It's a wood floor, not a space shuttle.

"I was expecting new floors to not have any gaps at all whatsoever."

Talk about unrealistic expectations! There are two main conditions to inspecting floors. They should be inspected from a height of about 50" and it should be under normal lighting conditions. Your flaws appear to show only under unusual circumstances so they wouldn't be considered a flaw. If they bother you they could be caulked or puttied. Replacement would be the height of foolishness. Chiseling boards out and putting new ones in with missing parts of the t&g construction, with the expectation that the 1/16" gap might be eliminated, isn't logical.

Yes, you are being too picky.

You were a good candidate for plastic and MDF, and not natural wood. Mother Nature rules here. And you need to move on to inspecting the grout in your shower or the depth of your insulation, or something else far more important and overlooked.

Very common. When you're able to fit 2 quarters side by side, then it's time to start asking questions.

Joseph C. your reponse did give me a chuckle. However i fully understand
this is not a space shuttle - precisely why i wanted to understand what
is acceptable and what is not :)

Thanks Cinar, Johnson, and SJ Mccarthy for objective answers. SJ again love your detailed answer.

This is our first wood floor and my expectations were based on a roughly 300-400 sq ft of anderson engineered wood floor we ripped out in one area to put in this new one. That floor had zero gaps over 6-7 years and i could not put in a paper if i wanted to. I was thinking if one installer did it, other can too. SJ Mccarthy addresses that accurately. It was a not a distressed floor and had a flat finish and that could be the difference.

I have seen distressed wood floors in large houses in last 2 weeks and they have zero gaps too. Perhaps they have filler put in which makes sense now based on all your responses.

To give you guys better perspective, in 1100Sq ft of new install there
were many areas with the gaps. Of course pictures i posted earlier
were meant to be examples of smaller gaps only and not all problem areas. I noticed all of these gaps within 48 hours of install. My contractor says these gaps could not have appeared afterwards and would be from right during install as weather has not changed much and glue down wont let wood move so much so quickly.

I was trying to get your opinion on whether replacement is worth it and I have my answer now. I think i have my answer now. Thanks all for input. Very helpful.

So you folks have some perspective, there are some areas that are
visible standing up and in right lighting. These are the ones the
contractor said are install problem and should be fixed. and based on all of your inputs, I think i can have a better and practical discussion with him.

Just for fun here is a picture I had put together for my contractor to review the work. There are about 8-10 credit cards.

I maintain that it's not wise to replace boards for the gaps you have. I suspect that your old Anderson floor was narrower planks and therefore probably easier to close up the gaps when installing. Wider boards can be tough to drive up tight without damaging. Slight variations in the material and subfloor can also lead to gaps. You can either have the installer fill the gaps or even dribble a little stain in the joints to color the visible tongues. If your desire to replace boards persists, try one in an inconspicuous place first. Also consider that if you remove a board that's 7" wide, in a space that's 7-1/16" wide, a new 7" board isn't going to be much different except that you could split the gap into two 1/32" gaps.

Thanks Johnson FC. You are correct about old anderson floor. 3" planks.

I like your idea about stain in joints!

No I didnot have a strong desire one way or another before understanding if this was common and within acceptable limits. In fact my contractor and installer thought it was an installation issue at least with the planks with wider gaps running along the side. But before getting back to him with an opinion i was trying to understanding what i am looking at first from experts here.

You are correct about your last point about wider gap. My contractor was suggesting that since the side wise gaps are closer to the wall, he will basically remove that plank and all the 3-4 rows after that running up to the wall to fix the problem.

Colorite seems to be a good option for a filler? Any others that you pros would recommend?

We use Woodwise prefinish filler as it's sold by one of my main suppliers.

Filler will just get squeezed out in the summer when the wood expands. Smushing the boards together with no gap is gonna give you edge crush when they can’t expand as much as they need to this summer. Then the gaps will be even bigger next winter because of the edge crush.

If you ever looked at the wood floors in a 130 year old house, you would see gaps because of that seasonal expansion and contraction. And no modern climate control.

To get floors with zero gaps between them, you need narrow boards and museum quality humidity control in your HVAC system. AC in summer, and that humidifier in winter. 30-55% humidity. No drier, and no damper. No open windows in muggy spring days.

If the GC and installer aren't aware of natural expansion and contraction of wood...maybe they shouldn't be installing in the first place.

And clearly “museum quality” is not realistic. Especially when you live in a northern climate where the relative humidity in your home is really not supposed to be as high as the engineered wood warranty requirements state. My own house is hovering right around 34-35%. At work - it’s 32% right now. It’s been in as low as 21% in the last week. Accept the gaps It’s normal.

With wide planks being all the rage now, looks like there needs to be a lot more consumer education.

I’m confused why its ok for a floor installer to provide tight fininsh work and another can leave a ”credit card” size gap? sounds like typical contractor BS.

"I’m confused why its ok for a floor installer to provide tight fininsh work and another can leave a ”credit card” size gap? sounds like typical contractor BS."

HUH?