Update 1: Thanks so much for all the repsonses, much appreciated. To provide some additional context
We are UK based and bought from an independent, local, established flooring specialist with excellent reviews
The price of wood has skyrocketed here in the past few years. Using exchange rates, the RRP works out at just over $100 per m2 so we weren't expecting the sorts of issues we shared (we did get a discount on RRP during a sale)
It is 21mm, with a wear/hardwood layer of 6mm
We are going to contact the supplier today!
Original below
Hi all, looking for some advice!
TL;DR: Opened 5/49 boxes of engineered flooring, ~50% of boards have some kind of possible defect. Are these acceptable or should we send back to supplier?
We’ve got 49 boxes of smoked Pyrenees oak engineered wood flooring. We’ve only opened 5 boxes, but we’re already a bit concerned about what we’re seeing.
Around 50% of the boards we've seen so far have something questionable going on. We get this is a natural product and variation is part of the look (a reason we love it, we don't want/expect uniformity). But some of these just look off (see pics).
This includes:
- A few planks with very obvious wood filler in gaps/holes (much more visible than we expected)
- A couple of boards that look damaged (scratches/chips) rather than naturally rustic
- Quite a lot of boards with patchy/blotchy marks that don’t seem to follow the grain or look like typical variation
For some, we’re struggling to tell the difference between what counts as natural variation vs what might be manufacturing defects. We think some are more obviously defective - but curious to see if the internet agrees.
Before we go back to the supplier, we wanted a second opinion... do these planks look acceptable or not? Are we being overly picky? If there are defects, could anyone help identify what’s actually wrong with the boards?
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.