Safeguard your floors on moving day so you can enjoy their good looks for years to come
The stars have aligned, and you’ve found the perfect house with an amazing combination of hardwood floors and luxury carpeting. To protect your flooring from accidental damage during the moving process, you’ll need to take some extra precautions. Don’t worry; if you need ideas for safeguarding your old home’s floors, these tips work for those, too.
If you’re groaning at adding yet another to-do item to your moving checklist, trust us: This part’s important. Without proper floor protection, you run into risks like:
Scraping furniture along flooring, especially in tight spots. This can rip carpet, scratch hardwoods, and create other problems.
Dropping furniture in the middle of transport. This causes dents, holes, and scratches and can crack tile flooring.
Wearing heavy-duty boots and shoes in the house, which can scuff hardwoods and stain carpets.
Not only is this damage unsightly, it can lower the value of your home.
Heavy, bulky items like furniture and appliances are the most likely to damage the floors during a move, so it’s a good idea to determine your plan of attack for moving day well ahead of time.
Measure and mark down the dimensions of any large items as well as the openings in your home to see how you will need to maneuver items out to a moving truck. If a doorway looks really tight, remove the door from the door jamb to decrease the risk of damage.
In addition, if you’re able to map out your furniture placement for your new home ahead of time, you’ll avoid having to move large, heavy items across the floor multiple times.
Next, measure all areas that need floor protection so you know how much product to buy. Purchase a little more than you think you need so you’re ready to fill in any gaps or take care of surprises on moving day. You’ll also want to make sure you have enough to generously cover all pathways to access points.
Any debris that's trapped under the floor protection could smash into the carpet or scratch hardwood, tile, or vinyl flooring, so you’ll need to deep clean your floors before covering them.
While some protection is better than none, it’s essential to invest in the product that works best for your type of floors. You can buy most products online or in home improvement stores. Keep in mind the right solution could be a custom combination of products, especially for high-traffic areas. Your options include:
Red rosin paper and cardboard: This thick paper protects from light knicks and scratches, and it's sold in rolls. You can secure it with painter's tape and a layer of cardboard in high-traffic areas. It’s a good choice for hardwood floors, carpet, and linoleum and vinyl flooring.
Floor protection film: This tough rolled polyethylene film has an adhesive that secures the plastic to the floor. It stays secure and is resistant to tears and rips. When the move is over, it easily releases without damage for up to 45 days. It’s a good choice for hardwood, carpet, and linoleum and vinyl flooring.
Ram board or X-board: These are rolls of high-end, strong, reusable floor protection; they’re a good choice for tile, linoleum, and vinyl. Many products offer protection against spills, too.
Plywood sheets: Consider using plywood sheets for maximum floor protection in high-traffic areas or if you have delicate tiles. Plywood absorbs damage from accidental drops and gouges. You’re basically benefiting from a second floor. Layering red rosin paper between your floor and the plywood prevents accidental surface scratches.
The steps above cover what you’ll need to do if you are planning on DIY floor protection. But what if you hire a professional moving company near you to do the bulk of the work? Professional movers should bring along their own floor protection materials to use as they move, so you shouldn’t have to worry about getting floor protection on your own. Movers will typically wear protective booties in your home so their shoes won’t damage flooring, either.
When looking for a local mover, ask them for details on what floor protection steps they’ll take. Hiring movers costs between $900 and $2,500. The cost of protective materials is typically bundled up in the overall price, so don’t expect to pay extra for this service.
No matter what floor protection products you use, these tips will help preserve your floors during a busy move.
Bring out booties for shoes: Pick up a pack of disposable protective booties and have everyone wear them on moving day. Leave the extras out so people can grab fresh ones if theirs rip or get dirty.
Tape down floor coverings: On flooring where sheets and paper may slip and slide around, tape down the edges with painter’s tape or a similar tape to keep everything secure. Protection films are typically self-adhesive and don’t require this step.
Carry belongings if you can: The less stuff you drag or wheel across a room, the less wear and tear your floors will see, so pick up and carry as much furniture and moving boxes as possible.
Use a dolly for the heaviest furniture: Rent or borrow a dolly with rubberized wheels to move the heaviest items, like large furniture and appliances. If you have to negotiate with tight doorways, a dolly helps reduce the risk of drops and scratches. It’s a good idea to clean the wheels before the dolly enters your house, in case they’ve picked up any grit.
Dawn M. Smith contributed to this piece.
To prepare furniture for moving, detach furniture legs if possible. If the legs must stay on, wrap them with foam wrap or taped blankets to help prevent damage. You can also buy dedicated moving “socks” for furniture legs.
It’s better to lift and set down furniture; sliding it across the floor is more likely to cause damage to both the floor and the furniture itself. For very heavy items, consider using a dolly with rubber wheels. It is possible to purchase sliders designed specifically for gliding furniture across floors, but you still risk causing permanent damage to flooring if you use them.
It’s possible to reuse household materials to cover floors, but they won’t provide the same level of protection as dedicated materials. They’re also more difficult to tape down and more prone to slipping and bunching up—and any dirt or debris on them could scratch or stain your floors. That being said, extra materials like these can be useful for protecting the sides of furniture and placing in areas that could use added protection.
Even with proper floor protection, small scratches sometimes happen. If it’s just a minor scuff, you can often buff it out with a sponge and a bit of floor polish. For slightly worse scratches, there are a variety of scratch removal products that may help, including finish restorer and blending pencils.
