Denver-Area Homes & Flooring: Facts and Figures
This page collects real numbers about homes and floors in the south Denver metro: how old the houses are in each town, what Colorado’s dry air does to wood floors, and what our own customers actually chose over the past year. Every figure has a source listed at the bottom. You are welcome to quote it; please link back to this page.
Last updated: October 19, 2026.
How old are the homes in each town?
The age of a house tells you a lot about what you will find under the old floor. These figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2024 5-year estimates), which counts every housing unit by the year it was built.
| Town | Median year built | Built before 1980 | Built 2000 or later | Housing units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Englewood | 1964 | 77% | 17% | 17,798 |
| Denver | 1975 | 63% | 31% | 359,581 |
| Littleton | 1982 | 67% | 21% | 21,606 |
| Centennial | 1983 | 67% | 14% | 43,291 |
| Aurora | 1985 | 61% | 29% | 152,377 |
| Greenwood Village | 1994 | 41% | 38% | 6,938 |
| Highlands Ranch | 1997 | 16% | 38% | 39,551 |
| Parker | 2004 | 13% | 63% | 22,397 |
| Castle Rock | 2007 | 13% | 71% | 29,159 |
What stands out: Englewood has the oldest housing on the list, with a median build year of 1964 and more than three out of four homes built before 1980. Centennial and Littleton are mostly 1970s and 1980s houses: two out of three were built before 1980, and only 14% of Centennial’s homes were built in 2000 or later. Parker and Castle Rock are the opposite: most of their homes went up after 2000.
What that means for a flooring job: in an older home, the old floor usually comes up to reveal a subfloor that has had decades of settling, so the prep work matters as much as the new floor itself, and original hardwood is sometimes hiding under carpet. In a newer home, the job is more often replacing builder-grade carpet or vinyl in the main living areas and on the stairs.
Colorado’s dry air and wood floors
- Climate type: Denver has a semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk) with very low humidity.
- Precipitation: about 14.5 inches a year at Denver International Airport (NOAA 1991–2020 normals).
- Sunshine: about 3,100 hours a year, roughly 70% of the possible sunshine (NOAA).
- Elevation: about 5,400 feet at the airport.
- What wood floors want: the National Wood Flooring Association’s installation guidelines call for normal indoor relative humidity between 30% and 50%. Hardwood Floors Magazine notes that normal humidity in Denver homes is often below that range.
What that means: wood shrinks as it dries out, so in Colorado the usual problem is small gaps between boards in winter, not cupping. The NWFA guidance is to acclimate wood flooring to the home’s normal living conditions before it goes down, so it settles at the moisture level it will live with. Engineered wood and luxury vinyl plank move much less with humidity, which is one reason they are so popular here.
What our customers chose: one year of Floor & More jobs
We went through our own invoices from September 26, 2025 to October 12, 2026: 49 invoices in all. One invoice can include several kinds of work, so the numbers below add up to more than 49.
| Work on the invoice | Invoices | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Luxury vinyl plank or tile (LVP / LVT) | 27 | 55% |
| New baseboards or trim | 27 | 55% |
| Stairs (flooring or carpet on steps) | 17 | 35% |
| Bathroom work (toilet or vanity reset, shower) | 16 | 33% |
| Removing and hauling away the old floor | 14 | 29% |
| Carpet | 13 | 27% |
| Doors | 9 | 18% |
| Appliances pulled and reset | 8 | 16% |
| Kitchen cabinets | 7 | 14% |
| Tile | 5 | 10% |
| Carpet restretch or repair | 3 | 6% |
| Engineered or solid hardwood | 2 | 4% |
What stands out: luxury vinyl plank was on more than half of all invoices, about twice as often as carpet and far ahead of hardwood. New baseboards went in on more than half of jobs too, because once the old floor and base come off, most people want fresh trim. A third of jobs included stairs. Most of our work was in Aurora (33 of 49 invoices), followed by Centennial, Parker, Castle Rock, Morrison, Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Denver and Golden.
Want to talk about your own floors? See our flooring installation services, the projects we have finished, or call the Centennial showroom at (303) 993-6479.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates, tables B25034 (Year Structure Built) and B25035 (Median Year Structure Built), accessed through Census Reporter.
- NOAA climate normals for Denver International Airport, as summarized in Geography of Denver.
- Brett Miller, “Handling Regional Differences in Humidity Levels”, Hardwood Floors Magazine (citing the NWFA Wood Flooring Installation Guidelines).
- Floor & More LLC invoice records, September 26, 2025 to October 12, 2026.