Poorly installed skirting by flooring company - who's in the right?

Louise Vernon said:
The thing is, you can see from our flat that we have put a hell of a lot of love and hard work into it. It's not some worn down old property. It's beautifully looked after and a LOT of time has gone into making it look nice. He should have been able to see that.
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I really don't doubt that.

I am not going to disagree with you. Period. x
 
Is that the original skirting they have put back or completely new stuff?
The first pic is a complete mess. The second should have been scribed to the floor so there is no/minimal gap. The third seems to show a missing architrave on the left-hand side so he has judged, (badly), how wide it should be and not even cut it square because of the gap underneath and up the right-hand side. The fourth appears to show the right-hand board tilted back at the top or the board has not been cut straight, (I'm thinking right hand is tilting backwards). The fifth is a dogs dinner the way he has shaved the front face to get behind the pipe joint. And the sixth shows the undulations in the flooring. This should have been scribed to follow the floor contours.
If they used a levelling compound and skimmed it level when laying it, you should have a nice even floor. This looks as though they have just poured it and allowed it to self-level.
I would certainly ask them to scribe the boards to the floor and rectify all the other joints correctly, so you don't need to use masses of filler to hide their incompetence.
As a diy'er, I self-levelled my kitchen floor and made a much better job than this.
 
Yep, shocking right... Even if they argue the flooring is uneven surely that was their job to get right??
 
The person who did it knows it’s not good enough.

when he comes back just say it isn’t a good enough standard and say “I’m sure you could achieve a better finish”. Just be polite, offer him a cup of tea.

You need to explain to him what things you want corrected: like scribing in to the floor, using screws to pull the skirting to the wall, tighter scribes. He could’ve done all that to begin with and had he done so the job could’ve been 2 packed and caulked making it ready for painting.



let’s be honest, it’s just a rush job, he was either rushing to get home or onto another job.
 
I've checked our email thread with the company who said they applied a levelling compound before installation, so why would the floors be uneven? Do you think he's not applied enough?
 
If they used a levelling compound properly then it should be just that - level. Then to make matters look worse the skirt was not scribed to the floor. The skirt job is terrible
Louise Vernon said:
Yes, my husband did our bathroom skirting boards and scribed the skirting to follow the floors and that was without any proper tools, so we were quite shocked he left it like this despite having all the right equipment at his disposal.
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I do not know if either of you were there but if I was then I would of stopped them there and then. But I wouldn't off needed to because I would be fitting myself in the first place .
Hindsight but you sound quite capable of doing it yourself as you have already done some skirt fitting. I might be inclined to ask for not to be billed for the skirt fit part of the job and do it myself.
 
aveatry said:
If they used a levelling compound properly then it should be just that - level. Then to make matters look worse the skirt was not scribed to the floor. The skirt job is terrible

I do not know if either of you were there but if I was then I would of stopped them there and then. But I wouldn't off needed to because I would be fitting myself in the first place .
Hindsight but you sound quite capable of doing it yourself as you have already done some skirt fitting. I might be inclined to ask for not to be billed for the skirt fit part of the job and do it myself.
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I think we're going to chat to them tomorrow and tell them what we want/expect. If they say they can't do that (or don't want to) I'm going to ask for a reduction of costs and we'll do it ourselves. I don't want them taking another 2 days doing skirting only to find again it's not up to standard! It's Christmas next week and all of our stuff is still in storage!
 
Louise Vernon said:
I think we're going to chat to them tomorrow and tell them what we want/expect. If they say they can't do that (or don't want to) I'm going to ask for a reduction of costs and we'll do it ourselves. I don't want them taking another 2 days doing skirting only to find again it's not up to standard! It's Christmas next week and all of our stuff is still in storage!
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If you do it yourself, don't forget to seal the underside of the MDF skirting after you scribe it. Also ask them which adhesives they used.
 
Over the years I've attended many skirting jobs like this.
Most people think that putting some skirting down is just a couple of cuts and some glue but there's a lot more to it, especially when floors are uneven and there are corners not true, think boxed pipes.
My prices reflect that, but for some people it's too much.
Then they call me back to rectify and the price is even higher because of the removal, glue scraping, cleaning and more material.
If I was you I would give the installer the option to reduce the bill and I would do the skirting myself.
It will take longer, but it would be done properly.
As a side note, did you see them levelling the floor?
Anyone who has used levelling compound a couple of times knows how to get a perfect or near perfect finish.
Those large gaps are an indication that either they never levelled a floor before or they didn't bother altogether.
 
From the look and lack of workmanship I doubt they they used glue on the skirt somhow.
 
Skirts have been rushed. Should be scribed better and filled with chalk then the painter takes over.
self leveller is a silly name for it as it doesn’t self level in most cases. We call it a smoothing compound.
 
That's not so much installed, as rammed in. Caulking the top to the wall, and filling the nail holes, are arguably part of decorating, but those corners are atrocious. The one in the first picture is just smashed together and doesn't even line up
 
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