Kardean Van Gogh LVT Fitting Problems

I'm after some advice about some Karndean Van Gogh LVT glue down flooring we've had fitted across four rooms as part of our new build house. The fitter was found by our main contractor, but we're really not happy with the quality of the work.

There are several obvious miscuts around kitchen units and door frames, and the bottom of the door frames and architrave seems to have been hacked away at really badly (which is probably fixable by our carpenter and painters, but has definitely rung alarm bells).

Lots of the joints between planks have thick patches of adhesive smeared across the length of them which were not cleaned up at the time, and and we're not sure how easily this can now be rectified now the adhesive has dried.

Some planks are sitting proud of others, and a few near the walls are lifting entirely.

We're also really concerned with gaps, where in some places there is an obvious black gap space visible between planks. The fitter says that this is because Karndean planks are never cut properly square in the factory and therefore you always get gaps. However the gaps seem to be particularly bad in the one room where the floor was laid diagonally.

We've marked up all of the issues we can see (there are dozens and dozens) and the fitter is going to come back to take a look. But we'd really appreciate some advice on whether we're being too fussy - in particular with the gapping where the fitter has already made an excuse.

Many thanks.

 

Here are some more photos

 

No you’re not being fussy, that’s really poor workmanship imo. I’d say it’s not been done by a professional floorlayer


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Looks like that's a heat gun job round them kitchen panels and when you have space to tuck it under the door frames but still cut it short you know you have a bad fitter

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Also VG is normally one of the better lvt’s so there shouldn’t be any gapping


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Apologies for my ignorance... what do you mean by a heat gun job around the kitchen units?

 

That's really good to know. It did feel like a convenient defence!

 

Some people I won't call them fitters heat the tiles up so they can free hand cut them in. It normally causes the tiles to curl up and will shrink when they cool down again. If you look closely you can see it in one of the pics

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Ah ok, that seems like a possibility. All of the cuts look so rough - it's like none of his tools were sharp and he's just hacked away. Thanks

 

wow!!!
That looks a mess. I'd be requesting a full refit. To many areas especially where they have gapped so bad are not going to be corrected without taking row after row out and closing it up (refitting so they butt together)

Have you paid up?

No way on this earth is he a professional fitter.

 

He's hacked out the door frames and still manged to cut short
Seriously that is not going to look perfect unless it's redone. I bet if he closed some of them gaps up you would be left with a 10mm gap elsewhere if the whole lot aint going to be pulled back.

 

I don't know if our builder has paid the fitter yet - will have to ask that question tomorrow.

When you say a full refit - can the same tiles be taken up and refitted or will new tiles need to be purchasing? We've got two packs spare but I was already concerned that isn't going to be enough for all the recuts required around the edges. Is LVT flooring all being from the same batch an issue in the same way you'd make sure you purchased all your rolls of wallpaper at the same time?

For context, the attached photos show how the hallway looks like after we've marked it up. It's not like there are just one or two issues. And I forgot to include a photo of the junction between the diagonal and straight laid flooring in my initial posts. The line isn't even properly straight or an even thickness. We figure a doorstrip is the only way to fix that.

 

I've done one recently where I had to cut back into existing LVT that couldn't have been removed and I advised the customer to then put a subtle feature strip (same thickness as the lvt) between the 2 because it just wouldn't look right due to the tiles being a prominent bevelled edge.

 

....and he hasn't shuffled the planks well either

 

...sorry but I can't help it.....look at that ridge in that doorway

 

Shocking that. So the main contractor recommended them? Did you get a few prices ?


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Horrendous! Not done by a floor layer that’s for sure!!! All needs to come up and replaced (with new)

 

Hadn't noticed that until you said - now you have I can see the two identical sections of dark graining next to each other.

There definitely seems to be some sort of lump there. When you walk through the front door it's very obvious.

 

We told the main contractor what product we wanted and he bought the materials and booked the fitter. Hindsight...

Hadn't actually noticed the issue with the staggering until you posted that annotated photo there. I'm assuming you'd usually always aim for something like a 33% - 50% offset to avoid having multiple joints so close?