Hardwood Floor replaced on main and second floors -- Warning!
We needed the exisiting hardwood floors in our home removed and replaced with new oak floors. We contacted Beach Hardwood Flooring and their quote was middle of the road, but they seemed like they would do a good job and had references so we went with them. The trouble started when it came time to work around the many doors, thresholds, and stairwells that occur in our, and any normal home. While Peter and Bill did an acceptable job of installing the floor (although they did install "green" and damaged peices of wood despite our requets not to) their carpentry work is the worst we have seem of any contractor to date. Two major problems: First, they took a saws-all to the bottom of our antique pocket doors (without asking us first) and hacked the bottom off of the doors in a wavy and crooked line -- they didn't even draw a line first or make any atempt to remove the doors to ensure a clean cut. Many little mishaps occured in the meantime, too many to list, but all involved lazy and/or unskilled carpentry and finishing work. Then, after job was done and it came time to re-install the stairwell bannister we were informed that the flooring they had installed in that area was not at all level, and made the proper re-installation of the bannister and spindles impossible. We asked Peter to come by and fix the problem, his answer was to just cut the bottom of the spindles on an angle to accomodate the now crooked floor!... We said this was un acceptable, the slope which they had created needed to be corrected... he refused to fix his mistake, we insisted that he try, his answer was "Well then sue me". Overall one of the worst experiences we have ever had with a contractor. Peter had no idea how to manage a situation where he had made a mistake, he was very inflexible and rude about it, and took our money and ran with it.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $8,000.00
- What could this company do to improve their services?
- Listen to your customers, don't brush off their concerns so much. Slow down, less mistakes will be made.
- Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?
- When choosing flooring installers ask specifically about their strategies/plan for finishing around doors, thresholds, stairwells etc., it takes some skill. And if poorly done is very hard to overlook.