Hardwood flooring totally ruined by tradesman

[MrsCremuel]

Feeling quite shaken. A plasterer came over today to do a job for us, and in the process has completely ruined our hardwood floor. He said we could just centre the sofa when I asked if he needed it moved so we did. We told him it must be lifted or it would scratch the floor so my DH and he moved it.

Well he’s obviously dragged it here and there in the process and there are massive scratches everywhere. He has chipped other places not near the sofa where he must have dropped things - lots of deep holes. Absolutely gutted. Baby due October and don’t need the stress.

Spoke to the flooring company and as it’s tongue and groove and glued, they would have to replace the entire floor and the hallway as it runs seamlessly into the hallway.

The guy got very shouty and was blaming me for not moving the sofa, when he specifically said we didn’t need to. He was doing is a favour apparently! It got quite heated and he won’t pay for the damage but I’ve said we will get advice from the flooring company and claim through his insurance.

I’m not paying for this! I don’t think he os going to give us his details. I can see in check a trade who is insurer is but what do I do next?

Feel pathetic but trying not to cry, I didn’t back down but he was quite intimidating. DH didn’t say anything which I am miffed about but I did stand my ground anyway.

Yellow Pages French polishers advert?

Husband is French polisher. Said he repairs floors like these every day.
Perhaps get a FP to do it and deduct from bill.

@potter5 I’d never heard of a french polisher, thanks to you and everyone else who has suggested them. I’ve struggled to find websites for repairs oddly.

@callmeadoctor DH explained to the plasterer that he couldn’t drag the sofa around as the floor would get scratched. So they then lifted it together and placed it in the middle of the room where it was supposed to stay. No dragging or scratches incurred. Then when the plasterer took up the protective sheets for the dust he saw the scratches and it emerged he had been dragging it here and there throughout the job which he admitted to. I wouldn’t expect him to cover damage we were party to.

@LittleOverWhelmed I was too. The big boss called and apparently it will be cheaper but not by much - crazy! The floor when down a while ago, we had to get the ceiling boarded and plastered due to a leak a while ago.

@MrsCreumel I feel your pain. An idiot decorator flicked varnish all over our brand new floor that had cost £6k. He pratted about until I threatened to take him to Court. I was advised to claim on my insurance but refused - why should I pay an excess and increased premiums. I kept badgering and he filled out a claim form eventually enabling his insurers to pay. Then had the cheek to post on his Facebook he was having a bad year😡. Hope you get it sorted quickly bu keep going if you don’t.

@bouncydog thank you, that’s how I feel about claiming on my insurance. I am already inconvenienced by it all and that’s enough, I’m not going to pay higher insurance premiums when it’s his fault. Glad you got yours sorted.

So sorry to hear this. He should have covered the floor properly. TBH if it had been my floor, I'd have covered it myself with ply or thick fabric, but that's only any good to you for the future.
As a last resort, you could try hand-sanding the gouges gently so the edges of the are smooth and then treat them and the scratches locally with whatever the rest was done with.

Thing is, wood floors will scratch. To some extent, if you have wood floors, that's part of how they look. I prefer oiling to varnish on solid wood floors for that reason, it's easy to touch up, & minor scratches I don't even bother sanding, I just re-oil the scratch, deeper gouges I might sand down the sharp edges before oiling, but that's really only suitable for solid wood floors.

something that disguised scratches on my lvt floor was spraying wd40 on it and rubbing in thoroughly. I guess it's oiled based but it worked.

we had a nightmare with our flooring contractor who managed to spill green floor levelling liquid all over our newly carpeted white stairs. he then placed his angle grinder on our slate hearth and split it in two then denied it. thankfully we had before an after photos. we got a quote for how much it would cost to replace the hearth and deducted the price from the amount we paid him. checkatradr are useless for resolving anything. you can't even write a complaint without going through a mediation process

We rolled up carpets when we were rewired, and the plasterers flung plaster everywhere, even on the rolls of carpet where I hadn't quite covered the whole roll with old sheets....
Note to tradespeople- just because a house is a bit of a doer-upper it doesn't mean the people living there won't have to endure the very old carpets for a few years yet. I think if a house looks old and tired in its decor some tradespeople think that's a licence to make whatever mess they like. It may be a sign that the occupants are hard up and can't afford to redecorate.

When l had an issue with my floor, the floor inspector checked that l had furniture pads on the bottom.

Did you have any protectors on?