end for less than the cost of doing a single level in a newer suburban house.
Del City’s housing went up fast in the 1950s and early 1960s for families working around Tinker, and oak strip flooring came standard in nearly all of it. Sixty-odd years later those floors have usually been carpeted, occasionally covered in vinyl, and sometimes simply worn down without ever being refinished.
Restoration suits them well. The wood is good, the layouts are simple and open, and the square footage per house is modest enough that a whole-home project stays within reach for owners who assumed it would not be. A typical Del City ranch can often be restored end to end for less than the cost of doing a single level in a newer suburban house.
Replacement means demolition, disposal, new material, installation labor and finishing. Restoration skips the first four and spends the difference on repair and careful sanding. On a sound floor the gap is substantial — typically well under half the cost — and at the end you own solid oak that can be resanded again rather than an engineered product with one life in it.
The arithmetic changes when subfloor damage is widespread, when the floor has already been sanded to its fasteners, or when more than about a third of the boards need replacing. We measure and tell you which side of that line your property sits on.
For a landlord, restored hardwood is a long-term cost decision rather than an aesthetic one. Carpet in a rental needs replacing every five to seven years, indefinitely. A restored oak floor can be screened and recoated between tenants for a fraction of that, and fully resanded once a decade or so. Across a twenty-year hold the difference is not close.
It also shows better at viewings and tends to support a higher rent than the same unit carpeted. Between tenants, a recoat or full refinish turns a unit around in days. An on-site inspection costs nothing, for single properties or whole portfolios — see our full coverage on the service areas page.
