Glue down LVT flooring - edges filled with silicone - acceptable?

[Kat3333]

LVT glue down karndean fitted across our kitchen and lounge. Used a reputable company recommended in the area. Approx 30m2 of flooring and quoted just over £3000 (included plywood/screed/LVT tiles/fitting)

Had manager round after fitting as couple of issues with gaps around edge of rooms, and same tiles put next to each other. Manager said both needed to be rectified and took photos, and said he'd pass onto the fitter.

Fitter changed one or two tiles, and then went round the whole of each room with a very shiny silicone which both highlights the gaps! See photos. The overall room looks fine but the edges are pretty messy now.

We contacted the manager again and he said the fitter had asked us if he could use silicone. He said he could send the fitter back again, but we refused. On his first day, and the return visit he had been over 2 hours late and I can't work from home/had missed meetings. Plus, he had seemed to have made these gaps look worse.

We paid half of the price prior to the work, and now wondering if we negotiate a price reduction with them... is this acceptable? We'd like someone else to make it look better.

The company have now emailed with a final invoice, and said as a goodwill gesture for the silicone issue, they won't add a charge for a floorboard they had to repair... however, we were never told this was needed anyway?

Would there be a reasonable way to work out how much a reduction to request? Shall we just get someone else in to say how much it would cost to fix the edges? Or do we just pay the whole price and leave it?

Any advice would be appreciated.

That's not great but not really awful.

What options were discussed? It looks as though your skirting boards are quite low and they couldn't fit the lvt under it, or didn't try.
It would probably have looked better with either wooden beading, or white silicon, or removing skirting and refitting new on top of the lvt, which would have cost a lot more. Was either an option?

I wouldn't be happy with the finish either. 3k is a lot of money.

Thanks for the quick reply. The manager did say when he came round that a silicon could be used but they would use white, or match to the floor colour... but he also added that this would be once the gaps had been rectified by putting a new tile, and the skirting boards finished. Just feels rather messy when we were expecting a good finish!

I think I might get a chippy or trades to quote for improving the finish and knock the cost off the bill or get a different fitter from same firm but it's tricky once you've lost trust.

I’m not sure about the finish but love the look of the flooring, I’d love to know what it was.

You should have gone for the removing skirting option, rather than butting the flooring into the side of the skirting.
The best option now if you won’t settle for the silicon beading (which you won’t notice after a couple of weeks) is get a beading/thin strip of wood pined to the skirting.
I don’t see how you can attempt a reduction as the finish is as good as it gets in the circumstances.

I have LVT and not a glimpse of silicone any where. It’s fitted up to the skirting rather than underneath, and the edges are perfect. I wouldn’t look at beading: in my opinion, looks cheap and awful, and makes it look like badly fitted laminate.

I think the fitter just wasn’t that skilled.

I’d be asking for it to be fixed.

It’s Karndean French Oak (Van Gogh range)

The finish is never great without skirtings being removed.

The problem is your skirtings aren’t great to get that crisp line
You must have to be in your hands and knees close up to see it you should of had skirtings off or when they cut into them and it sits under them

Why didn't you get them to remove skirting and then fit. Then put skirting back on? Every time I've had floor done they've done this. Otherwise you either have to do the beading or white or matching colour silicone. I'd probably want them back to put white instead

Thank you

Unless you have really even skirting boards they need to be removed then renewed after fitting to get a really crisp finish. The skirting boards in your photos aren't great which is why the bead shows as uneven. A slightly bigger colour matched bead run over the top would be an easy fix to hide most of it and should give a neat finish.

As others have said, the skirting boards should have been removed.
You can never get a clean finish without doing this.
Beading will look awful too.
Its a pity you spent so much money for this result but.....if you agreed that you didn't want to remove/change the skirting boards, this is the result unfortunately.

Thanks for all the replies. Unfortunately we were never advised to take the skirting boards off - otherwise we definitely would have done this. Also, the manager did come over and agreed that some of the gaps were too large and should be rectified by the fitter... but instead he did this clear silicon. We will get the silicon changed to a colour to match the skirting boards and hope that will look better.