I only had 3% waste when I installed my floors, but I was very careful. I installed them myself and took the time to find boards closer to the length I needed. A contractor will not take that time...they will grab a board and whack it off to make it fit. I bet the longest scrap I had was 2". 7% might be cutting it a little close...most of the time it is suggested that you allow 10% for waste. But the installer CAN work with 7% if they are careful.

I agree that 7% might not be enough. With 5" wide flooring you don't want a lot of shorts, especially if you have a beveled edge (I don't know if you do). Therefore using every scrap becomes more difficult without closets to hide them in. The bigger issue is your lack of trust in your installer's expertise. He probably doesn't want to get almost done and need another run of flooring, another piece of reducer, whatever, and create a delay for you. Is an extra T-molding or reducer returnable if you don't use it? An extra half-box of flooring is good to keep in case you have a problem down the road.

Thank you idrive65 for your reply. I just pulled up the carpet with a client who has begun a friend and we put a thin catalogue under the wood to be the floating material and it appears that there is only 1/8th difference in height of the two floors so I may need two T-Moldings and not one unless a reducer can be used there which is what I would prefer. I will call right now to see if I can order the 2 T-Moldings and the extra reducer and return them if I do not need them. I guess I need to know the length of the T-Molding. I will never order without a confirmed installer that I trust working with me again.

Thank you CCoombs for letting me know that a good installer can work with me if I only order 7%. Now I am wondering if I should have more.

I just stopped by my neighbor's home and she has reducers but her floors heights seem to be 1/4th inch difference. A few days ago her floors felt so hard to me since they were glued down. But today I took off my shoes and walked around barefeet on my tiles as I was measuring so when I was in socks on her floor, it no longer felt so hard and now I wonder if my idea of floating instead of gluing to be safe when my concrete floor was told to be dry, is a mistake and I should glue the floor? I don't want to seal the floor since it will add up the cost and time to get all the furniture out of all the rooms.

I have never installed a floor in my life until a few weeks ago I ordered the 10% extra and now have about 8% left over. When you get to the end you get a piece cut it in half and start with that piece coming back from the other wall so I pretty much had no waste. Towards the end I realized I would have a ton left over so I went through the boxes and took all the best looking pieces out and used them.

kcboom, thank you for your post which I do appreciate. I decided based on your posts and the posts above and the fact that the installer I am hiring says he is very good at minimizing waste to order only the 7% extra which due to having to order by the box makes the flooring a little more than 8% extra. I ordered on Friday but the order was placed on hold until my installer came by two days ago to let me know which transition pieces I needed (I was going to order 3 reducers so now I know I need only 2 reducers but I need 2 T-Moldings). Then the flooring was put on hold due to wanting to find out what wood glue was in my order. Today I told the flooring company to take out the wood glue and put the order through. I will buy the wood glue locally and this way if I need more, I can run out to get more for the installer. I decided to float the floor with the Floor Muffler with the Ultra Seal in order to have the floor have more insulation and be quieter. I am very excited about my new floor and will let everyone know when it arrives!

The sad thing is when the floor gets there you will put the boxes in your house and have to look at the boxes for at least a week so the wood acclimates to your homes humidity so it expands and contracts with the home.

I don't know about the place you're ordering from but when I had pre-finished wood in my house, the place I got it from would accept returns of whole boxes as well as unused transition pieces. I think my installer picked up a little extra just to avoid an unnecessary trip and then returned what we didn't need.