My area of expertise is carpet claims, complaints and problems, however, I get involved in all kinds of floor covering problems because they are not that dissimilar from broadloom. In many cases, it is not really that difficult to make a determination because it is blatantly obvious.

Since wood flooring is one of the hottest products on the market, I would like to share a couple of recent discussions we have had with retailers.

At a seminar I was giving in Maine for NRF, a dealer shared a series of photographs of a hardwood floor he had sold. It was supposed to be a light oak color, but had a mix of darker colored boards. The manufacturer said this was normal and the planks were from the same species. That may be so, but nowhere in any of the samples or in any of its literature was this shown or indicated, the dealer said.

The mill contends this is normal and it is not its responsibility to do anything. In the meantime, this dealer has an irate customer and a job he is going to have to replace no matter what.

What You See Is What You Get

The dealer says all the other wood manufacturers he deals with don’t have this variety of color or shade in their products. What is on the boards is usually what you will get, naturally with some shade variety, but at least it will be close enough to not create a major conflict.

The installer should have noticed this first. If there was something that looked so different than what he normally contends with he should have been alert for trouble. Actually, you could say the exact same thing for carpet: Why does it get installed with flaws in it? For that matter, why is it that carpet with flaws gets shipped?

So, here’s a wood floor that is perfectly good, but looks perfectly bad, even to the most lenient consumer. It needs to be replaced and getting the manufacturer to help will be a fight. This isn’t right.

Again, there’s not enough communication, and shared information and, with this mill, open lines of negotiation. They certainly aren’t all this way but it proved to be so for this wood manufacturer. One thing is for sure, the retailer won’t ever buy a wood floor from this company again.

Another case is wood floors separating. There’s only two rooms on the first floor of our house that aren’t hardwood. There are small separations between the boards in the winter in a couple of places, and one big separation. When the weather gets warm the separations go back together.

Wood will expand and contract with the gain and loss of moisture, just like nylon does. If there is any room for it to move, it will. If the house moves, and it will, there isn’t much you can do.

Movement Is Normal

Just like expansion joints in a building, the floor covering near the point of movement will also move. This is normal. Certainly you have to acclimate the product, install it correctly and ensure it is fastened properly but you can’t do too much about the structure it’s installed in. Carpet may be more forgiving because you won’t notice a 1/32-in. movement, but with wood you will.

A dealer I spoke with had a customer who was complaining about this. If someone has never had a wood floor, she isn’t going to understand this is what wood floors can do. They may not even engage their common sense, applying it to other wood structures they certainly have had some exposure to that expand and contract.

So, when this inevitable movement occurs, the consumer, new to the experience of wood flooring, may panic and think something is wrong. To avoid this, the consumer has be educated about wood floors; the dealer also has to be aware of what different types of wood floors will do and, the installer has to adhere to every installation guideline for every product he installs. If anyone fails you are going to have problems.

Since readers have been asking, I’ll try to cover different types of floor covering products and their problems in this column in future issues. If you have questions, contact me in the variety of ways listed in our ad. I will do everything I can to help you.

(Editor’s note: This column first appeared April 1/8, 2002. It is being rerun as Lew was unavaible to write due to the passing of his mother.)