We came home today to find this..
What do you think? A little difference in colour perhaps? It's hard to believe it's the same species, in the same batch, delivered at the same time! And to make matters worse, the pieces chosen for the steps are the lightest in the entire lot!
The first call I made was to the man who sanded and polished the first lot of flooring. I trust his opinion and he did such a wonderful job (he wasn't available at the right time to do the second lot). He came straight over and told me that a fast seal had been used which LIGHTENS the wood! It's basically a cost/time cutting measure. I also learnt that only two coats have been applied using quite a cheap coating.
That answered the colour difference question.
What about the gaps? Yes, gaps between boards..
It can be due to major differences in temperature after the boards are laid. No.
It can be due to the boards not being cut properly at the mill. Hard to believe as our builder laid the first lot and they are all perfect. Every single one. And he had only ever laid floors once or twice before. Also, there are about 10 gaps, eliminating in my mind the possibility of the odd one or two not being cut properly at the mill.
It can be due to not clamping each board properly. Yep. I think that's the most likely.
When my husband phoned the current flooring man to discuss these issues, he was shouted at along with thinly veiled threats! Nice. He suggested that he would send a flooring association representative around to tell us how ridiculous we are. We welcome this, however, these industry bodies tend to protect their own and don't use common sense. They have a long list of 'accepted variables'. I think looking at the photo above, there is nothing acceptable about it. I do accept that the job done may be 'standard' in the industry, however, it was made very clear that we would like the floors to be the same as the others, otherwise what's the point? When you have an example right in front of you to work with, surely it's hard to find excuses. I really didn't think I had to have a detailed quote stating how many coats, the products used and oh, please don't LIGHTEN MY FLOORS! Wrong. Like everything in renovating, put it all in writing. Detailed writing.
We now face the annoying and expensive task of removing the boards on the steps and replacing them with some of the darker planks (the ones that should have been selected in the first place) and sanding the boards right back and polishing the entire area again. Which also involves having to move out for a few days again too..Even that doesn't guarantee that the floors will match the first area due to the lightening affect of the fast seal. We could also try the cheaper option of applying another coat with some tint in it, but we'd rather give it our best shot. With our no. 1 flooring man!
To be continued..
