One of the most regretful mistakes of my life.
A few months ago we bought our first home, and it had carpet installed. We decided that my first upgrade would be to get laminate floors installed. we think they're easier to clean than carpet, and just look nicer.
We looked around the web and went to a few stores, but saw that Mike's Flooring had good reviews. They sounded like they were an honest and dependable local company, so we wanted to support them.
When Mike came over to do the estimate, he seemed like a good guy. He was easy to talk to and was very confident when he answered all out questions. He mentioned that they weren't responsible for levelling the floor. He didn't think that our place would need much levelling, if any. He'd been to other units in my condo complex and they supposedly didn't need levling. This made me feel at ease, especially because he indicated it might be possible to ask the installers to do the levelling if it needed to be done.
The day of the install came, and the installers quickly tore out the carpet. I wish I knew in advance how easy this would have been, I would have tried to do this myself. When they did this, we noticed that the subfloor was very uneven. There was one particular lump in the living room which stuck out quite a bit. We were concerned about this, and the installers said they could fix this, and just requested a few hundred more dollars. We paid the extra amount and they basically chisleled out that lump with a hammer and screwdriver. I was surprised that they did it this way. I had assumed they would do something more professional, like with a grinder or something.
Anyway, they finished up within a few hours, and I was left with a messy floor. Mike had warned us that they only do a sweep and they weren't responsible for the cleaning. This seemed unprofessional, especially when they admitted that they had a better broom for sweeping the laminate which they didn't bring with them.
Another issues was that they needed some weight to hold down the door trim. They didn't bring anything with them for this, and hadn't warned us in adance they'd need things, so they took random parts from around our house: toilet tank lids, random boxes, and closet doors that we had removed.
What bugged me most was that when I walked around the place after the installers left, I and noticed several places where the floor sagged and was uneven.
I thought I'd get used to it, but it's been a few months and I still hate walking on my floor. I know there's nothing I can do since Mike gave the disclaimer that they weren't responsible, and I wish I realized in adance how badly uneven my floor was. I can't afford to change the floor, and just hope that the laminate boards don't start to break just by simply walking over them.
This might have been a few hours of simple work for Mike and his installers, but they have no idea how terrible it is for someone who can't even walk in their own home comfortably because of the floor.
