Steff--The owner decided to meet with me at the houe in the morning with the installer to make sure everything went right. I think he senses I'm being a nervous nelly. Lavender--I'll post some update pics and the status on the update thread from the weekend called something about "special sect of AA for TKO" or similar. There are no pictures of the wood now....see my update below. Idrive--The way he explained it to me was that they could leave the stack of wood sitting in my house for a week, and the middle of the planks in the middle of the pile would not be of the same moisture content as the ends and planks on the top. So even if the pile sat longer, it wouldn't make that much of a difference. By installing the floors and waiting for the sand/finish, it gives those boards that need a tiny bit more drying out the time to do so. Sanding and finishing the few boards that didn't have a chance to acclimatize completely before install is a bad thing I thinkin'. UPDATE: Met the owner and installer at the house early this a.m. to answer any last questions and watch them get started. They took their moisture readings before I could even get the kids completely out of the car. Bad news. The plywood subfloor was extremely damp. The white oak planks were dried out well enough to install, but they can't be put down in a floor that has so much moisture. We were all shocked. The owner didn't think the subfloor would even be ready for planks in a week. He thinks it'll probably take two weeks for the plywood to sufficiently dry. ARRRRGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I hate to sound so pathetic, but it seems all I do is report setbacks and problems. I now have to reschedule the other trades waiting to come in after the floor went down. And, we have to push our temporary house move-out date back again. The owner will be so delighted with yet another setback. ;)

I just went through the same thing. But then I'm a rehabber and get my fixer uppers at foreclosure sales at half their final market value. Hand the contractor a copy of your photos, and then simply lock the contractor out of the house. Ignore any payment the contractor thinks they have coming. And start over. Document what's there. but it looks like you have plenty of pictures in hand in case the contractor has the gall to complain later formally or try to take credit for someone else's work. Moving on, the first thing you'll want to do is change your mindset to only contracting out a room or two at a time. If the contractor doesn't work out, there is less money involved. I've never seen a floor contractor who would or could show the work of his last job, especially with old rehab floor boards. I'm sure it is difficult since they often times got fired from their last job. It is true that a good contractor can take one look at your floor and assess it on sight. The problem is that you can't, and you can't tell a real contractor from a poser, and you can't believe anything that you are told by a poser. Next you'll need to assess a room of interest. You'll need to drum sand at 36 or 40 grit. A Home Depot $75/day drum sander will work fine. Always spread lowering the drum control over a 12" long rolling movement to prevent burning the floor, which is the term for a hard drum drop. An untrained millenial with that instruction could do it if you take away his cell phone for the day. You'll need the millenial for the day anyway to lift the sander. Subsequent sandings at higher grit numbers will follow. End with an orbital 12x18" sander finish buff at 100 grit starting with pencil marks on 5 separate occasions then twice with the 12x18" screen buff with use of a $1 carpenters pencil to scribble on every sq ft of sanded oak between every grit number. Any floor contractor could do it, but few will do it piecemeal. A 6" 60 grit disc on a Harbor Freight $130 Hercules Sander is used for edge sanding and to feather out any accidental drum drops which are simple to find after the first coat of stain is applied. Stay clear of professional edge sanders, which homeowners often times call the Tasmanian Devil. Stain and finish are applied wearing an FDA Approved air pressure mask fed by an air hose from a $500 HobbyAir machine plugged in outdoors. The proactive approach is more like feeling out the unstained floor with finger tips like Helen Keller or shining daylight or hallogen light on the bare sanded oak before staining to find any dips caused by hard drum drops. Using a flooring contractor, probably the best you could do would be an option to quit at $1 a sq/ft or two if the drum sanding doesn't yield accceptable results. If the floor gets too thin or the marks you wish to lose are too deep to sand out before making the floor too thin, then you have your answer, and you are ready for new wood. New wood doesn't cost much. I paid $3.20 sq/ft for the wood material plus self installation. Always pay more for longer boards in the mix. And your floor looks beat and pet or plant water stained half to death anyways. New red oak of dubious quality is widely available on Facebook for $1/sq ft in any sized quanity. You'd think you died and went to heaven if $1/sq ft new oak flooring in 2.5" width was installed in lieu of your existing flooring, moisture content, acclaimation time, and warpage aside...start really small. Dark stain like Minwax Jacobean, two or three coats, and a 15 minute wait time will cover almost anything in minimally acceptable fashion on really beat floors. Once you pull that thread in the sweater of rehab, the whole sweater often times unravels. Replacing wood flooring is not an all or nothing proposition. In one house with 1700 sq ft, I had 2 sq ft replaced in 4 different rooms, before final drum sanding. They can reweave in a repair for about $300 a spot and if the carpenter is good, you can't even tell. It is a refinish contractor who knows the good temp floor carpenters that do good spot repairs. In another house, I paid a demo contractor to remove all the existing boards and then nailed in 3286 sq ft of new red oak using a $160 floor cleat nailer from Harbor Freight, a $50 jig saw, and a $90 Porter Finish nailer from Harbor Freight, and a $160 air compressor from Harbor Freight, and a $110 10" framing saw from Home Depot. It took weekends for a couple of months. Cleats are about $10 a box at Harbor Freight. Any handyman with access to youtube videos can do the installation. The trick is hidden female-female join strips available over the counter from Lumber Liquidators for 50 cents /ft and special order nose pieces for $4/ft that have the 1/4 female grove for level drops like stairs. Works just like lego. Cleats only go in the male connection or tongue side. I hired an unsuspecting millenial handyman through Angi's List by asking for floor leveling and trained him using youtube videos to do the leveling, sanding, staining, and polyurethane paid one day at a time. Even that has to be limited to a room or two a day. Cost was less than half professional estimates and few flooring contractors will do anything without a contract for everything, and you never know which steps he can do well, and which he will fail at. In Chicago, a good flooring contractor has a cost of $1.5 sq ft., but they only like to work in the city limits. In Ohio, it's more like $10/sq ft for just the finish contractor even on simple unfinished new wood installation, which is what they all figure they are worth. You'd have to do a room complete yourself to qualify for project managing others, but then you'd be very capable for knowing when to fire someone. 90% of professional flooring installers fail at floor leveling or rather floor smoothing in older houses. After talking with the president of the NHWA, and the all of the most expensive flooring contractors in my area, it is obvious that I'm the most knowledgeable in leveling or smoothing out 20 year old big box Homes believed to have been built by the cheapest contractors in all the land. Don't allow removal of any wood strips or other underlayment pieces especially those glued or stapled in place under the existing flooring or you risk entering into the wonderland of the next level of skilled craftsman, the floor leveler who will offer to remove your floor boards to the rafters and install new underlayment plywood in lieu of leveling on top of your existing floor underlayment.

Sophie has beaten me to it. The heat/cooling system MUST BE on and running at "ideal living conditions". And that needs to be consistent for several DAYS BEFORE the wood is DELIVERED. Once the wood is DELIVERED to the PERFECTLY CONDITIONED home (ahem....we are missing step 1.), then the wood acclimates to the house conditions for several days to several WEEKS (time is HIGHLY DEPENDENT on the WOOD MOISTURE readings at the time of DELIVERY....sigh). Good, now that the home and the wood are in sync (ie. everything is at living conditions for days and days and days - or even weeks) AND the moisture readings on the wood are PERFECT, you can then install the floors. After installation, the home must REMAIN in the "PERFECT ZONE" for ever and ever amen (pass the ketchup)! No turning off HVAC/AC while away on holidays. As it stands RIGHT NOW....you have to turn on the HVAC and WAIT for days and days and days (or even weeks) before you can install the wood. Ooops. Too late. So "next best option" = finish install ('cause you've already messed up and the warranty is TOTALLY void) and then WAIT. Don't do ANYTHING to these floors. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Niente. Nix. Cover floors with ram board and get that HVAC installed ASAP! Test the wood RIGHT NOW!!! Document what you find. Read the INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS and the WARRANTY instructions while you are waiting for the HVAC guys to show up! Now you turn on HVAC and set it PRECISELY to what is needed (as per wood manufacture's requirements) and then WAIT until the WOOD reaches that point. Good. Now FIX ALL THE PROBLEMS in the floor FIRST (and this could take a while....hopefully you have TREMENDOUS amounts of waste/overage) and THEN start your sand and finish. I'm sorry to say but this floor could be your biggest nightmare come true. With a little luck and a SUPER HIGH END HVAC system that is many THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS MORE than the average HVAC system, you can save your wood. Your situation is all too common. And builders need to be taken to task for allowing the installation in an unconditioned space. Please get the GC to sign a waiver stating that if this floor fails it is HIS/HER fault and he/she MUST TAKE ALL REQUIRED STEPS to remove and replace this floor to your satisfaction...and put a time limit of 5 years on that baby. Just to make sure the builder NEVER does this again! S/He who allowed this to happen MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE for it! And that means a MASSIVE FINANCIAL HIT!

G&S said it best. You are welcome to ask for an addendum to your contract stating that ANY/ALL installation related issues due to lack of acclimation will be dealt with at the installers expense for the next 'X' amount of years. Normally work/labour warranties are 1 year. Some really top guys go 2 years but that's really the end of it. If you aren't happy with the installer's statement of 'delivery day = day of install' then go ahead and give him/her the option. Either extend the acclimation process (including the moisture readings to be given over to you at the end of the job) or they offer an EXTENDED labour/product warranty over and above the 1 year range (go for 3-5 years....that should be enough to get them to take notice) - the moisture readings to be handed over at the end of the job when final payment is received. Be nice as pie. Offer to pay the extra travel time, make sure you are clear, considerate and willing to offer a snick more (their travel time is probably quite long which is why s/he doesn't want to travel more than necessary to get the wood off loaded and then COME BACK to start install and then COME BACK to start the sanding/refinishing and then COME BACK to FINISH the job). And notice how I mentioned the moisture readings to be handed over EITHER WAY? Right. That's the whole point of this exercise. To get the moisture readings at time of final payment. The moisture readings are what tie VERY STICK OF WARRANTY together. Do not waiver on the moisture readings. Those are non-negotiable.