I never had hardwood flooring installed before and have a lot of questions about the installation. The floor in 3/4" red oak. I purchased it from a big chain store and had their contractor install it. Other than the obvious, like cracks in the boards, uneven height where a makeshift reverse spline was poorly installed, and the top finish separating, I have other questions.
1. Along the outer edge, I have places that are almost 3/4 of an inch. Shouldn't the gap between the flooring and wall be around 1/4"? Does the outer edge next to the walls need to be sealed with caulking?
2. In many places it looks like the boards were put together too tight and we have little splinters in the non-existent gap. In other locations there are gaps. In one spot, the contractor installed putty along the entire length of the board to fill in the gap.
3. In many locations it looks like the milling was poor. The ends of the boards are different heights (this is by biggest concern/question), I guess about a 1/16" max, but it varies. 95% is smooth at the ends and along the sides of the boards. The 5% is spread over the entire floor so it all would have to be reinstalled. Is that just the way it is because your dealing with wood and milling, or should all end seams be even?

The sub-floor is good, 3/4 Advantech, no irregularities. The product was acclimated in the space 5 days before installation. I just want to know if I'm dealing with lousy product, workmanship, or both and what to do. So far the flooring salesperson came out and inspected and wasn't happy with the installation. Next the store manager and subcontractor coordinator are coming out, and I need some advice as to what I should tell them. I know what may be acceptable to one customer may not be to another, but is there a standard. It wasn't that big of a job, approx 600sf, but I want it done right. They say they will do whatever it takes to make it right, I just need to know what that is.

Some issues are hard to say without looking at the floor.

1) "Cracks in the boards", "Top finish seperating". Pictures would help to determine cause.
2) Uneven height where spline was installed. Installation related.
3) 3/4" expansion space is typical for a 3/4" product. The expansion space does not need to be sealed or caulked.
4) "Boards put together too tight, little splinters in non-existant gap". Tight seams are good, splinters are no good. A few things can cause the splinters in the seams during installation. Damage to the edges of the boards caused by nailer mis-alignment, or damage caused to the top board edge due to striking with the mallet or tapping block, while putting boards in place before fastening.
5) Putty or filler is acceptable to use during installation,(IMO sparingly).
6) Re: Milling. What your seeing is called "overwood" and is typical with square edge, pre-finished products. Some manuf. products show more overwood than others. I havent heard of a tolerance, but I think there should be. The only way to have a square edge hardwood floor with no visual overwood is to have it sanded. Although there are some quality "pre-finished" manufacturers that come pretty darn close. That being said...To me a 1/16" is excessive, and milling related, I would have held off on continuing the installation running into that type of overwood.

Thanks for the reply Howard. Your explanations will help when I talk to the manager and coordinator. Less issues I need to bring up the better. The "overwood" (thanks for the terminology lesson) is something that I'll have to address. Replacing individual board don't seem like a good solution where there are so many. I agree the installer should have stopped and taken more time to toss those board aside during the install, but time is money and wiss bang, out the door. Too much in a rush to care about the minor details. I hope they don't blow me off and give me some lame excuse telling me all floors have overwood.

We have independently installed several floors purchased from big box stores(we do not work with them but some folks have purchased there) most of the time there is some overwood and we point it out before continuing. Some customers accept it and some return in, however 1/16th in would not work for myself. Good luck with the manager.

Hey Mickey, thanks for your input, however I do have a couple more questions that I'm sure going to come up when the sub coordinator shows up.
My floor is T&G sides and ends. If they have to replace several boards, is it OK to replace one board at a time by cutting, gluing, and nailing, or should all the boards to the wall be replaced? By replacing one board here and one there, how does that affect the integrity of the entire floor and could I have problems from the repair spots, down the road?
The other question is concerning the reverse. In addition to gluing, is it usual to have to top nail both boards on either side of the spline? That's what was done on my install, and even with that, one board ended up higher than the other. Thanks again, and sorry for the additional questions. I just know the sub isn't going to be happy to come back and I want to have a little knowledge as to how the repairs should be done.

It is not a problem to replace individual boards, but if there are several it can become very time consuming. There should be no need for topnails in the boards that are splined. We nail scrap boards along our starting line and then we fasten through the tongue, after a few rows are installed we remove the scraps insert a spline and staple through spline eliminating the need for topnails. Also if they are replacing single boards it can be done without topnails by using an expoxy on the tongue and groove and a polyurethane adhesive on floor. They may not want to want to take the time to do this but it is much more attractive.

Thanks again. I hate dealing with something I know every little about, with someone that screwed the job up in the first place, and tried to get away with it. With your help and that from the Floorologist, I'll be in a better position to get the repairs done right.

Mickey's right on with the spline and board replacement. The only time I top nail a pre-finished floor is last row where base covers, or stair nosings.
5% is a heck of a lot of board replacement, and have your floor look right. It can definetely be done.Hopefully those guys have someone with a little talent to do the board replacement, and repair the spline problem.
Just a thought I'm gonna throw out there, maybe you dont want to go through this, maybe you'll see the right timing during your meeting, to use it any way you like, maybe you dont want to hear this....The problems can also be resolved by the floor being sanded by a reputable company, at the expense of the big box and manufacturer. One big downfall is warranties go out the window.

Sanding would solve some of the problems. I'm just so disappointed in the workmanship of their subcontractors. I had the tile guy here today to see how he was going to fixed what he agreed he screwed up. But back to the hardwood. Along with the top nailed spline that runs 15' they also top nailed at least 3 runs out from the wall. So on three boards that run the entire length of the room (30') there are top nails and putty every foot on both sides of the joint. I was told it's done that way because the nailer can't get that close to the wall. I don't know why they couldn't be nailed into the tongue, however I would still have 1/2 dozen boards that are cracked at one end. Some have small cracks and one is a least 6" long. I hope you can understand my frustration. I may have to live with most of the overwood spots, and just concentrate on the bigger issues. I really do appreciate all the advice I've been getting from you guys. If you don't know how to do something yourself, you have to put your trust in the professionals hired to do the work. I just hope it can be fixed correctly and not get the line that "that's the way it's done and with wood you gotta expect those things".

IMO prefinished takes a little more finesse than S&F jobs. You cant slam it in and sand out the imperfections and you cannot fill them either.

Most likely the over wood is either a subfloor flatness issue and or combination of the milling, broken T&G etc.

Yup, The true install artists are the guys that turn out beautiful pre-finished work.

But I would question if the 5% of 1/16"overwood, on the ends, is a subfloor flatness issue.

Hi Everyone,
I met with the installation coordinator today regarding our newly installed floor. He was dumbfounded and could not believe that his number one crew would so such a bad job. Due to the number of problems with the install, it's all coming up. We both agreed that some of the problems were installer related, and many were product defects. The overwood and crack in the boards are definitely problems with the product. I had over a box remaining there and he went through it and found cracks, boards of different thickness and widths. If I have them reinstall the same product and examine every piece before installation, if would probably turn out OK. The 5% figure I stated before was just with the overwood. If you take all the defects in account it's more like 20%+.....so I'm not sure what to do.
It's obvious that that particular manufacturer has poor product and terrible quality control. Even if we have to go through 4 cases to get 3 good ones, I'm not sure I want to go that route. Reading some of the other post, I see that Bruce is popular, but has quality control issues also. So the big question is, what is good quality, pre-finished, 3/4' oak flooring? Is there such a thing, or do I just need a good artist like the Floorologist suggests? The stuff we purchased was "NobleHouse". It has a 25yr finish warranty and lifetime defect warranty. I know the warranty is only as good as the company, and you get what you pay for, but I don't want to go through this again. After ripping up 600sq' of flooring, I'm sure my Advantech will look like Swiss cheese. Life is great!

I would suggest a sand and finished floor. We can usually do a sand and finish floor for the same or a little less than a quality prefinished floor.

I'm sure glad to hear they came to the plate.
I've been installing Bruce for alot of years, (over 35), and really have had no issues, (installed 1300' in my house), but I know what your saying...there's been some trash talk. Bottom line, I hate to say, but IMO more times than not it's the installer. Or they paid for entry level material and expected top of the line performance.

We have sold and installed thousands of sq.ft. of Chelsea Plank Flooring (prefinished) with very happy customers over the years. Also Mirage & Lauzon are good quality. Probably won't find them at the box stores though.

I agree a lot of it depends on the installer and that prefinished install take some extra skill to make it look great, but it is difficult to make bad material look good.