I’m not sure that’s the reason for the color variation. Oak can have pink, yellow, orange, or red undertones depending on where it is sourced.

Pictures of the two floors would be helpful

I just added the picture. Both are red oak. The lighter is the floor we had for a long time, and the darker is new.

Regardless of the way the boards were sawn and I'm not sure that's what the difference is, these new floors do not match the old floors. At all. If the contract says they are to match, they didn't do that. With the difference in quality of materials (older wood floors vs. what's being sawed today), it seems they should have looked at other options to try to get a better match. They could have gotten samples and shown them to you, explained the differences and gotten the go ahead from you for whichever was the best match to your eyes. Are the boards even the same width?

You're 100% certain your old flooring isn't white oak? It seems white oak might have been a better match than this pink red oak, even if the original is just a less pink red oak.

Are you going to stain them? Or are they are finished?

Did they put a stain on the new section to try to make it match the old section? And did they refinish the wood floors in the old section at the same time, or just finish the new flooring? I am far from an expert in flooring, but it almost looks the there is a difference in stain or type of finish rather than a difference that is based on how the the boards are sawn.

When we bought our house 5 years ago, it came with 60 year old red oak in our living and dining rooms that looks very similar in color to your old section. In two separate renovations since then, we replaced the floor in two adjacent rooms to match.

In both cases, there is far less color difference than you see in yours. In the first case of our family room, it was a dead on match and you would never be able to tell at first glance from the color that the family room and living room were installed 60 years apart. In the second case, our new kitchen floor ended up being just a hair lighter than the existing floor, but it’s a pretty subtle difference that might be exaggerated by a bit of an optical illusion due to chance — the doorway where the kitchen and dining room meet ended up with the new section having a couple of the lightest boards butt up against a a couple of the darkest boards from the old section.

In your case, I’d be tempted to get a second opinion from a flooring contractor to see if there is anything that could be done stain or finish-wise to better make the woods match, or if it is really a difference in the character of the wood, or the way the boards were sawn.

EDIT: Added photos to give you a sense of how close the matches in our house are. First photo is living room/family room, other two are the kitchen.

Our general contractor told us that he didn't know the difference between plain sawn and quarter sawn.

He knew the difference when he saw the price tags, so he is lying to you.

And he was too lazy or too stupid to ask a flooring guy.

You hired badly.

I suspect that the original flooring is not red oak to start with.

Alex:

I recently mis-drilled two holes in a 5'x10' Cambria island. If I wouldn't have been able to fix them (I did), I would have owed the customers a new island. Had the island been discontinued, I would have owed them all new tops in the kitchen.

Same thing here.

You are owed a matching floor, or at least much more closely than that. If they have to remove the floor they installed and replace it, so be it. It's a cost of doing business. That should be the position from which you begin negotiations.

For the graciousness of my customers accepting the repair, their job was discounted 75% or so, and I was incredibly grateful to take such a small pounding. If your guys place any value on their reputation, they will be too.

I agree with Joseph Corlett on this one. You are owed a floor that is a reasonable match to the old floor. What you have isn't. Indeed, the colors are off so much that the installer should have stopped after installing one or two boards and checked with someone. If the area of the old floor is smaller than the new, perhaps it could be replaced so it matches the new.

Your general contractor needs to be knowledgeable in a wide variety of areas just like a general practitioner does in the medical field. He can post the cost to change out the floor against his line item for "continuing education" expense.

Since he appears to agree something needs to be done, I would tell him to replace the old floors with the new flooring so they all match. I also think the lighter floor is white oak, and the new floor is red oak. I actually like your new floors better than your old floors.

As cat_ky suggests the 'easiest' option could be the removal of the old and continue with the new. Personally I believe your old floor is White Oak. The colour variation is quite strong. It is too strong to be based just on cut.

Question #1: Did the CONTRACTOR (who claims he didn't know about cut nor grade) send away a sample of your old floor to CONFIRM the species (red oak vs white oak)? If s/he did not, then they owe you a new floor. Their failure to confirm their assumption was the beginning of the end of his profit.

#2: Who INSTALLED the floor? Was it the contractor himself or did he sub this out to a real flooring pro? Or did he use someone who could swing a hammer?

Your written contract (I assume that's what you mean by contract) clearly states the new will match the new. You do not have a match. You deserve a continuous floor because that's what your contract states and you paid for.

The question becomes - which appearance do you PREFER? I like the original. It is a higher grade and a better cut. And it is quite possible the species is white oak.

If you really want to make your case, go ahead and get a 1/2" slice off of an old plank and send it away to a national lab. You will pay $100 to confirm the species. If we are right, it will come up with white oak and you can demand a new floor = the contractor has nothing to back him up.

That's all that he had to have done...spend $100 for the lab costs (on the front end) so that he can provide a beautiful product on the finished end. He will learn that $100 is pretty decent. The thousands of dollars he will pay to redo this is his "Doh!" moment. Let him learn this lesson.