Laminate flooring

DieHard

I have just had laminate flooring laid and I am after some opinions.

It has been laid in one piece spanning the hallway and kitchen. In the kitchen, it starts a lighter shade and about half way across the kitchen it becomes a darker shade. I am not talking about just one or two strips either but a whole section of this laminate which is a lighter shade and it all appears have been put in the same place at the end of the kitchen near the window. Also, a lot of the planks have knots at the end of the planks. The plank ends in the middle of a knot and the next plank has no knot in it.

Is it normal for the shade to change so dramatically? It is all supposed to be the same laminate - natural oak. Also, is it usual to have so many planks end at the centre of a big knot with Oak?

It is not cheap laminate and to be honest it looks a bit crap.

phill99

In terms of the knots, thats how it comes. Fitters are not going to try and match knots up on the end. If you had solid wood or enginered wood, the knots would be the same. However, in terms colour, then there shouldn't be colour differences. If you still have the packaging, check to see if they are all the same shade. If there is a rogue pack of laminate in there, then it needs to be removed and relaid with the correct shade/colour. If, they are all the correct shade / colour, then it sounds like a manufacturing defect and you need to discuss this with your supplier who should make arrangements for the manufacturer to come and look at it.

DieHard

The odd plank with a knot at the end would have been all right but there are quite a few like that. If that is how it comes and that is how it is fitted I suppose I will have to live with that.

I wasn't present for the fitting of the floor. I haven't been living there, I just went along to see how the work was going and I saw the floor and was a bit disappointed with the results.

There was no packaging there so I will contact the builder and ask if he still has the packaging, if not I will contact the supplier and take it from there.

Thank you for your advice.

barneyg

When I laid my laminate it was different shades - but this was a deliberate feature of the particular product I chose (a Quickstep one). The trick was to shuffle the boards from different packs to add a bit of randomness to the shading. Similar with the knots - I've not made any attempt to line them up, but did try not to end up with the same knot patterns right next to each other.

It looks good to me, but I can imagine it would have looked rubbish if I'd ended up with all the light planks at one end of the room and the dark ones at the other