Homeowners are often unaware of their options on how to fix their floors, so when a problem comes up between them and a contractor who installs their floors, they’re vulnerable to being told they are mistaken or not seeing what they think they see. They simply don’t know what is acceptable or unacceptable when it comes to hardwood flooring, they don’t know their rights, and some contractors try to take advantage of it. That’s why it’s important to be aware of the existence of NWFA Hardwood Flooring Inspectors. NWFA Inspectors are Wood Flooring specialists who will perform a thorough inspection and then stick up for your rights by providing flooring expert witness testimony in court, if necessary.

Flooring Detective’s recent inspection was for a client who knew something was wrong with her floor even after the contractor told her she was mistaken. So she decided to call Flooring Detective after her contractor installed her floors terribly, refused to admit that there was something wrong, and wanted to collect on his contract in full with some $3000 still owed to the Flooring Contractor.

She asked for a verbal inspection in her home in Corona del Mar – an enchanting seaside neighborhood in the city of Newport Beach, California. Flooring Detective performed an inspection, presented all the faults to her contractor, and guess what?! He walked away not taking a cent from the client, as he knew that he messed things up. How did he do it? Keep reading!

So what exactly happened?

The client found a contractor who was properly licensed and who was in business for a long period of time, expecting that those things would guarantee her properly installed flooring. Yeah, experience and certification should provide you some assurance, but everyone makes mistakes. However, when they do make a mistake there has to be somebody that can hold these people accountable. The State of California doesn’t do any sort of quality control for wood flooring and doesn’t do flooring inspections. Still, people spend lots of money on the hardwood flooring and they deserve to get properly installed flooring and not be cheated on. A simple phone call to a flooring inspector can save you a lot of money and help you greatly, just like Flooring Detective helped his client in this case.

Problem 1 – Poorly installed threshold
Oh, where to start?! You don’t have to be a flooring expert to know that this is just awful. Instead of using one solid piece as a threshold, the contractor put two pieces together, with big gaps between and visible height difference. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he glued the boards dreadfully, and didn’t even bother to clean up the mess! He explained to the client that the only way he could do this installation is by piecing it together, but on the other end of the room he did the installation right, with one solid board. So, how come that he could do it correctly in one place, and all messy and pieced together in the other?! Imagine having something like this as a threshold in the most important room in the house!

The biggest problem isn’t the poor installation. It was the way the contractor kept talking down to the client. Even though a kid could see that there was something wrong with this floor, the contractor was constantly trying to persuade the client that everything is fine and that she doesn’t know what she is talking about. He basically bullied her. Luckily, she didn’t accept that it was normal for her floor to look like that, so she called Flooring Detective. So please, note this:
If you think that there’s something wrong, don’t allow anybody to bully you into accepting it. Call an inspector and get yourself a specialist who can stick up for your rights!

Problem 2 – Sloppy Work
The threshold, unfortunately, wasn’t the only sloppy work at the site. The whole flooring was installed terribly and messy. A picture is worth a thousand words, so take a look at this photo. And there were many more places like that.

Problem 3 – Wavy Floor

On top of it all, the contractor was doing all of this work over a subfloor that was not flat. So when he installed the floors, they were crooked and wavy. To demonstrate it, as you can see in the photo, Flooring Detective put a wooden board on the floor, at a 90-degree angle. Since the floor wasn’t flat, the board didn’t lie flat on the floor. Instead, there was a quarter-inch gap, and the light was coming through it, which clearly shows that the floor was crooked. The contractor needed to tell the client about the subfloor that wasn’t flat, but he didn’t. He just installed the flooring over it and tried to convince her that it was a normal thing.

And how did it all work out?

In the end, all three parties had a meeting. As a flooring expert witness and somebody who is able to testify in the court if necessary, Flooring Detective laid out exactly what his case would be if they were to go to court. He showed the contractor these photographs and walked him through all the mess he made, photo by photo. Then he showed the National Wood Floor Association Installation Guidelines and Standards, and the contractor understood at that point that he would not have a case. He was speechless!

Before he tried to bully the client into accepting that the floor is fine, even though it clearly wasn’t. But later, when Flooring Detective presented his flooring expert witness findings to him, his tongue was tied! He ended up dropping his demand of $3000, and the client never heard back from him ever again. Needless to say that she was more than happy with the inspection that Flooring Detective did – who wouldn’t?! He just saved her thousands of dollars!

All in all, this was just one lousy job done by the contractor. If he really thought that there was nothing wrong with the floor, he wouldn’t mind going to court. However, he knew that he couldn’t make a case and that he would lose when the judge hears Flooring Detective’s expert witness testimony.

Don’t let anyone mistreat you and make you accept something you don’t like and something that’s clearly installed faulty. You have options! In this case, the client hired an expert witness who was prepared and ready to “go to war” with the contractor, and he knew that, so he backed off. You should do it too!