On Sunday, I had an new floor installed to replacing carpeting in a ~350 sqft room, in a vacant house I have just purchased as my first home in California. The material is 3/4" x 5" solid cumaru ("Brazilian Teak"), of Peruvian origin, prefinished, from a local, well-regarded distributor. The only brand name I have is "Senza Tempo Collection." From what I can tell, it did not come with any instructions.

Right after it was installed, I thought everything looked absolutely lovely. But then as I started to look closer, I found a bunch of small imperfections, and I'm starting to wonder about the quality of the work. I have zero background in hardwood though, so I'm really not sure; are all of these things I found normal?

The installer is a local guy who employs a number of other people to help him; he was not present at the install. He has absolutely solid, glowing Yelp reviews, 5 stars all the way, and is licensed. I expected top-notch work.

First, overall shot. Looks great huh?

1. Big arsed end gap

My euphoria faded in a hurry when I found this one, right in the entryway:

Looks like the chop saw was off a few degrees here, and the installer didn't notice or didn't care. Fortunately, this is the worst one, but it's right by the entryway. I noticed it, and wasn't even looking for problems. But there's a few other places too that needed to be filled.

2. Bucking at the final plank

Once I actually started hunting for problems, the first thing I noticed is some pretty substantial buckling at the last plank:

3. Squeaks

There's a couple small ones, and one bigger one, maybe more of a "creak," that actually has a distinctly "woody" sound, like two planks rubbing or something. (There was an existing squeak near the entryway that they tried to fix with a screw, but it's still there; I'm assuming this is an issue with the subfloor/joist interface that isn't something they can fix.)

4. Subfloor gouge

I just bought the house, so I can't say definitively that they did this...

Yeah, that is terra firma underneath the crawlspace, dirt, that the flashlight is illuminating. Maybe they didn't cause it, but perhaps they should have at least patched the part of it running under the wood? The cut goes right up to and under the first board.

Also, should there be underlayment visible here? This spot is going to have a transition to tile, that they will be installing in a few days. I don't see underlayment anywhere on the edge, although I thought I saw them putting something down during installation.

5. An H joint

I didn't know what this was at first, just that it stood out to me. Looks like opinions are split on whether an H joint is a problem, and it's just this one...

6. Many holes, dings, and scratches

Most of these are concentrating in the entry area, which just makes me a bit sad. Here's a small sample:

7. Glue smudges

This isn't the soft wood filler used elsewhere; it's some kind of hard adhesive, I think the stuff used to glue down the first board here. The contractor said he'd come clean this one off, but I have some doubts about how that's going to go; it's on there pretty good. Again, it's in an entryway. (The existing red oak above is slightly water damaged and is going to be replaced with tile.)

There's a number of other smudges throughout, but they're the wood filler that seems easier to get off.

8. Misc: stairstepping, some gaps in caulk near an exterior door

In the original photo above, you can actually see a bit of stairstepping; I'm not sure if that's avoidable or not. It certainly seems like there's a lot of short boards, but I'm not sure if the installer was much control over that.

Conclusion:

OK so, here's what I desperately need to know:

Is all of the above stuff basically par for the course, standard of this kind of install job, that I should be satisfied with? And perhaps I'm just being a bit petty? After all, it's going to get torn up anyway once I use it, right?

Or is some of this cause for concern? If so, what exactly should I ask the contractor to do about it? That gappy end right in the entryway is a bit of a bummer; I also found a dimple nearby I forgot to photograph. But it seems pretty unreasonable for me to ask him to tear up a bunch of floor to cut it straight again, replace the dimpled board, etc.

Also I was surprised to find very little material left over, under 10sqft, all boards 2' or less. So I'm not sure if there's much that can be done either way. However, this same guy is about to start doing a bunch of floor tile for me...

Finally, my first instinct was to get a professional second opinion. So I tried to reach out to some of the 'certified inspectors' off a list, and I wasn't able to reach any of them. So that was a real bust. If anyone with the creds is in the San Jose, CA area and would happy to take a quick look for a reasonable fee, I'd love to hear from you privately.

Honestly I'm feeling pretty bummed... so I'd very much appreciate any advice you folks have to offer.