What to do about a bad hardwood floor installation
A botched flooring job can stall your entire project, as other tradesmen may refuse to install skirting over the poor workmanship. To address visible defects like staircase patterns or joints placed too closely together, request the manufacturer's installation instructions to prove the errors and withhold your final payment until the job is completely resolved.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Withholding final payment until the issues are fixedDid this help you?
- 2Demanding the general contractor cover full replacement of materials and laborDid this help you?
- 3Having a manufacturer representative inspect the install to document defectsDid this help you?
- 4Hiring a dedicated professional hardwood installer with proper toolsDid this help you?
- 5Preparing documentation for small claims courtDid this help you?
- 6Requesting the manufacturer's installation instructions from the flooring company to verify the errors.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Just had some 7.5mm SPC Hybrid flooring installed. The skirting installer didn't want to install the skirting as he believed the flooring install to be very poor.”source ↗
“I've asked the flooring company for their manufacturer install instructions but seems like a number of these joins are way too close and there's a bunch of stair case patterns.”source ↗
“I am a bit disappointed in how the joints look to the original flooring both in color and size…am I in the wrong here?”source ↗
“I dont know much about this stuff, but I do know not to complete payment until completely done, thankfully. Thanks for the help”source ↗
“How would you suggest approaching with the contractor?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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