There are three ELEMENTAL wood flooring warranties downloadable here as well as a warranty registration form and a warranty claim form. ELEMENTAL flooring warranties include:
- A General wood flooring warranty that applies to all solid wood flooring prefinished and unfinished.
- An Engineered wood flooring warranty that applies to all ELEMENTAL engineered wood flooring products both prefinished and unfinished.
- A Finish warranty that applies to all prefinished wood flooring products both solid and engineered and relates specifically to the finish coating.
ELEMENTAL flooring warranties are fully in line with current industry standards and defer to NWFA.org (National Wood Flooring Association) guidelines where any greater detail or clarification is desired. Upon request we may be able to offer further NWFA details.
All ELEMENTAL flooring warranties recommend that installers with some NWFA training are employed to install our products. This only a recommendation, not a requirement, but it is the best way we know of helping people to avoid the mostly avoidable problems that occur with hardwood flooring. Educated installers and educated homeowners can dramatically reduce the likelihood of wood flooring problems.
All wood flooring warranties, including finish warranties, include an industry standard 5% defect tolerance. Wood is a natural product with natural imperfections and the industry recognizes this with a allowable defect tolerance.
Problems with wood flooring do occur from time to time. Most of the problems are avoidable which starts with a proper site preparation and install and ends with an informed homeowner monitoring the flooring and its environment and responding correctly at first signs of a problem. Some of these issues covered in the FAQ section of this site. Some of our blog articles deal with these issues along with links to other educational articles that you can find in the Installation guidelines sitelinks.
In the event of a problem where a warranty claim needs to be filed, the key starting point is to document with photos both the nature and extent of the problem. For example, if some boards are cracking on a floor, the nature of the problem is boards cracking, and the extent of the problem might be clarified as 10 boards cracking in the living room. Any claim discussion will start with the basic answer to the nature and extent question accompanied by a filled-out warranty claim form.
Upon the initial presentation of this claim information, if it appears that there may be a manufacturer/product defect issue in play, Elemental Hardwoods will typically contract an outside, fully independent, NWFA-certified wood flooring inspector to do a thorough inspection of the problem floor and issue a report. If that report concludes that a manufacturer/product defect is the cause of the problem, then ELEMENTAL will take responsibility and outline resolution options in accordance with applicable ELEMENTAL warranty. If the inspection report determines that the problem is not the result of a product defect, Elemental will not take responsibility for the resolution, but will still offer its opinion as to how the issue might be resolved in the most cost-effective way possible.
In the event of disagreement, where ELEMENTAL determines upon presentation of the initial claim documentation that the problem cause is not due to defective product but to some other factor, and the contractor or homeowner disagrees with that assessment, they may themselves hire an NWFA-certified inspector to do a full inspection, and if that inspection determines the problem resulted from product defect then ELEMENTAL will take responsibility to reimburse for the inspection cost and provide a reasonable resolution to the problem as defined by the appropriate ELEMENTAL warranty.
NWFA-certified inspectors can be found with this link: www.woodfloors.org/certified-professional-search.aspx.
NWFA-trained inspectors are the best trained wood flooring inspectors in the world. Flooring inspections done by inspectors who are not NWFA-certified will not be accepted.