Hi,

6 months ago I purchased engineered hardwood floors (tiger wood) for my condo. It was about 680 sq feet and I paid around $3500 for it.

1st issue. We have a dog, and I was told that tiger wood aluminium oxide finish is very resilient to scratches. Well it appears that it is not. The dog has put scratches, not deep ones, almost as if it was scratches in the coating. You cannot see the wood in scratches.

2nd issue....this is worrying me more where I think I was ripped off. We live in Toronto Canada in a new condo. Some of the boards are starting to show marks as if there has been water damage (tiny lengthwise ridges showing up). You can only see them when looking at an angle reflecting off a light, but they are there. Some boards have one ridge, some have 3 or 4.

I called the store that we got the floors from and I've been told that it could be due to low humidity in winter, while others have said its too high humidity. Important to note that 90% of floor is fine. This just shows in some planks, but all over the condo. So it's not due to conditions in certain room.

Has anyone come across similar issues?

Is it because we got cheap floors? Is the price we paid to be expected? First time experience with hardwood.

you need to post pics..stating ridges is simply not enough..especially markings.

that's is a real cheap cost..was that material only or whole job?

is the install over a slab?..
glued down? floated?

give more details.

dog nails will make marks..usually compression marks in prefinish..

Could be face checking. Somebody recently explained this to me and it could have to do with a higher than usual moisture content (MC) of the actual veneer. Occurs with some imported engineered exotic hardwoods when dry heat reduces the moisture content.

Or a difference of the underlying core MC and veneer...not sure.

There's a ton of similar issues on this forum that your experiencing. With good advice I might add.
It's a very common scenerio I see on many forums.

It's common for many retailers to not advise consumers about maintaining the rh in your home. Rotary peeled engineered has checks right off the lathe. They only show themselves when it gets to dry. By then it's to late.
Many manufacturers have this rh requirement right on the outside of the boxes.

Just yesterday I saw three pallets of Bruce Pecan engineered all face checked thats getting sent back. The rep pulled the sample.

Utilizing the website www.weather.com/outdoors/home-improvement/humidity Toronto Canada you have 30 degrees temperature, 30% outdoors humidity, if your thermometer is set for 74 degrees your indoor humidity would show as 11% well below most manufacturers requirement of 30% to 35%. What you are experiencing is face checking which in time will only get worse. Get a humidifier and maintain at mfg requirement. Frankly very few people selling hardwood floors are aware of the mfg requirements. Temperature 60 to 80 degrees or suffer the consequences. I am in El Paso now very dry, 45 years in New Hampshire same as you are experiencing. Get your installation and warranty instructions online from your mfg read them. If your present checks are bothersome do board replacements keep your humidity at least 25%, never seen checking at that level, at 20% it gets critical.

Oh I forgot to mention almost all mfg's state exotic woods are targeted regarding RH and MC requirements. Strand Bamboo, dry areas forget it.

Additionally here in El Paso our showroom during the wintertime is constantly at 10% to 15% Relative Humidity. Samples in showroom 2 years show a board or two face checked but 9 other boards on same sample ok. And those tend to be exotics for the most part. Which only suggests that it takes extremes to produce face checking usually accompanied by slight cupping and in some cases a board or two actually delaminating. I have inspected 10 such instances this winter and nearly all exotics low low humidity. In each and every case no one told them about maintaining humidity levels. Had one woman who was afraid of mold and mildew which if one were to go to www.buildingscience.com they would see you would need relative humidity of approx 80% to 85% to accomplish that. The moisture content of the wood would read around 19% and most likely it would be lifting from the subfloor. Wood science pure and simple. Either ignorance on the part of the seller or afraid it will cost them the job. Take your pick!