It's been established that wood-flooring installation is a great way to improve the comfort and value of your home, old or new. As has been said before, the more a homeowner puts into the preparation for this process, the more money that can be saved, adding extra value to your investment, and more assurance that the job is done right.

Previously, this article has talked about some general ways in which to prepare your home for your new wood-flooring installation, including contractor research and how to prepare your home for the process.

There are three different aspects to preparing your home for a wood-flooring installation, including preparing the house and preparing the room. But the most technical aspect, and arguably the most important one in terms of the quality of the project, is the preparation of the floor being laid.

It should be mentioned that most of the work suggested in this article can and often is offered by the contractors themselves. While some contractors may include this work as general labor involved and perform these tasks for no extra charge, be sure to check the fine print on contracts. Otherwise, an already costly project could turn into a monstrously expensive one.

So now, for the go-getter looking to save a few extra bucks, here are some basics of how to prepare your floor for wood-flooring installation.

It all begins with identifying the nature of your substrate, or as it is often referred to, the subfloor. This is the layer of flooring underneath where your new wood flooring is going to go, where the carpet, linoleum or old, ugly flooring used to be. The very first step, if you choose to prepare your floor ahead of time for the contractors, is to tear up the old floor and find out what lies beneath. In some cases, the old flooring can be used as a subfloor, but rarely.

Sometimes the floor needs repairs before wood flooring installation can begin. One problem you must be sure to rectify are any gaps in the subfloor, which may let in dust, water and moist air from below, eventually beginning to erode and cause your floor to sink. You may want to consider re-laying your subfloor with oriented strand board from a home improvement store.

Once you've removed the old floor the next step is to look for flaws, cracks and damage in the subfloor. Now is a good time to fill in any holes found in the subfloor, and make sure the entire subfloor is clean, dry and completely free of dust and containments. While it might be easy to feel like it doesn't matter, dust and containments can cause planks to loosen over time.

Making sure your subfloor is in perfect condition is the one true way to guarantee you're not hearing creaks in the floor down the road.

Also, be sure to consider the baseboards and door frames of the room. Rarely will contractors remove the base of doorframes, where the wood floor meets. Instead, you may want to consider removing sections yourself, or having the doorframe replaced altogether. The same goes for baseboards, though they are considerably cheaper to replace than doorframes.

Now you're at the beginning of the end of your wood-flooring installation project. Bring on the contractors!