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I need help with the hardwood floors in my home. We bought our condo unit, which is one of two units on the ground floor of a six-flat building built in 2002 in Chicago, about 1.5 years ago. All of the units in the building featured beautiful brazilian cherry hardwood floors, which was one of the reasons we decided upon them. Our home was sold to us with a 1 year warrantee against defects in manufacture from the builder.
During the first winter (2003-2004), large gaps of 1/4 inch or so became visible in the floors, but only in the living room, kitchen, and hallfway, and areas of the floor were noticable warped. Other areas with hardwood floors, such as the bedroom were fine, with no gaps or warping. Our unit is the only one affected with such a problem. I called the builder to discuss the issue with him, and he said he would have the problem repaired. What he did was seal the gaps, sand the floors, and refinish them in the summer of 2004. Initially the gaps disappeared, and we thought all was well.
This winter, the gaps have reappeared, worse than before, with the sealing that was placed between the gaps cracking. I can also feel draughts of air coming up from these gaps, making the floors almost unbearable during especially cold nights. In addition, you can feel noticeable "give" in certain areas of the floor, with "creaks" developing.
I had a flooring contractor come out to take a look at the floors to get an "objective" assessment of what was going on. The contractor thought that this was the result of the floors being laid down improperly, and commented that he felt the floor was not level. He thought that some areas of the floor were high, and others were low, on cursory examination. The thought that the "furring strips" had not been laid or levelled properly and that this was due to improper installation of the floor. He also said not to quote him on this because he didn't want to be involved in any kind of potential lawsuit!
Now, I don't know much about this, but I'm really concerned that I'm being taken advantage of by the builder. The house is equipped with a humidifier that we keep on in the winters. As I mentioned before, none of the other units in the building have similar issues with the flooring. One additional note is that when our unit was still under construction, but the floors had already been installed, there was a some kind of theft of a dishwasher from our unit, and a large amount of water had leaked from the plumbing leading to the dishwasher onto floors in the kitchen and living room areas.
Does anyone have any advice about issues like this? Is there anyone that someone out there can recommend to have a look at my floors to get an honest assessment? What do you guys, who are much more knowledgable about this than I, think about the flooring situation, and should the builder be held responsible for this issue (because the floor issue began prior to the expiration of the one year warrantee on the unit)? Is the water damage responsible for my flooring problems? Is there any validity to the contractor's assessment of the improper installation? Is there anything I can do??????
Sorry for the length of this post, but I just wanted to get all the information out there so I could get a better idea of what was going on. TIA.
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