We had an extension built 3 months ago and, as part of the build, got the builder to lay the wooden floor. He insisted on gluing it to the concrete floor and taking it to all the walls so it's underneath all the units. We weren't that keen on spending so much extra money on flooring that wouldn't be seen but agreed as he thought it was the best way to do it.
About a month after the kitchen was fitted part of the floor started to lift until we had a 'hill' in the middle of the floor. He cake and took out that part and tried to re-lay it. Because it's tongue and groove he obviously couldn't get the final pieces in so just cut off the tongue and groove.
It looked crap so dh rang him and said we weren't happy, it looked awful, etc. Builder came round, started telling us it was our fault for not buying the wood early enough (we bought it the day he told us he would be needing it), that the glue we bought was wrong (he said the glue was really good as he was laying it) then when DH got very cross with his excuses the builder stormed out leaving a floor board out and several pieces half fitted.
That was 7 weeks ago. We had to chase him and chase him until he said he'd come last Thursday. By mid morning there was no sign of him so dh rang his house and spoke to his wife who said he'd gone to a different job. DH told her politely but in no uncertain terms that we were very unhappy and she agreed her dh was out of order.
Anyway, he finally came yesterday and pulled up 1/2 of the floor. Today he started re-laying it again but he's done the same trick of cutting off the grooves to fit it certain boards which leaves uneven gaps, some ends are sticking up, there's knocks where he's hit the edges with a hammer to get them in and it just looks terrible.
We've been told by 2 joiners and a friend who's good at that sort of thing that the floor should have been laid over a membrane of some sort and not glued down. And that because it has glue residue all over the back we can't reuse any of it if we want it laid properly.
So now we are in the position of having £2k's worth of wooden flooring completely ruined. He's done about a third of the re-laying but I don't want him to come back tomorrow. I think we've given a chance to redo it and he's blown that twice. He patently doesn't have the skills or knowledge to do it correctly so we now need to get it done properly.
We didn't have a contract with him. The actual building work is fantastic and we're very happy with that. We've paid him for that and are waiting on his invoice for a couple of extra jobs he did. So we have a bit left over but nowhere near enough to pay another £2k for new wood then labour for someone else to fit it.
If anyone has any advice on where we go next I'd be very grateful.