For a basement development do you install prehung doors before installing tiles and LVP?

For basement development, the standard sequence is to install prehung doors before flooring — but with one important nuance around the rough opening height and your finished floor thickness.

When you hang a prehung door in a basement, the door frame (jamb) needs to be set at the correct height to account for whatever flooring is going in. This means before you even set the door, you need to know the exact thickness of your finished floor — whether that's tile, LVP, or a combination of both. A typical LVP plank runs 6-8mm thick, while tile with a mortar bed can be 12-15mm or more. That difference matters when you're determining where the bottom of the door jamb sits.

The correct sequence looks like this:

• Frame the rough openings during framing stage
• Rough-in electrical, plumbing, and HVAC — get inspections done
• Insulate and drywall
• Install prehung doors (set the jamb height based on your planned finished floor thickness)
• Install baseboards and casing around doors
• Install flooring last — LVP and tile slide underneath or butt up to the door casing

The reason flooring goes last is practical: it protects the flooring from damage during the messier stages of construction (drywall mud, paint, general foot traffic), and it allows you to undercut the door casing so the flooring slides cleanly underneath for a professional finish. Most finish carpenters will use a jamb saw or oscillating tool to undercut the door casing by exactly the thickness of the flooring material before laying it.

One Calgary-specific consideration worth noting — basements here often have concrete subfloors that aren't perfectly level, which is common given Calgary's expansive clay soils and the minor movement that happens over time. Before setting doors or laying any flooring, check your slab with a long level. If you have significant variation (more than 3/16" over 10 feet for LVP, or more than 1/8" over 10 feet for tile), you'll want to address that with self-leveling compound first. Doing this before door installation gives you a more accurate finished floor height to work from.

For tile specifically, if you're tiling a bathroom in the basement, that wet area work typically happens after drywall but the tile is still installed before any interior doors are hung in that room — the tile setter needs clear access and a clean subfloor to work from.

If you're working with a contractor on your basement development, make sure this sequencing is discussed upfront. A well-organized crew will have this dialed in, but it's a good question to ask. You can find experienced basement finishing contractors in the Calgary Construction Network directory at calgaryconstructionnetwork.com/directory if you're still in the contractor selection stage.

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