Ask your builder when they need the flooring and you’ll get a date. We looked at our last 933 deliveries, and in most cases that date wasn’t the real one.
This isn’t a dig at builders. It’s useful to know, because it changes which floor you can choose.
Why do builders give an early date?
Construction is hard, and material delays are expensive. If the floor doesn’t turn up on time, the fitters are idle, the kitchen can’t go in, and the whole programme slides and the builder takes the heat for it.
So it’s no surprise that when you ask for a date, they’ll build in a buffer of a week or two and we would probably do the same.
So what’s the problem?
The problem is what happens next. With a tight date in hand, you start ruling floors out. The herringbone you loved has a six-week lead time, so it’s off the list. The wider boards need ordering in, so they’re off too.
You end up choosing the floor that’s available, not the one that’s right. That usually means whatever the local warehouse has on the shelf that week. A floor should last decades, so choosing it by stock levels is a strange way to decide.
What did the data actually say?
For years this was a hunch at Kite, with no proof behind it. So we checked.
We took our last 933 deliveries and compared two dates: the delivery date requested when the floor was ordered, and the date it actually went to site.
- 80% weren’t needed on the original date
- 20% were delivered on the date first asked for
- The most common delay was 2 to 4 weeks
- 20% were delayed by 4 to 8 weeks
- 10% were delayed by more than 8 weeks
Our biggest example was a commercial client who nearly cancelled their order because we couldn’t deliver in October 2025. In the end their floor sat in our warehouse until May 2026, seven months after the “deadline”.
To be fair, these are our numbers from our deliveries. Your project might be the one in five that genuinely needs the floor on the day. But the odds are you’ve got more time than you’ve been told.
What should you ask your builder?
Don’t just ask when they need the floor. Ask what has to happen before it can go down, and when each of those things will actually be finished. A wood floor is usually one of the last jobs, and it depends on:
- The screed being dry. The standard rule of thumb for a traditional sand and cement screed is roughly a day per millimetre for the first 40mm, and longer after that. A 75mm screed can take months, not weeks. Your fitter should moisture-test before a single board goes down.
- Wet trades being finished. Plastering, skimming and tiling all put moisture into the building. Wood doesn’t like it.
- The building being watertight. That means windows in, doors in and the roof on.
- Heating being commissioned. This applies especially to underfloor heating, which needs to be run up and down before most wood floors go on top.
- Kitchen and joinery plans. Some kitchens go in before the floor and some after, so check which order your builder is planning.
If any of those are still weeks away, so is your floor.
What if you’ve already been given a tight date?
Talk to us before you compromise. We can tell you the real lead time on the floor you actually want, and whether there’s a similar option in stock if the timing really is tight. If your floor arrives before the site is ready, we can usually hold it until it is. Our warehouse has form on that.
A thank you
None of this data exists without our delivery drivers, who turn up to 933 different sites, in all weathers, and get floors where they need to be. A special thank you to them.
Planning a project and not sure your timeline’s real? BOOK ONLINE or give us a CALL. We’ll give you an honest answer on lead times, even if it isn’t the one you were hoping for.
