Seattle's rental stock is a mix of basement apartments under Craftsman houses, backyard ADUs, 1960s and 1970s small apartment buildings, converted condos and the townhouse units that fill every infill block. Landlords and property managers who put the right floor in once stop replacing floors every turnover.
The right product
Rigid-core luxury vinyl plank with a 20-mil wear layer has become the standard rental floor for good reason: waterproof against tenant spills and appliance leaks, resistant to claws and furniture drags, easy to clean, quiet with an attached or added pad, stable in basement humidity, and repairable plank by plank. Laminate at AC4 or AC5 is a sound lower-cost choice for dry living areas and bedrooms. Standardizing one product across units means repairs match and bulk pricing applies.
Upstairs units and sound
Hard flooring in a unit above another is a noise issue, and Seattle condominium associations have rules about it. Many require an impact insulation class, an IIC rating, for the floor assembly, specify an acoustic underlayment, or require the board's approval of the product and underlayment before installation. Installers ask for the building's requirements at the measure and specify a product and underlayment combination that meets them, with the manufacturer documentation the board will ask for. Doing this first avoids a floor that has to come back out.
Basements, ADUs and slabs
Basement units and backyard cottages sit on concrete or over crawl spaces. Vinyl plank over a vapor barrier is the standard answer; the slab is moisture-tested before installation and leveled where it needs it. Laminate is generally avoided below grade.
Turnover scheduling
A one-bedroom unit is usually one day; a two-bedroom, two. Removal, haul-away, prep, install and trim happen between the move-out clean and the new lease, with the crew working around painters and cleaners. For buildings with rolling vacancies, per-unit pricing is fixed up front so each turnover is a phone call.
Damage, deposits and repairs
Because click-lock planks come apart, a damaged section can be replaced without redoing the room, as long as attic stock exists. Installers leave a box or two from each job for this. For move-out assessments, the installer can provide a written repair quote by the square foot.
On the quote
Per unit: removal by type, disposal, prep, product and underlayment by square foot, transitions and trim, appliance pulls and resets, and labor, with a schedule and the sound documentation where it applies. Multi-unit projects are quoted with per-unit pricing that holds for the agreed period.
