I would put them all in a bundle and find a safe place for them, until you get them exactly right. I most certainly would not let him caulk them. Thats ridiculous. If they have to come off, they sure shouldnt be caulked or painted. I would just leave them all off for now.

You're moving into a house that will need to have the floors ripped out and replaced?!? I'd try to find any way that you could push that off even if it meant living in a cheap hotel room for a couple of weeks.

As said above, don't install the baseboards.

Greg_2015 yes... this whole job was supposed to take six months it is now going on more than a year. We have gone from living with the in-laws for eight months to a month to month apartment to a hotel for the past about two months. All the while paying a mortgage. We can not afford it any longer. The contractor will not stick to his schedule and now we have a complaint filed with the contractors board. As of next week, the floors will be the only thing keeping us from moving in and like I said it could be another eight weeks before we get an answer and then a fight with the contractor to do the right thing. (Or us pay for re-install and take him to court). Either way we have to wait for the manufacturer’s certified flooring inspector.
So yes, we do need to move into a house with bad floors.
I am comparing it to if we already lived there for 5 years and we were having the floors replaced and the job was bad and now we need them corrected. People replace their floors all the time while they live in their house.

If you have to move in, then I'd move minimal stuff in if you can.

I'm not really sure why having a dog and a baby would mean that you'd need baseboards. The dog is especially baffling to me. What would a dog do?

With the baby, I'd just keep a closer eye on them crawling around for the few weeks that you'll be in the house. Or lay something along the edges of the rooms to block access to the edges. Blankets or something. Don't install the baseboards.

There are exactly zero circumstances that would persuade me to install baseboards in your situation. Or move back into that house. He is wanting to leverage his position by making it much harder to fix the issue so you will let it go. You have the advantage right now. You can get the retailer and factory rep out and something g happen far sooner if you are the one making it happen. He had no incentive to make it happen. In fact, he knows that once you are moved in, you will just likely give up so you don’t have to move out again.

@greendesigns he thinks it’s is a product issue. I am the one in contact with the manufacturer. Unfortunately there is a process you must go through which starts with sales rep/flooring shop owner—-> distributor—->manufacturer. The shop came out first. Then the distributor came and took photos and a write up for the manufacturer. Next the manufacturer will send the certified flooring installer. It takes 6-8 weeks for the appointment. I have made all the calls and I’m the one following through. I will not let this go and no, we are not moving out to have them repaired. Like I said before, if we had lived in this house for 5 years and we were just replacing the floors we would not be expected to move out. We have minimal furniture and it can be scooted around just like replacing floors if you live in the house already. If the contractor puts up a fight when it comes back that it was a bad install not bad product , we will pay someone else to fix it and take him to court. But we need to move in now.

You cannot replace the floors without moving out. That's a standard expectation for any flooring project like that, especially since that was the condition that it was installed in the first time. Doing what you are describing makes the job take longer, and cost a lot more. Plus you do not get as good a result.

I just don’t think that’s an accurate statement. People replace their whole floors all the time. I have lived in houses growing up where we had to put in new floors, put in new carpet, refinish and stain existing floors... all before putting the house on the market. There are plenty of situations where people want new floors but you can’t expect them to completely move out of the house. As I said in my original post and comments, we have no choice but to move in at this point and can not afford to wait another 8 weeks for a decision plus longer for the repair. Are we supposed to be homeless? BTW- the owner of the flooring business and the distributor both said to go ahead and move in while we wait. IF we need to get a hotel again for a few days when the floors get fixed then that can be done a lot easier than remaining in a hotel for another 8+ weeks.

Tanna. who is installing the base, if you really, really need it.
If it were me, I would vacuum and clean like crazy, or hire someone to do the same, and put off installing base.
If you do allow base install, don't allow caulk or adhesive anywhere.
I am so sorry about your experience. Best of luck for a speedy and good resolution for your family.

Seems like the consensus is don’t install the baseboards. Ok. Yes we already have cleaned like crazy and we will again when we move in. The contractor is still working right now finishing the bathrooms and we walked into a house filled with cement rocks from tiling the bathroom literally getting smooshed into our floors! I don’t plan on letting the baby crawl around anyway because of the edges that don’t meet- they could seriously cause some bloody knees. But, we have a GIANT inflatable pool we use as a playpen where we are at now and we will just continue to use that.

Those pics alone tell me all I need to know to say that I would guarantee that the flooring issues are installation related. He did absolutely nothing (possibly less than) to protect your floors. That should have Ram Board covering it with taped seams. What is that as it diesn't look like felt or a tarp?

You have renovation fatigue and are not thinking clearly. Stay off of those floors. Don’t install anything. It will be 4x as hard to deal with the removal and replacement. That change in labor won’t be covered under any contract or replacement agreement. It will come out of your pocket.

@millworkman it is plastic, like garbage bag material. We ripped it all out and there it outside when we cleaned last weekend. There a dirt and cement on top of it and under it so serves ZERO purpose. If anything made it worse since you couldn’t see what was under it and you would walk on it anyway.

@greendesigns I really don’t know what to say. We can’t continue to pay a $3000 mortgage on top of insurance for a vacant/under construction house, on top of nightly hotel on top of pet boarding. The contractor is going to fight this I do not see him taking responsibility. And obviously I don’t trust him or the people he hires for a reinstall so I don’t really know what happened when it comes out that it was an install issue. Do we pay for someone else to install and then take him to court? I don’t know but I do know he will fight this.

Have him cut the baseboards and secure them in place with a dab of hot melt adhesive every 4' or so. That's plenty to hold them temporarily. No caulk; no nails.

OK...I'm going to give you a little piece of advice re: Certified Inspector. You aren't going to like it but here we go: The inspection report belongs to the person/company who PAID for it. If the company pays for the inspector (what type of certification?) then the company OWNS the report and has NO NEED to share the results with you. The only way you can compel them to release the document is through the courts during 'disclosure'. Don't panic! There is a way around this.

Find/pay for your OWN flooring inspector. Yep. A few hundred bucks and the inspection can happen as QUICKLY as you need it to happen. Even though this is a vinyl floor, you can reach out to the National Wood Flooring Association (www.nwfa.org) to find out where you can find Certified Flooring Inspectors.

I've seen inspectors respond/arrive at the property within DAYS of first contact. In your situation, you are paying huge amounts of money to stay 'out' of the house. You need to, financially, get back INTO the house. That means the FASTER you get an inspection, the faster you get resolution.

I'm going to bet my first born that you will NOT see hide nor hair of that inspector's report. And someone is going to say it was 'installation error' and then deny you the claim. Which leaves you exactly where you are right now....which is out of the house and pointing fingers at the GC.

You can head this off at the pass (so to speak). You can hire YOUR OWN inspector and have your OWN document that states 'installation error' (which would make TWO documents from two separate inspectors stating install error) and that will be one HECK of a 'big stick' you can use against the GC.

While you wait for your OWN inspector to call you back (because you googled everything as soon as you read my post) you will need to pull out your FLOORING contract (where ever/whatever that is) and look up how much you paid for SUBFLOOR preparation. And then, because you are already digging around in the house, you will also find/print the INSTALLATION instructions for your product. You will have BOTH of these documents ready for your own inspector to come in and view the project.

As for the baseboards...leave them OFF. The flooring inspector (both yours and theirs) will have to SEE the expansion gap at the walls. Which is SUPER HELPFUL if the baseboards are NOT installed.

Please tell us what product you used (brand, line, name, specs) and we will see if we can dig up a few bits and pieces for you. I can tell you right now, the expansion gap at the walls is probably too small. Are there any transition strips through doorways? Most vinyl has maximum runs...and those runs are determined by the CLICK SYSTEM. A thin product with a low-grab click edge has a maximum run of 25 feet and must ALWAYS have transition strips through doorways. A thicker product with a high-grab click system will have a maximum run of 40 feet which may NOT need a transition strip through doorways...but sometimes it needs it simply because of the total run or the width of the doorway.

Whew! Lots to work with. Leave the baseboards OFF, call your OWN inspector and dig up every single stick of information you have on your flooring contract and on your floor product itself. You are going to need all of it.

@SJ McCarthy funny you suggest I was thinking about that yesterday, what if I just hire my own flooring inspector to speed up the process? I was even thinking I could do that and share the results with the manufacture. Just to speed up the process. But what you said makes sense, to hire my own and then have them still do theirs. I actually contacted like 10 flooring installers last week to ask if any of them could come out and tell us what is wrong with our floors. A few of them would charge me, a few of them said I should wait for the manufacturer to finish the claims process because no one should touch it until the manufacturer makes a decision. But of those flooring installers, as far as I know none of them are certified flooring inspectors because I had no idea where to actually find one of those (now I do thanks).
When the distributor came out here asked our contractor to see the tool that was used to install the floors, our contractor said since his flooring guys couldn’t make it to the appointment he has no way to show them the tool they use but that “these guys are professionals”. The contractor also did our subfloors and was adamant that they were even. It seemed that the distributor and the flooring retailer both came to the conclusion that the subfloors are not perfectly even as well as the planks were hammered in too hard and with the wrong tool. They mentioned this in passing but when I asked them a couple days later they said they could not say out loud what they know the problem to be and I must wait for the flooring inspector.
My contractor asked for more boxes of material to fix what he believes is only the hallway with the problem. Again I believe it’s the whole house. He also said he would like to try to put transition strips in all the doorways to fix the problem however I told him for now I do not authorize that. I want an inspector to see the entire floors as-is because at this point I don’t think transition strips will fix the terrible job that is all over the house and not just in the hallway. I also don’t want transition strips in doorways if it’s not needed because it doesn’t look good and messes with the flow of the material (but I can see doing it if it’s needed just not if it’s not going to fix the problem).
The material is Engage Genesis 800 by Metroflor.
My contractor is trying to tell us it is a bad product and I should never have got it. Everywhere I look it seems to be one of the better products out there and has one of the best warranties in the business.

Here is the Technical Data Sheet: https://www.metroflorusa.com/pdf/Engage%20Genesis%20800%20-%20Tech%20Data%20Sheet.pdf

This is a 7mm thick floor (rigid core) vinyl product (it is vinyl on vinyl) with an attached underpad. The click edge is 'Droplock' which is pretty decent for 'grab'. These sometimes need transition strips whereas other times it does not.

Here is the Installation Instructions for the Droplock products: https://metroflorusawebsite-ctkw0sepoxqfcr.stackpathdns.com/pdf/Engage_Genesis_DL100_Handout_final.pdf

Inspect substrates for level. They must be sturdy, sound, and flat within 1⁄8" in a 6-foot radius, and 3⁄16 of an inch within a 10-foot radius. The substrate should not slope more than 1 inch per 6 feet in any direction.

This is just the first warning. There are 3 requirements for 'flat and level'...

Expansion gaps must be 1/4" (7mm = the thickness of the plank = common practice) around all perimeters/horizontal surfaces. The maximum run = 100 ft but that must be tempered by the TOTAL amount of flooring that is connected to everything else. Really long and narrow hallways running into bedrooms on one end and a MASSIVE great room on the other (1000sf great room+kitchen) will probably need a little bit of extra love (transition strips).

One thing that all of these click-edges require is patience and 'tapping'. The Droplock system is pretty fast and pretty easy to do (relatively speaking). But it still requires 'love'. Each and every seam (long and short) needs a couple of taps (on top of the board) to get them to engage properly. The droplock system uses a double technique of 'tapping block' on the long edge and a dead blow hammer (rubber hammer) on TOP of the short edges. That means two tools are required to get this product into place...not just one. The installer must take the time/patience to tap BOTH edges properly each and EVERY TIME s/he installs a plank. This is tedious and some installers feel like they can ignore the short edges because they feel like they go together so perfectly. THEY LIE! Don't believe the 'plank'. It always needs a few taps (not even one...it needs a few) for each and every seam.

Whew. You can see how the installers can 'get going' with one tool only to forget to use the other. It happens...but not for a full floor. I'm going to bet the subfloor is the issue. Which means the manufacturer won't touch this claim.

Following.