hi,

I've found myself in a little pickle. I hired a company to install hardwood floors in my new remodel. They were going to do prep, floors, trim, and stairs. (they also had been doing some tile work for me, and it was fine work). The prep I used ~8 bags of slc, and a trowl on vapor barier.

when it came time to install, the "floor" installer wasnt there, but the tile installer was. I called the owner and asked where the floor installer was. He responded that he wasn't needed yet, only for the hard stuff and that the tile setter was more than capable. I should have insisted, but I figured if he did a good job with tile.... Long story short, I stopped the tile installer about half way through the install. 1/8 inch gaps exist in the wood. and a couple spots you can see the floor underneath.

What can I do in a situaltion like this? can they rip up all hte wood, and start over?should I have them rip up the wood and get back to the floor being prepped then higher somone else to do the install?

I know i can let them finish the job, but its so bad, I just cant live with that. what should I expect the installer to do? cover labor? cover lost materials? or jsut walk away from this.

thanks for any advice.
Jeff

There is something wrong here. Even a desk jockey should be able to install a floor without the gaps you mention. A tile setter should have no problem giving you an "adequate" installation.
Is there some milling problem with the material? Can you post pics of the install thus far?
But by all means, stop the install at this point until whatever is causing the problem has been resolved.
If it IS poor installation, most of the material should be re-usable if removed carefully.
If it is something wrong with the material itself, allocating financial responsibilty gets a little more complex. A general rule in our industry, the installer/owner has the final say on usability. Once a board is installed it has been deemed acceptable and the manufacturer/distributor may be hesitant to do any more than replace the un-used portion.

thanks Dennis,

ill post some pictures. I believe the wood is of decent quality, there is a large section that was done correctly and it looks fine, but the area the installer started first is the messed up area.

can you give me some idea on how to go about pulling up the wood? anything different than crowbar and hammer?
does the old adhesive need to be removed from the boards if the boards are reusable? what about the floor?

I figured that a crowbar and hammer would need to be used, the wood would be unusable, and the floor would have to be scraped and re-prepped we had put down a trowel on moister barrier.

Jeff

Shoot, I didn't pick up on the fact that this is a glue-down install. You probably WONT be able to salvage the material in that case.
You can try, and if it comes up cleanly (unlikely) then you can clean the glue off both the material and the subfloor before re-installing.
Gluing down a floor does require a higher degree of expertise to get it to fit properly together.
Send the pics anyway.

there is no fixing a glue down.

The floor must be removed.

the good news is that the guy I hired brought over his "a" team last night. They looked at the floor and just said that yes, it was messed up, and they have to pull it up and re-do it. The bad section is in a smaller "L" section of the room. hes going to try to carefully remove all of those rows in order to keep some of the good section. But I said I reserve the right to determine if it came off cleanly enough.

They removed a board last night and it came up fairly easily, but it was an edge piece. When they tried to remove more, it looked like the whole floor/glue/and vapor barrier was going to come off in one big sheet. Hes going to try to see if any of the pieces are re-usable but if not, then their not. I also get final say on if a piece is re-usable.

He said he would pay for all materials and time, including re-floating the floor if need be. So at this point, I really dont have anything to complain about

Here is a pic of the good section:

and behind me, some of the bad parts





most of the floor behind me looks like this.

thanks for your input. Its been a stressful couple of days

YIKES! You weren't kidding it's messed up. I guess that tile installer thought he'd just grout those gaps?

Don't fault you one bit, am glad they are in agreement.