Guide · Pricing
Flooring trims and transitions at doorways
Trims are small, cheap pieces that cause a surprising number of quote disputes. Miss them and you wear the cost. Overcount them and the builder notices. Here is how to find every trim on a plan and price them consistently.
Where a trim is needed
A trim (also called a transition, threshold or profile) finishes the edge of a floor where it cannot simply meet a wall and skirting. On a builder job, the places to look are:
- Doorways where the floor changes: hybrid to carpet, hybrid to tiles, or one hard floor to another.
- Sliding doors, stacking doors and full-length windows, where the floor runs up to the frame or track.
- Robe sliding doors, where the floor meets the robe track. Usually this needs a trim on each side of the track.
- Exposed edges, such as the top of a step down or the edge of a sunken area.
A doorway between two rooms with the same floor does not normally need a trim. The exception is an expansion break: floating floors need room to move, and manufacturers set the maximum length of a run and sometimes ask for a break at doorways. Check the installation guide for the range you are quoting.
Robe tracks: it depends when the floor goes down
Robe sliding doors run on a bottom track. If the robe doors are installed before the floor, the floor has to stop either side of the track, and you need two trims for each robe door. If the builder lays the floor before the robe tracks go in, the track sits on top of the floor and no trim is needed.
Some builders always floor before the robes, others never do, and it can change between a builder's own estates. Make it a rule per builder rather than a guess per quote, and say on the quote which way you have priced it.
Pricing per trim or per metre
There are two common ways to price trims.
Per trim
A fixed price for each trim, whatever the width. Simple to explain and easy to check, but it undercharges wide stacking doors and overcharges narrow doorways.
Per metre, each opening rounded up
Measure the width of each opening, round it up to a whole metre (because trims are cut from lengths and the offcut is rarely reused), then add the metres together and multiply by a rate. With this method:
- an 820 mm or 900 mm door is 1 m;
- a 910 mm full-length window is 1 m;
- a 2410 mm sliding door is 3 m;
- a 3410 mm stacking door is 4 m.
Rounding each opening first, then adding, matters. Adding the raw widths and rounding once at the end would undercount: four 820 mm doors add to 3.28 m, which would round to 4 m, but each one actually takes its own 1 m piece.
A worked example
Example only
The openings and rates are made up to show the arithmetic.
A house with hybrid through the living areas has these openings where the floor changes or meets a frame:
| Opening | Width | Metres |
|---|---|---|
| Four bedroom doors, hybrid to carpet | 4 × 820 mm | 4 |
| Full-length window in the meals area | 910 mm | 1 |
| Sliding door to the side courtyard | 2410 mm | 3 |
| Stacking door to the alfresco | 3410 mm | 4 |
| Total, 7 openings | 12 |
Per metre at $33, the trims come to 12 × $33 = $396. Per trim at $45 each, the same seven openings would be 7 × $45 = $315. The difference comes almost entirely from the two wide doors, which is exactly what per metre pricing is designed to capture.
Now add a hybrid guest bedroom with a 2400 mm robe sliding door. If the robe tracks go in first, the robe needs a trim on each side: two runs of 3 m, so 6 m more. If the builder floors before the robe tracks, it needs nothing.
Do not forget the floor under the door
Room dimensions stop at the wall, but the floor runs into each doorway to the trim line. A common allowance is a strip 10 cm deep across the width of every doorway and every full-length window or sliding door. In the example above, the openings add up to 10.01 m wide, so the allowance is about 1.00 m² of extra floor. Robe doors are usually left out of this allowance, because robes are already measured to the door line, and windows that do not reach the floor get nothing.
Common trim profiles
Names and shapes vary by manufacturer, but most ranges offer:
- a T-section or joining profile between two floors at the same height;
- a reducer or ramp down to a lower floor such as carpet or a thinner vinyl;
- an end profile where the floor stops against a sliding door frame, a tile edge or a step.
Quote the profile that matches the selected range where possible. Builders and homeowners notice a trim that does not match the floor colour.
Writing trims on the quote
Builders compare quotes line by line, and trims are one of the lines they ask about. A clear quote says how many trims or metres of trim are included, that they are colour matched to the selected floor where the range offers it, and how robe doors have been treated. If you priced the job assuming the floor goes down before the robe tracks, say so: if the robes go in first on site, the extra trims are a variation, not a cost you absorb.
It also helps to separate trims from the floor rate rather than hiding them in it. A builder who sees 12 m of trim on the quote can check it against the plan in a minute, which makes the whole quote easier to accept.
Outside Australia
In the UK, trims are often called door bars or threshold strips. In the US and Canada, transitions are usually priced per piece or per linear foot, and common lengths are given in feet. The counting method is the same.
How Squaro counts trims
Squaro lists every doorway, full-length window, sliding door and robe door it reads on the plan, with its width and whether the floor changes across it. You choose per metre (each opening rounded up) or per trim in your rules, and you can mark a job where the floor goes down before the robe tracks, so its robe doors get no trims. The doorway allowance is added to the floor at the depth you set. Each opening shows where on the plan it came from, so you can tick it off or remove it before the quote goes out.
Related reading
- Robes, recesses and kitchen kickboards in a flooring takeoffMeasuring robes to the door line, flooring recesses, and allowing for the kickboard recess.
- How to quote flooring from builder plansThe full method, from the builder's pack to a priced quote, with a worked hybrid example.
- The flooring quote checklist: what to check before you sendDocuments, scope, measurements, materials, trims, extras and wording, checked in a few minutes.
- Flooring quoting software that prices the way you doPricing builder plans with your own rules and rates, and checking every line before it is sent.
- How to do a vinyl plank takeoff from plansMeasuring LVP, perimeter trims, underlay and adhesive from a set of plans.
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