Humber Bay Flooring Installation: How a Tower Day Runs

Humber Bay flooring installation in a condo tower runs on the building's clock. The service elevator is booked, the halls are protected and work stays inside the hours management allows. In an older tower such as Palace Pier, finished in 1978, have the old floor tested for asbestos before anything comes up. Confirm the booking and the hours first.

What makes install day different in Humber Bay Shores?

Height. Every box of planks goes up, and every strip of old floor comes down, through a service elevator that hundreds of other suites also book. Humber Bay Shores holds a couple dozen mostly high-rise towers between the Humber River and Mimico Creek, south of the Gardiner Expressway. The two Eau du Soleil towers on Shore Breeze Dr rise 66 and 49 storeys and hold 1,285 units. Vita on the Lake, on Annie Craig Dr, is a 56-storey tower on a 5-storey podium.

That sets the order of the day. Material cannot wait in the lobby while the crew works upstairs, and bags of old carpet cannot sit in the corridor. Everything moves inside the booked window.

Job sizes swing just as widely. At Palace Pier, on Lake Shore Blvd W, the 433 suites range between 920 and 3,595 square feet, so one job can be a single bedroom and the next a floor area most houses never reach. The Humber Bay area guide covers the individual buildings in more depth.

What has to happen before the crew arrives?

Three things: the elevator booking, the permitted work hours and, in older buildings, a test of what is on the floor now. Floorrable confirms access, the elevator and the hours with your management office before the date is set, and schedules the installation with the building so you have one point of contact.

The test matters most at the east end of the strip, where Palace Pier went up in 1978 on the old amusement pier site. Health Canada lists floor tiles among the older building materials that can contain asbestos, and advises a professional test before renovating anything built before 1990. If the result is positive, a qualified removal specialist works first and the new floor waits for them.

Board approval comes before all of this. If your building has not signed off yet, what Humber Bay Shores boards ask for walks through the application, and nothing is ordered until it is approved in writing.

How the Humber Bay flooring installation day runs

On a tower job the day follows the same order, and each stage is photographed.

1. Protection. Floor protection and dust control go down along the route from the service elevator to your door, plus any padding the building asks for.
2. The old floor comes out. Carpet is cut into strips and rolled, a floating floor unclicks, and glued vinyl is pried up and scraped. It all leaves in the service elevator inside the booked window.
3. The slab gets checked. The crew checks the concrete for level, moisture and soundness, and photographs it bare. Low spots are levelled before any underlay goes down.
4. Underlay and planks. The underlay your building approved goes down first and is photographed before the planks cover it. The planks follow, with expansion gaps at the walls, the window line and the balcony door.
5. Transitions and trim. Transitions meet tile and the balcony threshold to the manufacturer's spec, and baseboards go back where they are in scope.
6. Clean-up and walk-through. Offcuts leave the building, the suite is cleaned, and you walk the finished floor with us before the balance is paid.

That leaves at least four photos before (one of them the bare slab), two during and four after. When a future buyer or the board asks what is under the floor, the record answers it.

Which floors suit a tower slab, and what does each ask of the day?

Floating floors are the simplest over the concrete in these towers. Glue-down engineered hardwood asks more of the slab, and nail-down floors are not an option over concrete.

With SPC vinyl plank floors the pad is attached, so plank and underlay go down as one layer. Whether that pad satisfies your building depends on its rule for the finished assembly of slab, underlay and plank. If it does not, a separate underlay goes down first and the day gains a step.

Many suites along Marine Parade Dr look out over the lake through a wall of glass. A floating floor moves with temperature and humidity, so the crew leaves the full gap the manufacturer specifies along that window wall, hidden under the baseboard or trim.

Can you stay in your suite while the floor goes in?

Usually, yes. With the float method the crew does a room in halves: furniture moves to one side, that half is floored, then everything swaps. Most condo customers clear the rooms themselves, which is the free option in the estimate. If you would rather we move the furniture, it is a paid line and it stays inside the suite, never out to storage or the parking garage. Pianos, safes, aquariums, wall-mounted TVs, antiques and art are excluded.

Cutting is the loud part, and your building's rules set when noisy work may happen. If you work from home, plan calls away from the saw, or take the hour along the Martin Goodman Trail.

A gas range or dryer that has to move is its own job. In Ontario only a certified gas technician registered with the Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA) may disconnect and reconnect a gas line, so the flooring crew never touches one and Floorrable books a licensed technician instead. The page on old floor removal and furniture moving lists what supply and install covers.

What to do before booking a Humber Bay install date

1. Ask management for the renovation rules, the elevator booking form and the permitted work hours, in writing.
2. If your building went up before 1990, arrange a professional asbestos test of the old floor.
3. Decide who clears the rooms, and note any gas appliance that sits on the floor being replaced.
4. With those answers in hand, get a price range for your suite. A free measurement turns the range into a firm price, and Floorrable books the date with your management office.