Pre-finished flooring installation
My flooring situation has been a bit of a journey. The original hardwood flooring installed by the builder of my brand new home was defective / installed poorly. The short story is that I was compensated for this as I wanted to go my own way and have it done right. I spent a lot of time and energy ripping out the original flooring myself to make sure damage was minimized.
I explained this all to Paul when we spoke. I had indicated I was very nervous about getting this done due to my past experiences and the time & effort I spent to remove the old flooring. I also indicated the type of wood I had was extremely hard and was a "structured" -- sort of engineered, but still solid wood. I also indicated the new flooring I had was extremely expensive (about $10/sq ft) and so I wanted it done 100% right. I must have said this 5 or 6 times. He assured me that he was okay with all of this.
The quote provided was fairly high, but I was fine with that as generally you pay for what you get.
They showed up exactly when they said they would and the actual installation is very good -- it is more of the care that was taken. They were POUNDING the boards together to make them fit. This left a few boards that now have visible cracks in them along the side that was pounded & stapled. A lot of boards are scratched... and they left a huge gouge on two boards. Considering the material that was installed is 3 times harder than Oak, I am not really sure what they did to cause so much damage.
I thought this was all "normal" and even gave them a callback to have some more flooring installed. They were fully booked and could not make the dates I needed so I found someone else on Homestars. The new installers were considerably less expensive and overall did a considerably better job (in terms of care taken). They installed the exact same flooring (it was even the exact same run) and did not *POUND* the boards in place. They also used a waste board as a buffer to tap the new boards in place. And to top it all off, I showed them the flooring done by The Floormen and they fixed the two gouged boards no problem.
I'm sure these guys (Floormen) do excellent work when the flooring is unfinished... but if you are doing pre-finished and are particular about scratches, etc then I would not recommend. Especially considering what they charged. Again, the actual installation is very good... it is just the care taken that irritates me. Especially considering what they charged and the price of the flooring I had installed.
Sorry guys, no referrals from me on pre-finished flooring installs.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $1,200.00
- Company Response
After finishing the installation and cleaning up the job site, the customer told us he was very happy with the job. Absolutely no mention was made of any problems from the so called "pounding" to the scratches on the floor. The one scratch that was there could have been done by the customer or us, we don't know. But we fixed it to his satisfaction, and we were paid for our job. It was nearly two months later when we got a phone call about wanting us to install more of the same hardwood in his house. Over this two month period there was not one phone call expressing any concerns. The customer must of thought we were the right company to do the next phase of his installation!!
Now this, I don't understand the problem. If we were good enough to be asked to do the next phase of installation, why all this?