For Dina question earlier. I put scrap pieces of our flooring in a bucket of water for two days and very little water problem noted. Perhaps a very little where end had been cut; but very little. Ones I left outside for several months looked fine. I was just testing its water resistance myself and it did well.

Elaine, you really need to contact the person you bought the trim piece from. Trim pieces are not all made of the same thing and so we couldn’t advise on what glue would be appropriate.

Thanks for letting us know on your test. We did that test too and had the same result.

American OEM Not a good option for us to contact our contractor who purchased the thresholds. Did some sketchy work for us on quarter rounds for flooring and when repainted baseboards.

Do you sell thresholds that match your flooring?
These look just like our Hermitage floors.
Not sure where we go if we can’t use our contractor.

Can you send me a photo of both sides of the trim piece?

American OEM The trim piece is lifting up not completely up at this point in time. Tried using a flashlight to make the gap more visible which is about the best I could do.

Ok. Appreciate the effort. Two questions; what glue was used before that failed? And is it a solid piece of wood?

Not sure what glue was used, but my husband thinks it looks like liquid nails. Looks like a solid piece of wood.

@American OEM Wood Floors, nobody has contact me yet regarding the issue (see comments from 16 days ago).

Where do you live James?

Summerville, SC

Ok. Thanks.

James, there are two layers companies between you and me. I know who we sell in Summerville but they don’t know who sold the floor to you. Can you either tell me their name or contact them and make a formal complaint if you have not done so already?

Woodboys is who sold it. I have not yeat made the formal complaint, as I was somewhat waiting to see the response on here after the communication a couple weeks ago. I have, however, spoken to the salesperson during the interim.

Thank you. I’d go ahead and make the formal complaint.

does anyone have any positive or negative reviews after having the floor installed over a year

Thoughts on this flooring in a basement? ive always heard no wood floors in a basement…we’ve never had a water problem (knock on wood;). I love our sample of Old Hickory (Nashville), but the pic on back seems way more contrasting than the sample. i dont want a super busy floor. would love to aee pics if someone has installed this color!

We are also having a gapping issue. Has anyone gotten this resolved? What was done?

What is the recommended process for leveling subfloor prior to laying the Raintree product?

American OEM Wood Floors, do we have an update on the availability of the new colors?

They are enroute to our distributors.

American OEM, is the gapping issue broader product, specific skus, or install related. If unknown, any timeline to find out? I love the floors and want to buy them but this has me concerned.

Hello,

We just had 2800sq ft installed in a new build. They are truly lovely looking, BUT.....like many others we already notice the same gapping issues everyone else is speaking of. (Will add pictures shortly).

I researched for over 9 months on our floors while we waited for the extended times of building and kept coming back to Raintree.

We were quoted a fair price initially, but sadly the Rep for Raintree would not hold this quote as promised, even when their out of stock issue was the main reason we could not order.

We were told initially this product was made in the USA, which we later found out is not the case, it is made in China. (The owner of American OEM was honest about this manufacturing process, but Rep was not).

We feel so let down with Raintree Floors.

We should have spent the extra few grand to do real hardwood...

@Sarat Kosuri I would seriously consider other lines. OR wait for the new colors to come to your local supplier and wait to see if these items have the same issues.

My guess is all the lines that are those that had been sitting on vessels out in the ocean for months getting exposed to many weather conditions that have caused problems unseen to the eye, most likely in the core layers where ends are exposed, causing these issues.

I would encourage anyone looking to purchase/install these floors to look elsewhere. The amount of customers with this gapping issue is alarming. I went down the rabbit hole on this post. Countless people and as far as I can tell no one has gotten the issue resolved.

@mommyaf_2 how were you able to get in touch with the owner? I have not had any luck.

@ Jamie Goodwin it was through the Raintree website. Don Finkell is his name and he seemed to be an honest man.

I was directed to his marketing team under White Label Studio for other questions related to their social media outlets, but was not able to find any negative press on this product no matter where I searched. Until recently, but it's months too late. We purchased back in late September in prep for the build being finished in January (it just got done). Installers loved the floors and they way they went down, raved about the ease and mentioned many good things.

We moved in less than 2 wks after the floors were finished and already we have GAPS!

@American OEM Wood Floors

I am based in Bay Area, CA and my contractor just installed my flooring but we're just short 5 long pieces of Laguna Vibes Soleil. Is there anyway I could get these directly from you guys? I'm trying to figure out what would be the most economical way of getting this

Thanks for all of the advice @mommyaf_2! I really wish I could have moved forward with Raintree. If there are any comparable alternatives that anyone recommends, please let me know. @American OEM Wood Floors please continue to update us if you can confirm quality checks on First Flurry and/or guarantee that there won't be gapping issues.

Sarat, Raintree is a beautiful floor to have and look at no doubt, but we have some gapping issues too and it hasn’t been a year.

I havw the same issue as well just had mine installed in january in my kitchen, living area, dining room, bathroom and laundry room and there is random gapping in each room. didsappinting as it looks beautiful otherwise.

For what it’s worth we installed first flurry just a year ago. We did our own installing and we were very picky at how things went together. We so far have had no gapping issues and still love the floors so much. We have a big dog and 4 active kids the floors still look new. We get lots of compliments as well. We have recommended this floor and know of another person that used the same flooring. They are only 6 months in and have had no issues as well. I wonder what then causes this falling issue. We are still watching to make sure it doesn’t become a issue.

We had First Flurry installed in August and had gapping issues in a few spots pretty quickly after the installation. Sadly, it's not the biggest issue. The bevel appears to be de-laminating or something in many places. It looks like nail polish that's chipping off and exposing a dark area underneath. It looks terrible. We're pretty unhappy with the floor overall and it's not something I would recommend to anyone.

Sadly, we have some new issues that we've noticed in the past 2 weeks - there are 3 separate areas in our house (nowhere near each other) where the wood part is actually lifting off of the substrate underneath. Our floor is 9 months old. We've decided that it's bad enough that it needs to be addressed so we contacted our installer to file a claim.

I had commented on this post awhile ago- we are 8 months since installation. I researched extensively at the time and there were none of these issues at that time. Gaps were noticed immediately, despite us being very picky and installing them as per directions. We had contacted our flooring rep but obviously they were off the hook since it was self installed. I had reach out to Raintree company to see if they had information about what could be done to fix gaps- and never heard back from them.

After doing some asking around we ended up using crazy glue on the short seams and that seems to have solved the problem (for now). I would not recommend these floors to anyone, despite enjoying the looks and decent durability.

Erin Rouse, same issues with bevels de-laminating :(.

Julia I., while I'm glad to hear it's not isolated to us, it's unfortunate that this is affecting so many. There are lots of hard-earned dollars wasted here. Interesting to see that Raintree reps have completely disappeared now that so many issues are coming to light...

I wanted to show two different areas where our floors are literally coming apart (the wood is completely separating from the plank underneath) so that people can be warned about this. Our floors are 9 months old and have been treated well. We have small dogs, but we've always followed the cleaning instructions and we aren't rough on the floors. This should definitely not be happening.

I know these issues look similar but it's two different areas about 15' across the room. There's at least one other area upstairs doing this same thing, plus the gapping, plus the bevel delaminating. We installed this (Raintree First Flurry) last August in our entire home (around 1600 sq. ft.). Looks like we'll be ripping this out before we sell. :-/

Video link 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUdDn07IRmQ

Video link 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5oYRbsDFTw

I've been watching this thread for a couple of years and it has been something to behold.

Here are a couple of thoughts which may be unpopular but as someone who has over a decade of experience installing, sanding, and finishing hardwood floors, this is what I see, but again take it with a grain of salt and good luck to all.

For those whose floors are coming apart at the edges, I imagine it is most likely wood shear.

Here is an article about this:

https://www.woodfloorbusiness.com/installation/troubleshooting/article/15133164/wood-flooring-shear-or-delamination-and-whos-at-fault

Hardwood needs to be in an environment in which the relative humidity is around 30 to 50 percent.....otherwise you will get seperation or even cupping/swelling.

As far as gaps......very likely poor installation techniques were used unbeknownst to the homeowners here who are complaining about that particular issue.

Just some thoughts from a long time observer, good luck to all!

I ended up buying the floors even after reading all the comments. They are beautiful! we conditioned them for weeks in advance of professional installation. I will post again in six months to report back.

Interesting article! The issue we're having with the floor coming off of its core is not due to humidity issues as it has been tested by the flooring installer and the inspector multiple times and our house is within acceptable limits - our own HVAC system backs this up as well. Our issues are continuing to grow in number and the inspector did find that there is a finish issue with our flooring that is a true defect. Our installer is communicating with the appropriate people and we will either have it replaced with Raintree (I'm hesitant) or we'll have to pay the labor for another solution. Raintree is refunding the product cost in its entirety apparently.

floor separating and turning black in my kitchen

Have the issues been resolved? We are looking to purchase this floor but came across this post.

Our local store only had a few of the samples, so we are waiting for some small samples to be sent to us. Would love too see some photos of the floor installed! it is hard fo find photos! We ordered samples of First flurry, castle creek or driftwood.

I don't have any nice photos, but this is First Flurry with our apparently headless cat. In it you can see the giant gap and at the very bottom right you can see a huge chunk of wood missing that simply popped off. Another piece on the other side of this board came off in my foot as I was walking by one day. This is happening in multiple places on our floor.

Our entire house is being replaced because issues were found by the independant inspector. Our first choice was to have it replaced with another material because this started happening within 6 months of this floor being laid and we're gentle with them and have the correct humidity. Unfortunately Raintree wouldn't pay for such a thing or refund the entire amount for us to apply somewhere else. We're currently building a house so will be moving and we've elected to have our flooring installer hold the replacement material from Raintree until we're moved so we don't have to live through the experience again. I don't have high hopes for it being long lasting, but who knows if maybe they just had a bunch of bad batches?

We considered Egret, Castle Creek, and First Flurry for our color choices and I think Egret and Castle Creek would've been a huge mistake for us. First Flurry is sitting right on the edge of the unnatural color spectrum and the other two are definitely more grey/trendy/already dated IMO. I didn't love First Flurry installed as much as I loved our initial sample box, but it's a huge improvement from our old original orange maple...maybe even with the huge chunks missing. LOL

We installed about 5 months ago in our basement. we conditooned the fooring for several werks in advance. we havent had any issues described here. our contractors should have leveled our concrete because there are many soft spots in the floor. but thats really on our contractors more than this company.

Our floors were installed 2 years ago and we also have not had any issues with separation, chipping, discoloration, etc. They still look great even with pets that get the zoomies all over the place and kids that practice dribbling basketballs in the basement. We have Castle Creek throughout the entire basement and lower level bedroom. Love the light, modern color. I highly recommend this flooring based on our experience with it.

I, too, have Castle Creek---it was installed in every room of my condo other than the bathroom in April 2020 by a professional flooring company. I did have one instance of separation about 12 months later but I think it occurred because the separation was about 8-10 inches from a floor window frame. My handyman was able to easily kick the separated piece back into place. We put a bit of glue in and cleaned the sole of his shoe before kicking the pieces together. Otherwise no issues---and I love, love, love this flooring!

I was in a similar situation last year when I was considering these floors and stumbled upon this thread (you can see I posted last year)

Now that a year has pretty much passed, these floors have held up well and I haven't noticed any floor separation. Floors have held up pretty well with two kids and constant spills/drops.

Thanks for the information!

@HU-728167709 @longn321 @rbj02013102 can you share photos?

I'm actively looking into these floors, so I'm happy that people are giving newer updates on this thread. I'm looking at First Flurry, Music Row, and maybe Roving Elk. I wish there were more real life photos of these floors in real spaces, to get a better feel of how they look, and the actual variation of colors.

@Amy Schwartz Clancy I am considering installing driftwood. Were your separation issues resolved? Are you happy with the durabilty/quality of the floors? I brought home 2 sample boards of driftwood home and they look like 2 totally different floors. The one sample i thought pulled green undertones and the other sample was a warm medium toned brown (which is what I am wanting). Can you share photos, it would be great to see what the floor looks like as a whole. What do you think of the color?

@American OEM Wood Floors Any update on the issues posted here with separation, delamination, peeling of bevel? I am sure we are not alone in our hesitation of purchasing Raintree after reading these posts. Any update from anyone would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise we will not chance it and will move on.

Last summer we bought a condo with Raintree flooring on the main level living room, dining room and hall. The floors are beautiful. Over the winter we had several areas where the ends of the planks have separated and left a gap. We are not sure what to do to get them back together. There is only one dealer in our area, so I assume that is where the original owners bought the flooring (maybe install too), but since we are not the original owners, I assume no warrantee. Can they be slid back together? Should the ends be glued?