Carl from Hamilton

I bought 220 sq ft of Vintage Red Oak Pewter Estate, a deep black colour.The professional installer,that I hired, told me as soon as he looked at the wood that it was was flawed. It was chipped and the colour was coming off in some areas.He installed the best wood he could find in the 11 boxes that I had.I called Speers Paint in Oakville,the retailer where I purchased it, and they told me to call the company.The company sent a rep to my home.He immediately blamed me for the problem advising me that I was cleaning the floor with the wrong cleaner(Pledge Floor Care)and that my home was too humid.I told him that I had been using this on other wood floors for years without any problems at all.I have a heat exchanger so the air in my house is always fresh and never too humid.When I pointed out the chips on most of the grooves in the flooring, he said that this amounted to less than 10% of the total area so the company was not liable for these flaws.I only requested an extra box of flooring to compensate for the flawed product that I purchased.I was denied this and simply provided with a black wood stain and a paste to apply over the defective areas. I have to apply it every year or two to make the floor look half decent.I sent an e mail to the owner,Emmanuel , outlining my problem but he never even gave me the courtesy of a reply.I returned to the retailer and they asked me to supply some samples of the defective wood.I was told they would send it to Vintage for testing.I called back a few weeks later and was told that Vintage found the wood was not defective.I asked for the samples back and was advised that the company never returned them to the retailer and I would not be getting them back.Needless to say ,I will never purchase Vintage Flooring again. Since the story was printed in Homestars I was immediately contacted by Gary,who is the Regional Account manager for vintage flooring.He handles the Speers flooring account where I originally purchased the hardwood.He advised me that he wanted to investigate the issues that I raised in my original post.I sent him all of the original e mails and written correspondence dating back to 2005.We had a few conversations on the phone.I was then contacted by Peter,owner of Speers Flooring,Oakville,Ontario.We arranged for a mutually convenient time and he visited my house which is about 40 kms from his store.He did an on site inspection of my floor which is now almost 11 years old. Peter provided me with cash in lieu of 1 box of flooring(20 sq ft) I was also given a quart of Vintage stain that matches my wood and a touch up kit.I purchased 2 bottles of Vintage Floor Cleaner and a mop applicator.I am quite pleased with the response from both Vintage and Speers since the floor was installed in 2004.A post on Home Stars really got the ball rolling.Initially I had a difficult time getting a favourable response from Vintage but I am quite happy with the ultimate results.Thankyou Speers Flooring,Vintage Flooring and Home Stars