Thursday, September 20, 2007

nothing is easy (about those floors...)

My computer is still in the breakfast nook, and likely to stay there for some time; we're having problems with the new flooring.

DH noticed a "bubble" on one board a week or so ago, where the corners of two boards meet, and one of them was pushed up and deformed. You can only see it if the light hits it exactly right, but it's definitely there.

So, having seen that, we re-examined the floors and noticed that there are many places where the seams are not level. The planks are fitted together correctly, but the laminate surfaces are not meeting up exactly. It's weird.

We had the installer and two supervisors from Lowe's out yesterday to check it out; they did that annoying thing where they speak Spanish so you won't know what they're saying. DH, however, knows enough Spanish to recognize It's all bad when he hears it.

The manufacturer's rep is coming to inspect it tomorrow morning; Lowe's is saying it's a manufacturing defect.

I'm not so sure about that. Compare and contrast this note from the installation instructions (my emphasis)
IMPORTANT Do not open immediately! Before opening the packaging, acclimatize planks for 48 hours by laying each box horizontally and individually in the center of the room, in which they are to be installed.
... with how the materials were delivered.



Delivery was on Friday, installation started on Monday, so there's your 48 hours, easily; but no one ever said a word about laying out boxes individually, away from hot walls (that is a hot wall), and in the rooms in which they would be installed. Not a peep.

Whoever owns up to the error is going to have to re-do the entire floor -- or make a very compelling argument as to why not. Onesy-twosy replacement isn't sufficient because there's nothing to prevent the remaining planks from popping later.

We'll see what the independent inspector has to say. So far, Lowe's has had a great attitude about this; when I called them, they were over here within the hour to look at the floors. They called constantly during the process to make sure we were satisfied with the materials and the contractors (we were). But that was when they already had our money, and weren't looking at having to re-do a pretty big job out of their own pockets. It wouldn't surprise me if their attitude changes.

Stay tuned.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I got half way through the second paragraph and I knew exactly what went wrong.

We had the same thing happen here in my office only it was worse - the whole floor pulled up in places. They did the job in November and stored the laminate flooring in the garage - where the temps were in the 40s - I keep my office at 68 year round.

I will say this - the floor came from Home Depot and they were very accomadating - redid the whole job and did it well.

J Willard Papercollector said...

hummm...otherwise how do you like them>