Tile over vinyl or luan is a BIG recipe for failure. Rip it out and do it right.

The poor guy is in our bathroom as we speak chipping off the luan off the subfloor which is no doubt going to be ruined. I am worried about doing our kitchen which I'm sure has the luan again glued to the subfloor. This is going to cost me hundreds of dollars. Why on earth would a vinyl contractor glue the luan to the subfloor? That makes it impossible in the future to change to a different floor? I would think that the flooring store should suffer the extra costs of removing that luan since (correct me if I'm wrong) it is NOT the proper way to install vinyl.

Do I have a case?

Correct me if you are wrong? You are so wrong. It's your house and your project and you have to pay for it.

The vinyl guy did what made it easiest and fastest and lowest cost for his installation. (Bet you didn't complain the vinyl job cost you $500 less than it would have if something more elaborate was done at the time.) When the floor contractor was installing the new vinyl floor he was not planning for your next floor. If you wanted the vinyl job done in some different way to make a future remodel easier, YOU would have to order it that way in the first place. Most folks don't want to increase the cost of a project today so they can save money when they redo the room 10 years from now. If they said - "hey, you want to spend an extra $500 so it's easier to take this stuff up in the future" would you have said "Yeah, great idea - charge me an extra $500 now -I might remodel sometime." Grow up.

Wow...what a nasty response.

I have had MANY vinyl installations over a few homes over 30 years as a homeowner and I NEVER had my vinyl installed in that way. Furthermore, this was part of our overall home construction so there was no pricing it out separately to us. I told them when we picked it out that it was a temporary choice until we could afford the tile we wanted. You would think a good flooring store would say at that point, well, then you probably don't want our standard install. We should have then be presented with options and allowed to choose whether we wanted to upgrade.

However, your entire premise is faulty anyway. I just called two flooring stores in the area after reading your response. One of them actually laughed. He said that they never offer gluing down luan as a cost effective method. They don't want to get angry customers back in their faces when this exact situation happens.

It is amazing how you ascribe motivations and know exactly how I would decide. Why don't you spend your energy being helpful instead of wasting time with useless posts.

I agree 100% with roadrider. If it was their standard way of installing, and it did not fail, than forget about it.Do you have a contract regarding the floor stating that it will be an easy rip out years down the road? Vinyl theories have changed so much throughout the years that who knows what was considered appropriate at the time of that install or what your contractor may have wanted. The store has an obligation to make sure that their floors perform. I agree that you should not glue down an install as I feel it would me more costly than a staple in and more so of the interaction of the adhesive staining through to vinyl. You would have an impossible time in court getting anywhere with this.

Obviously using the word "case" was misleading. I was never going to sue the flooring company. I meant is this enough of a bad install that I should approach them and ask for reimbursement for the extra costs associated with tearing it out. And, it seems that both of you disagree with which one would be the more expensive install. Roadrider says I got a cheaper install and echoflooring seems to think it was a costlier install.

In any event, it seems I'm stuck paying for the removal because of the number of years past and the fact that the floors did not fail. However, I have learned a valuable lesson to ask every installer how they will install any type of flooring and research it to make sure they know what they're doing and now causing me a future headache.