I'll be the first to admit, little stuff on the edges are hard to see, when looking at boards before installing them. A quick sweep of the hand(hope you have calluses!) to see if there is a splintered edge, doesn't take long, but is rarely done, because of the fear of blood and running a wood sliver into your hand. Get the splinter off as well as possible and fill it. You may need to mix two tints together to get a better match.

SJ McCarthy, our contract is stated we are responsible for the materials and we pay for the labor. Unfortunately we never met nor discuss with the owner but only discussed in details ( in the proposal) with the project manager who is the solely the carpenter.) We just found out there were a lot of the DETAILS from the proposal were not explained (per the PM,but who knows) in detail to the owner or almost like "bait and switch" - for example like item #2- he spent more time because the owner did not get him another helper to help him- I told him this should not be the customer's expenses-Anyway we are willing to pay for it. The owner was offering to renew and establish a new contract from the original contact ( we felt that he cherry picking the items from the proposal, we marked them up then again he decided not to included) for the unfinished works . Once he agreed in our 2nd meeting (another example: he agreed tiling our study room to be included from the original contact in our 1st meeting then when he write the REVISED CONTRACT- he wants to charge us ), but again we are facing the same old stories-he tried to change the wording. We were burned so many times and now we diligently review line by line knowing the owner's personality. He kept saying he lived by the contract-then I told him then he should honor the low estimated to install our engineering hardwood floor including removing the carpet-in the end he says he would honor but he did not including the cost in the new REVISED contract which we add into it - we are so tired with his games. So now we put a contingency - once we agree with the new contract, no more additional expenses from the previous work was done- and we do agree that we need to be notified first and need both signatures for additional expenses from the new contract. and no more point finger of "not included" since we have discussed in detailed and are in the contract. The new addition has a hardwood floor installed - with Dri-core. Once hardwood floor was installed- they are some areas squeak- we were told by PM -put a marked up then he would fasten without explaining to us-these would be additional ridiculous charges (PM told the owner, too-we told PM that they should explain it to us- ) Regarding the installing the engineering hardwood floor is for our existing rooms(concrete slabs that has plywood already)- we are told just to put a vapour barrier. Is it possible to let me know what brands for the glues have to be moisture resistant ($2/sf) or moisture PROOF ($3/sf).? The manufacture instruction suggests to use Franklin Tongue and Groove adhesive (cross linking polyaliphactic emulsion glue) www.titebond.com -any suggestions? This Applachian engineering hardwood floor - FLOATING only needs GLUE between the wood (tongue and groove per the manufacture manual ) then would be FLOAT - this is not to be GLUE DOWN on our concrete floor (could be glue down if necessary but not in our case). Here is the website- on PAGE 9 http://www.appalachianflooring.com/uploads/general/documents/engineered-installation-guide.pdf We trust the PM and we pay for it- we just want to move on and complete the project-It has been almost 10 months. We have to do what we have to do to protect ourselves now- The owner refuses to install our towel bar in our new shower without charging us, and we told him we will take care them by ourselves. I will update this post and hoping for a better solution. Thank you

@ millworkman - I was very specific, stating that I purchased LVT, but the OP did say the contractor wanted to install the cabinets prior to installing the floor. I do think the same solution could work for installing hardwood and could be a viable solution for many flooring installations. I assess process efficiency and risk for a living. In this process you have the install and future issues that must be considered. In the installation process, the pre-finished flooring may be damaged: This leaves you three options - don't have the floor pre-finished - have it finished on site or Try to not damage the floor while doing the cabinet installation or Install the prefinished floor after installation of the cabinets. If you install after the installation of the cabinets you either need the cabinets on a platform the same height as the floor or you have to deal with the difference in height and run risks of the Dishwasher getting stuck under the cabinets and using quarter round or shoe molding to hide the edges. If you have a leaky dishwasher in 2 years and it ruins your engineered hardwood finish in front of the dishwasher do you really want the flooring to be locked under the cabinets where those few boards cannot be lifted and replaced without moving the cabinets? The limitation is that you can't easily change the footprint of the cabinets without having to change the flooring underneath the cabinets. Which is the more likely occurrence - needing to change out a handful of floor boards or wanting to change the footprint of the cabinets? I obviously have not done a complete analysis, but on its face this seems to be a pretty good idea and could save homeowners from big headaches down the road a few years.

Those are not manufacturing defects. These issues may have happened during or after installation. The first two photos looks like someone dropped something on it. The third one is installer damaged the corner during install. The last photo, anything could have happenned there. Engineered flooring is only as hard as the core it is glued to. A soft wood core will allow it to dent easily.