Service area
Wood Floors in Kensington, Old, Philadelphia
Deco Hardwood Floor sands, refinishes, installs and rebuilds wood floors and stairs in Kensington, Old, Philadelphia. The median home here dates to 1997, and 25.8% of the housing was built before 1940, which is what decides whether your floor is a refinish or a restoration.
What is usually under the floor here
Prewar and postwar housing sit side by side, so the right answer changes house to house and sometimes street to street.
Places with this mix were built across a long stretch, and the floors follow. One block holds original strip oak over joists with a thin wear layer left, and the next holds postwar red oak over a plywood subfloor with most of its thickness intact.
That is why we do not quote this kind of address over the phone. The same service can be a straightforward refinish on one side of a street and a restoration decision on the other, and the only way to know is to look at the edge of a board.
Worth knowing here
Additions are the common surprise. A kitchen bumped out in the 1970s often carries a different floor from the rest of the house, and matching the two is its own conversation.
Whether the federal lead rule applies depends on the house
Approximately 42.1% of the homes here predate 1978, so it comes down to the specific address.
This is a place where the housing stock straddles the 1978 line the EPA rule draws. Roughly half the addresses are covered and roughly half are not, which means the answer is per house rather than per town.
Where it does apply, the rule governs how the sander is set up: containment and a HEPA vacuum collecting dust where it is generated. We check the age of the house before deciding how the work is staged.
How the housing in Kensington, Old compares
Of the 3,051 housing units in Kensington, Old, roughly 790 were built before 1940 and approximately 1,300 before 1978.
That makes the housing here newer than the 132 Philadelphia neighborhoods in our data taken together, where approximately 82.8% of 733,961 units predate 1978, and below the 60.5% figure for our whole service area. By the share built before 1940, Kensington, Old ranks 94th of those 132. The full table is published as open housing data.
| Place | Median year built | Built before 1940 |
|---|---|---|
| Kensington, Old | 1997 | 25.8% |
| Northern Liberties | 1997 | 30.7% |
| Kensington, West | 1937 | 52.1% |
| Yorktown | 1983 | 9.1% |
| Fishtown - Lower Kensington | 1928 | 69.4% |
| East Kensington | 1943 | 48.9% |
| West Poplar | 1989 | 21.2% |
What the work here usually looks like
A majority of the homes here are rental. Turnover work runs to a different clock than owner work, and screen and recoat is often the right call where a full refinish is not.
Pennsylvania registers home improvement contractors through the Office of Attorney General rather than licensing them, and the registration number belongs on contracts, estimates and advertising.
What we do in Kensington, Old
Hardwood Floor Refinishing
Sand the old finish off, repair what needs repairing, and put a new finish down
Dustless Floor Sanding
Vacuum-extraction sanding
Solid Hardwood Floor Installation
Solid wood, nailed down over a wood subfloor
Engineered Hardwood Installation
Real wood over a stable core
Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) Installation
Waterproof, quiet, and it does not care about a wet basement
Custom Stair Installation
Treads, risers, stringers and skirt board, built to a drawing instead of a catalog page
Stair Refinishing
Stairs take more wear per square foot than any floor in the house, and they are sanded almost entirely by hand
Hardwood Floor Repair
Board replacement, weaving in new wood, squeaks, gaps and cupping
Why homeowners hire Deco Hardwood Floor
Deco Hardwood Floor is owner operated: the person who quotes wood floor work in Kensington, Old is the person responsible for it, and the material comes with the labor in one number.
Material and labor in one number
We buy the flooring direct from the distributor and pass the store price through, so you are not sourcing wood on your own between quotes.
Samples come to your house
Samples and larger offcuts come to you, so the color gets chosen in your own light instead of under a showroom lamp.
Stairs and railings built in house
Treads, risers, handrails and newel posts are drawn and built by our own crew. Most flooring crews subcontract stair work or decline it.
The owner quotes the job
The person who measures your floor is the person responsible for the work. There is no salesperson in between.
Measured before it is promised
Remaining thickness is measured at the edge of a board before we say a floor can be sanded, and no price is firm before we have seen the room.
Told straight, including the limits
Vacuum extraction catches most of the sanding dust and not all of it. We tell you that before the job instead of after.
More about who we are and what we will not claim on the About Deco Hardwood Floor page.
Questions about wood floors in Kensington, Old
Can you tell me what my floor needs over the phone?
We can tell you what is likely, and this page is most of that answer. What we cannot do is quote a floor we have not seen, because remaining thickness and what is under the covering both decide the job and neither is visible in a description.
Do you bring the material?
Yes. We buy direct from the distributor and the material lands in the same number as the labor. Samples and larger offcuts come to the house so you choose in your own light.
Nearby neighborhoods
Send a photo and we will tell you what you are looking at
Wood floor work in Kensington, Old starts with someone reading the house. We quote every job ourselves, with no salesperson in between, and a photo of the floor gets you a straight answer faster than a form does.
