Cork works for me.

HISTORY: New construction in 2001. Florida home, concrete slab. Cork in kitchen, nook, which flows into family room, to a small back vestibule that leads to garage, back door, and half bath. PROBLEMS: 1)Family room has three floor electrical outlets, which I think at the time they laid the cork floor, not the best job of carving around the outlets. Bummer is we never ended up using the outlets (like for a table lamp in the center of the room). It feels hollow under the outlets, but friends tell me it is no big deal, either aesthetically or otherwise. 2) Hurricanes in 2004: Who knew at the time that the back door in that vestibule was not well protected by exterior gutters and that area would take a pounding of rain, thus coming over the door jamb, and you guessed it, getting under the floor in that area. Now it is woefully peeled up, such that I must remove at least that area, and probably put down tile in the vestible and adjacent bath for continuity. It is lifting as well, by the kitchen door, right at the jamb, where it took some moisture, and I'm thinking of putting a half round of tile there too, for water protection. 3) PARAKEETS!!!!! Yes, I have two delightful parakeets who like to play on the floor in the nook, near their birdcage. Well, those little critters I now see, found an area of cork that they began to nibble on, and sure enough, the top veneer is gone in about a nickel size area. I also found that over where the cork meets the baseboard, they have been nibbling away. POSSIBLE REMEDY: Now that I see several problems, rather than patch the damage by the hurricanes with a carve out of tile by both front and back doors, I'm thinking seriously of tearing out the entire floor...this is a pretty large area, but geeze, I have the back end, the front end, and the outlets in the middle that are steering me to make such a costly decision. COMPLICATING FACTOR: Part of all that cork floor meets the dining room, which is tile. There is a threshold or maybe you call it a transom....2" wide strip of ceramic that separates the two types of floor. That is fine, BUT if I choose to tile where my cork is, I can not find the same tile now, as in the dining room, so that will look STUPID to have two obviously different tiles right next to one another. Plus, I have enjoyed the comfort of cork. Maybe I should rip all the cork out, put tile at the potentially wet doors, and then put hardwood down, which would look fine next to the dining room tiles, and I could take out the stupid floor outlets, or get a good installer who will do a good job around them for the next person who lives here and could use them. Maybe I should just plan on doing the carve outs and ignore the parakeet damage and the outlets? I hate to get rid of the cork, but I think I might make the floor too chopped up looking with little half moons of tile at the doors....maybe I should do a decorative medallion of some type at the doors in tile, and, you see, this is a big problem of several little ones, and I need your advice. Can you offer ideas on floors, that can butt up to tile, and how to protect the wet areas that sometimes occur. I will say that my cork around my sink and food prep and dishwasher areas, which sometimes gets some droplets from me, is perfectly fine, but I can see my spills and wipe them right away. Cork is under the fridge, which is a built in SZ, that I dare not pull out, so cork will have to stay there for sure. I do not believe the cork is under the kitchen cabinets. The storm damage occurred slowly over time. I must deal with it some day soon at that back door for sure. Maybe there is mold under that back door area too. Looks kinda dark where it lifted. Also, I may plan to sell this house in 5 years or so, so I would want something appealing to a future buyer...read: something routine and neutral. OK I'm done. Thanks for reading and please offer me some advice! Acey

Yikes, we just had a local Flooring Contractor begin our flooring project. We're replacing the carpet that was original to the home, and ripping out the tile in several areas to install LVP over slab. The Contractor talked a great game, telling us about his 15 years experience and his "5 Star" reviews. When I asked about getting the old carpet glue up, he assured me he had a "power scraper" that will take the glue right up. Asked about filling nail holes from tack strips, he said he had self leveling stuff to fill those. My wife and I knowing we were getting new flooring began removing old carpet and tack strips where accessible. I filled the little craters left by pulling up the tack strip and scraped up what I could with the glue. Figuring this would save some time for the contractor. Well when it came to do the actual prep, he suddenly changed tune saying he's never fills those hole in the concrete it doesn't affect the floor at all and is a waste of time. I can see that might be true with the small holes, but pulling up the tack strips left from pretty sizable "craters." The next "red flag" was when he changed his tune on scraping the glue, he claimed the underlayment would take up any imperfections and we'd never notice once the floors are in. He said something interesting, when he said that when he's installing he asks himself if the floor will feel good under foot to the customer. Which we took to mean, if the customer never knows he didn't do a proper prep or follow manufacturer installation requirements, it's a win. When it came to following Manufacturers installation procedure, he claimed that's just CYA stuff and he does it his way. Running the underlayment perpendicular to the direction of the LVP, nah, he said you don't really need to do that, besides it takes more time. Then there's the logistic accommodations we went over with him from the get go, due to our pets. He agreed to 3 phases...until he began work then he suddenly claimed he never agreed to 3 phases, just two, then went into how he's never had a client who couldn't just put the pets in carriers and put them all in one room, then he questioned why we would adopt feral cats. That was not his job to judge our choice to rescue some cats. Oh it gets worse, with him not respecting our property. When he was taking up the tile in a bathroom, he put the toilet in our Jacuzzi shower. Did not cover the glass shower doors to protect them from "flying" mastic and tile chips. When we called him on it, the excuse was "I know what that shower is made of, and putting the toilet in there won't hurt it." We said that wasn't the point, the point was you didn't respect our property. Anyway it was excuse after excuse, argument after argument about how we trying to tell him how to do his job. Well in the end he was pretty pissed off that we expected he followed through on things we discussed and do a proper surface prep, so he quit the job. We now have a living room with basically a pallet of LVP, boxes of QuietWalk and bundles of base board. We've got another contractor coming in a few days to give us a quote on completing the project.

"I recently discovered my contractor did not use a moisture barrier." "Yes a moisture barrier was on instructions" Did you buy the flooring and pay separately for the installation? Because you have no warranty om the material and will only continue to have issues. They need to make you whole, either every dollar returned (material and labor, plus the demo to remove their screw up) or another floor installed 100% correct (on their dime). Nothing less as you will only continue to have issues.