B & Q flooring

katykitten

a few weeks ago i had my hall relaid with b & q laminate, i checked that it was suitable for a hall, two weeks later i noticed scratches on the floor plus the edges where the strips lock together - several of them were scuffed

b & q send round their independent flooring inspector who reported that there was no manufacturing fault, i told b & q that im not happy but all they said is that its not guaranteed against scratching only against manufacturing faults which i find crazy

what are my rights here - the floor, as far as im concerned is not fit to have in a hall where it will of course get heavy use

agrinnall

What has caused the scratches? My B&Q laminate flooring (living room and bedroom 3) has been in place for 8 years and while it has a few marks by now there is nothing I would refer to as a scratch. So either the flooring is sub-standard as you think, or it's been damaged because some unexpected activity has taken place on it.

If you think it's only had normal use then you need to get a proper independent inspection, not one organised by B&Q, and if their report agrees then use the Sale of Goods Act to reject as not fit for purpose.

Fosterdog

Who installed the flooring for you? If you did it yourself have you ever laid laminate before?

Was the floor underneath 100% level?
Did you use underlay and if so what type?
What floor was it laid on top of, wooden floorboards, concrete, tiles etc.? How did you hold the first piece in place before laying the rest?
Did you leave an expansion gap around it? How have you cleaned it?
Does your outer door open directly onto the hallway or is there a porch area first?
How much did you pay per m2?
How much traffic does it get? (one adult walking on it twice a day or three adults bundling in and out pushchairs and dumping shopping while four dogs run around their feet?)different people have different levels of traffic through a hallway and what is high traffic to one person is next to no use to the next.

I don't see how scratches on the surface can be a defect if they weren't present at installation, something must have dragged across it to scratch it. Also for scuffs to appear at the joins either water has got in to them and caused them to expand or they were not laid correctly (either incorrect underlay, not clicked into place properly, or first piece not fixed in place so it freely moves causing it to separate)

I have seen the water expansion when someone used a steam cleaner on it as laminate is not sealed at the joins

sweep9

From my DIY days, Laminate has 5 levels of wear rating. What level rating was your floor??

fred7777

Fosterdog wrote: »

I don't see how scratches on the surface can be a defect if they weren't present at installation, something must have dragged across it to scratch it.

The argument wouldn't necessarily be that scratches were a defect but that the laminate wasn't fit for purpose. That could be because a manufacturing defect made that batch softer than it should have been or simply it wasn't fit for purpose.

Having said that all the other questions raised are relevant and could have a big impact on the wear on the laminate. To really get any useful advice answers to those questions and a picture of the damage would be needed.

On a separate point B&Q's reference to the laminate not being guaranteed against scratching is spurious if the the laminate isn't fit for purpose.

beeg0d

sweep9 wrote: »

From my DIY days, Laminate has 5 levels of wear rating. What level rating was your floor??

Officially there are 4 wear levels in general flooring.

Light domestic
Medium Domestic
Heavy Domestic/Light Comercial
Comercial

(after that you then get into various industrial raitings).

Though DIY shops will invent their own ratings. For a main throughfair in a house "Heavy Domestic/Light Comercial" should always bee the raiting use (HDLC bascally means Hall, Stairs, Landing & lounge) which in DIY raiting would most likely bee 5* or 5/5 (very rarly do i see Comercial raited floowing in B&Q).

Fosterdog's questions are VERY important here especally the "£/m2" (the rest of the questions though equally important can bee summed up as "was it installed profesionally or bodged up?")