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Flooring Warranty Problems: Manufacturer vs Installer Warranties, Why Claims Fail, the Paper That Wins Them, and Tarion for New Homes
Flooring & Tile
Flooring Warranties: The 25-Year Warranty Covers the Plank, the One-Year Warranty Covers the Man Who Laid It, and the Gap Between Them Is Where Your Claim Goes
Here is how a flooring warranty claim usually goes. The floor gaps, cups or peaks. The homeowner calls the store. The store says call the manufacturer. The manufacturer sends an inspector, who measures the humidity in the house, the moisture in the subfloor and the expansion gap at the wall, finds one of them outside the fine print, and denies the claim as a site condition. The homeowner calls the installer, who says the product failed. Everyone is a little bit right and nobody pays. The way to avoid being that homeowner is to understand the two warranties before the floor goes in, and to have the paper that proves the site conditions were met.
Two warranties, two different things
| Manufacturer warranty | Installer warranty | |
|---|---|---|
| Covers | Manufacturing defects in the product: finish wearing through, delamination of the wear layer, a plank that was milled wrong, a tile that crazes. Only when installed and maintained as the sheet says. | Workmanship: squeaks, loose boards, unlocked planks, hollow tiles, lippage, cracked grout, a missed expansion gap, a floor laid over a wet slab. |
| How long | 15 to 50 years residential on the finish, often lifetime on structure, with the number shrinking as you read further down the page. | One year is typical; two from a good store. Whatever the contract says. |
| What you get | Replacement material, usually prorated after a few years. Labour to remove and reinstall is often excluded or capped. Read that line twice. | He comes back and fixes it. |
| Who decides | Their inspector, measuring your house against their installation sheet. | You and him, with the contract and the walk-through list. |
| Where it dies | Site conditions: moisture, humidity, acclimation, subfloor, maintenance, radiant temperature. | The company closing, or the contract being a one-page quote that promised nothing. |
The gap between the two is a floor that failed because the site conditions were wrong, which the manufacturer excludes and the installer did not warrant. Making the installer responsible for site conditions, in the contract, closes it. The contract checklist.
The six conditions that void a claim
- Subfloor moisture. Concrete over 75% RH by in-situ probe, or over 3 lb MVER by calcium chloride, for most vinyl and glue-down floors; a wood subfloor more than 4 points from the flooring’s moisture content, 2 points for wide plank. If nobody tested, the inspector tests now, and a damp slab in a new house will fail.
- Acclimation. Solid and engineered hardwood sit in the house for 5 to 7 days at living conditions before installation, and the installer records the readings. The box delivered Monday and nailed Tuesday is the most common denied claim there is. Why it is skipped.
- Indoor humidity. Nearly every wood and laminate sheet says 35% to 55% RH, year round. An Ontario house in February without a humidifier is at 20%, and the gaps that open are, by the fine print, your fault. A $40 hygrometer and a humidifier on the furnace are the cheapest warranty protection you can buy.
- Subfloor flatness and type. 3/16 in. in 10 ft for wood and plank, 1/8 in. for large-format tile; 3/4 in. plywood or 23/32 OSB for nail-down. A floor nailed to 5/8 OSB on 24-in. joists has no warranty from anyone.
- Maintenance. Steam mops void most hardwood and laminate warranties outright. So do wet mopping, the wrong cleaner, and no felt under the chairs. The inspector looks at the chair legs.
- Radiant heat. Surface temperature under wood or vinyl capped at 27 to 29 C on the sheet, with the system brought up slowly, and some products excluded over radiant entirely. Run warmer, as plenty of heated slabs do, and the warranty is gone even if the floor is fine; the sheet decides the claim, not the installer. The temperature rule.
The paper that wins
A warranty claim is a paper fight, and the homeowner usually shows up with a receipt. Show up with this instead: the box labels with the lot numbers; the installer’s moisture readings on the subfloor and the flooring, dated, on the invoice or a sheet; the acclimation dates; photos of the subfloor before the first plank, including the straightedge; the thermostat log if there is radiant heat; the contract naming the method and the product; and a hygrometer reading or two from each season. With that pile, the inspector cannot find a site condition to blame, and the conversation moves to the product, where it should have been.
Ask for the readings before the floor goes down. An installer who measured will write the numbers on the invoice without a fuss. One who did not measure cannot, and you have learned that on day one rather than year three.
Tarion, for a new home
If your house was built by a registered builder, Tarion’s new home warranty sits on top of everything above and in front of it: you deal with the builder, not the installer or the manufacturer. Flooring falls mostly under the one-year warranty for defects in work and materials, which covers things like squeaks, loose or cupped boards, lippage, cracked tile and grout, and unacceptable gaps, judged against Tarion’s Construction Performance Guidelines. Those guidelines have tolerances for each item, and some of what looks wrong to you is within them, and some of what the builder calls normal is not. Read the flooring section before the walk-through.
The dates are the whole game. You submit a 30-Day Form listing everything you found in the first month, and a Year-End Form in the last 30 days of the first year. Flooring that gaps in the first winter and cups in the first summer shows up in month 8 or 10, so the Year-End Form is the one that matters for floors, and missing the window means the item is yours. Water penetration through the basement that ruins a floor is a two-year item; a structural problem that moves a floor is seven. Everything here applies to the house; a tiled shower that leaks into the floor below is a one-year workmanship item too, and a common one. What the builder’s flooring allowance bought you is worth knowing before you argue about what it should have.
Where homeowners go wrong
- Reading “25-year warranty” as 25 years of someone fixing the floor. It is 25 years of prorated replacement planks if the finish wears through under normal use and every condition was met. It does not include the man to install them.
- Buying the material and hiring labour separately, then having a problem. Now there are three parties and the store, the installer and the manufacturer each have someone to point at. Fine if you have the paper; expensive if you do not.
- Waiting. Installer warranties are a year. The floor that is “probably just settling” in month 11 is an uncovered floor in month 13. Put it in writing early, even if it is only “I am watching this”.
- Letting the first fix be caulk and filler. A gap filled with putty is a gap the inspector can no longer measure. Photograph before anyone touches it.
- Steam mops. Covered above and worth saying twice. Nothing voids more hardwood warranties for less reason.
Questions people ask
Does a flooring warranty cover installation?
The manufacturer’s does not; it covers the product, installed and maintained to the sheet. Installation is the installer’s warranty, usually one year, and only what the contract says. Make the contract say the installer is responsible for site conditions and you have closed the gap between them.
Why was my hardwood warranty claim denied?
Almost always a site condition: house humidity outside 35% to 55%, no acclimation, subfloor moisture, the wrong fasteners or subfloor, or a steam mop. The inspector measures what is there today and your floor has to prove it was installed right. That is why the readings and the photos matter.
Is flooring covered by Tarion?
Yes, in a new home from a registered builder, mostly under the one-year warranty for defects in work and materials, judged against Tarion’s Construction Performance Guidelines. Submit the items on the 30-Day or Year-End Form or they are not covered; the deadlines are strict.
Are gaps in hardwood covered by warranty?
Seasonal hairline gaps that close in summer are normal and excluded by everyone, including Tarion. Gaps outside the guideline tolerances, or gaps present at installation, are workmanship or acclimation and are a claim against the installer or builder, not the manufacturer.
What is a prorated flooring warranty?
The replacement value drops every year: full material in year one, a fraction by year ten, a token by year twenty. Labour is usually excluded throughout. The headline number is the last year the token is still paid.
The warranty starts with the quote
Most warranty problems were visible in the quote: no moisture testing, no acclimation, no method named. The $99 quote review looks for exactly those gaps before you sign, and the flooring cost calculator prices the job with the testing and prep included rather than hoped for.
Sources and further reading
- Tarion warranty coverage: what a new-home warranty covers for flooring gaps, cupping, cracked tile and squeaks in year one and year two, and the Construction Performance Guidelines it measures them by.
- National Wood Flooring Association: the installation guidelines every hardwood warranty points to: subfloor flatness, moisture limits, acclimation, fastening schedules and the radiant-heat chapter.
- Mirage Hardwood Floors: Quebec-made solid and engineered hardwood; their installation guides give the moisture, acclimation and radiant limits in plain numbers.
