All flooring manufacturers requires floor leveling of the subfloor. It is an additional expense beyond a basic installation, and it can easily equal the installation costs total again if the slab was poured with carpet in mind. Was this additional labor requirement not discussed when you were talking about the overall budget for the project? Who did you hire for the installation? The flooring store who sold you the material?

Linda, the flooring store installed the LVP. There was never any discussion about leveling the subfloor as a requirement for installation. From the pictures I am attaching, you can see why we are upset. Everything shows under this floor while the flooring on the second level, laid on plywood, looks just fine. It is a brand new home that now looks pretty run down. If this helps one other person with their flooring decisions it will make me feel better. Beware of installing this floor on a cement slab.

Is this a newly built home or was this a modification to an exiisting home that you were buying? If a new build, the contractor would be responsible for making sure the floor is prepared correctly. If the flooring material was originally supposed to be something else and you changed to a different product, then the contractor should handle the preparation but you might need to pay extra for that. Our flooring sub does not do any of the prep or leveling - they expect that to be done before they arive.

Thank you Brickwood Builders for that information. It is a new build and the contractor was the one who talked us into this particular type of floor. We'd have paid extra for whatever needed to be done to avoid this result.

This is precisely why my flooring guy doesn't like laying LVP on concrete. Most of the time, the builder pours for carpet and this type of flooring requires a very level floor. I do have to wonder why the flooring contractor didn't stop the install when they realized how uneven the floors were.

Sophie and Brickwood are correct.

1. GC/Builder supplies the "subfloor" for the flooring company. If carpet is the "base" package then the Builder pours the slab and walks away. Carpet does NOT require preparation.

2. The flooring INSTALLER comes in and lays whatever is in front of them...many of them do not do much prep. A GOOD flooring installer would have STOPPED and said "No way. This isn't ready. Get the Builder on the phone." The build would then be delayed and everyone would point the finger. Tempers would flare! No one wants to be behind because of something like this. A change in flooring can do weird things to a build schedule. The concrete preparation (to be done by the GC) takes a few days (in some cases) and can add $2-$4/sf to the flooring budget.

My question becomes, WHEN did the contractor get you to sign up for vinyl? At what stage was the house in when you made this decision? Who paid the "flooring store"? Was it the GC or did you contract that out separately?

The waters are a bit muddy, but it should be easy enough to clear them up with a few basic question/answers.

Cancork, the flooring was one of the first things chosen. I can't remember if the slab had been poured yet but it was definitely decided on before framing. Flooring is part of our contract however the store we were using requires half down on order so the GC said to go ahead and pay that. They will make the final payment. We chose the flooring store, not the GC. The flooring store they usually used did not have the tiles we wanted for our bathrooms and kitchen so they agreed to switch everything to one that did. It's a nationally recognized flooring store so you expect that they know what they are doing.

Thank you Sophie and Katinparadise. Yes, I agree that the installers should have stopped. They had to return to the house to fix a hump in the floor that appeared a few days after install. At that time they suggested it wouldn't look as bad once furniture was in the house. Florida homes generally have tile floors and I don't imagine the subfloor has to be perfectly flat for that. I think we will end up tearing this out and putting in tile. I really hope this brings some awareness to others looking for flooring.

You're welcome paradise. I live in Florida as well and just had laminates installed. My flooring guy is meticulous and was sure to level and even grind down when necessary any obvious issues in my concrete pad. Mine is not a new build and had carpet everywhere there wasn't tile. I'm so sorry for your troubles. Building is stressful enough without having to endure issues like these.

"At that time they suggested it wouldn't look as bad once furniture was in the house"

That;s almost as bad as the installers saying, you can't see that from my house"..........

"...they had to return to the house to fix a hump in the floor that appeared a few days after install." Hmmmm...this is getting into installer concerns as well as GC concerns.

This REALLY should be "hashed out" between the two companies. The GC should NOT sign off on this and the installer should NOT have continued with the install with a subfloor looking like that.

The muddy waters are coming from "bringing in a flooring company". It sounds like the GC did NOT hire them - that the homeowner hired the company. Stuff like that gets ugly very, very, very quickly.

But the fact remains: the Builder/GC did NOT offer a substrate that was REQUIRED for the FLOOR that was SPECIFIED. Somewhere along the line the GC has to be brought to task. It sounds like s/he suggested the vinyl and then FAILED to offer an appropriate substrate once it had been SELECTED.

I would bet that the GC and the "flooring shop" will have to split the costs amongst themselves. This is not a homeowner issue. This is a build issue. But the independent flooring company is muddying the waters.

I agree that the two companies should get it taken care of. No argument there. I would offer up however that the GC and the flooring sub that he typically uses may have had a working agreement whereby the sub did all of the floor preparation and not the GC. Therefore the GC may not have realized that the homeowner's flooring company would do something differently. It may be a simple mix up, with no malice intended by anyone. S**t happens and sometimes it's everyone's fault.

A very expensive mistake any civilian(not in the building biz aka the Client)can so easily make. It seems to me there were many hands in this hot mess. I believe the op was clueless that a cement floor could trash their $20K plus flooring dreams. The client depends on & puts all their trust in the GC & the various skilled crafts people who're essential to building the custom home. I'd have a heart to heart with my builder AND the owners of the flooring store. Ultimately, they are the pros who's name and reputation are potentially at stake. In the end they want their client to be happy. Best of luck to you, new home owner!!

Any updates paradise?

Hi, I got installed LVP too and this is how my floors looks; they are uneven. This's how yours looks?

I am sorry for not updating sooner. I didn't see your question katinparadise. Ultimately the flooring company tore up the most noticeable section in the living room and put down a cement base to even out that swail. Did we want the whole thing pulled up and fixed? Sure we did but when your builder doesn't back you up it makes it hard to fight. He didn't want to have to remove all the baseboards which he had installed already. We were made to feel that we were the troublemakers for making an issue of the floor. So the result is that we have the floor you see in the above photos. Not only are the floors uneven but that caused other issues. We had to shim our fridge in order to level it because the levelers under it couldn't go high enough. When pocket doors are closed, for example, the floor is an inch from the bottom on one side and an inch and a half at the other. Frankly, the whole house has out of plumb issues.

There is such a learning curve to building a house. If we had it to do over again we'd use our first choice builder. What we learned is that he quoted a lot more but had better subcontractors. Ultimately with all our builder's markups we ended up paying almost the same and getting lesser quality subs. It's sad to think the old adage, "you get what you pay for" applies to a $600,000 house.

Amaya Hdez I do have places on my floor where the boards don't meet flush. Does your whole floor look wavy and uneven or is it just where the boards butt up together? If so, it may just be an improper install and something that could be fixed. It almost appears as though they were not tamped hard enough to make them seat. If that's the case it should be fixable.

I'm in Florida too. Can you tell us who the built your home?

I'm so sorry to hear that you ended up with a sub par product. There are so many new builds going up around me and builders are putting up models everywhere since the upturn in the market seems to continue. I can't imagine the lack of quality that goes into some of these homes I see. The right subcontractors make all the difference but if you don't have a builder who will back you up, it ends up being a fail all the way around. Reputation does not seem to be a cause for concern for most of them either. There is a model up the street from me that even had protesters picketing in front one day because the product is so sub par!

I hope you're still able to enjoy your home in spite of the issues.