Floors, Contractors, And Customer Service…Oh My.

This is a bit of a long story from The Renovation Chronicles, so forgive me that. And I wasn’t sure whether it belonged on this blog or not, because it’s not so much about social anything as it is about good (and bad) business. You won’t hurt my feelings if you skip it.

But I’ve had *such* an adventure as part of my year’s worth of home renovation that I couldn’t resist sharing it. I think there’s a powerful lesson or two in it at the very end that I learned the hard way.

The Backstory

I have engineered hardwood floors in my great room that I purchased from Lowe’s and installed myself (with help from my mom) over a year ago. Most recently, I decided that it was time for the nasty carpet in the bedrooms to meet its end, and I wanted to carry the same floors from the great room into the bedrooms.

So, I headed over to Lowe’s to purchase the flooring. It’s worth mentioning that over the course of the last year or two, with all my house projects, I’ve spent many (many) thousands of dollars there. I had also decided this time to spring for professional installation. The original project was a bear, I’m about to start a new company, have a busy preschooler, and making the investment to have someone else do the hard work seemed like the thing to do. Since Lowe’s says they do professional installation, I figure why not kill two birds with one stone?

I asked the manager (who I was dealing with) about their contractors, how they vet them, how long they’ve been working with them, etc etc. I’ve had my fair share of experience with home projects, know enough of the basics, and my own dad renovated his entire house singlehandedly (yes, plumbing and electric too), so I considered myself a relatively informed customer who asked good questions. In fact, I had him remove some completely ridiculous charges from the installation estimate ($3.50 a linear foot to remove/replace baseboards that don’t need to be removed in the first place to install these floors?? No thanks.).

In either case, I was told that the floors would take about a week to arrive, then the contractor would call me to schedule installation.

Misfire #1

Ordering the floors was easy enough, but getting them here? Not so much.

First, Lowe’s calls me to schedule installation. We agree on a date and the infamous “window” of time. That time comes and goes on the day in question, and nothing. So I call. The guy puts me on hold, but not mute, while he proceeds to ask a bunch of guys around him if they know anything about my flooring order.

“It was just here yesterday, dude, right over there,” he says within earshot of the phone, “but now I don’t know where the hell it is and I can’t get ahold of the guy on the truck. It’s a huge pallet with a bunch of stuff on it. This chick is pretty pissed.”

Sigh.

Commence mumbling and shuffling, and they’re going to have to call me back. I hear nothing that day, and a second call goes unreturned. (Turns out that despite my verifying my number with them twice, some old phone number was in their system and they’d been trying to call it).

The next morning, I get a call from the store, on the correct phone. The guy is 10 minutes away from my house, found the floors, and wants to bring them over. Right then. Fine, I say (and cancel my plans for where I was headed). He shows up with a rental truck and a pile of boxes. I ask him to bring them inside into the office, but he says no, he’s sorry, they only do “curbside” delivery. So I have him bring them into the garage. Obviously that’s not good for wood, so I move them into the house myself, box by box (all 22 of them).

Misfire #2

Next, the contractor calls to schedule the installation…. 2 weeks later, the days before Thanksgiving. It’s not ideal, but hey, ok. Whatever.

They don’t call to confirm or anything, but thankfully they show up the morning as planned. The installer, wanders around the house and looks at the rooms. Pulls out the instructions from one of the boxes of wood (uh oh, this guy is a professional?). Puts a moisture sensor on one of the pieces of flooring. Then proceeds to declare to me the humidity of the wood hasn’t regulated to the humidity of the house yet, so he can’t install it. He even circles the section on the instructions and hands them to me.

I’m frustrated, as I’ve moved everything but the beds from three bedrooms into my dining room in order to make way for the installation. They couldn’t have come and tested this sooner? The delivery guy from Lowe’s couldn’t have explained this possibility to me before I moved all my freaking furniture? Installer guy explains that yeah, the store should have delivered the floors inside (no shit?). We’ll have to wait to lay them, sorry. He begs and pleads for me not to be pissed at him – he’s just the messenger after all (ha, ha). I’m keep my cool. Stuff happens, after all, right? I say fine, when CAN we do this?

We reschedule for two weeks later to give the flooring time to “acclimate”. I move a bunch of stuff back into the office – myself – so that at the very least I can maneuver in my house. I was supposed to host Thanksgiving at my house later that week, but I cancel that and we move it to mom’s house instead. It’s hard to serve turkey on a coffee table.

Misfire #3

Installation day TWO arrives. Again, no confirmation call, but they show up. This time, two guys (original dude and another one). They wander around the house. Open a box of flooring and peer at it. Walk into the bedroom. Walk back out again. All of this takes about 5 minutes. Installer guy summons an assistant manager from the store, who also shows up a few minutes later. I never saw them pull out an instrument of any kind (though I admit I wasn’t watching their every move, so maybe they did when I wasn’t looking).

The verdict?

“The humidity level in your house has actually gone UP since the last time we were here. It might be some of the rain we recently had or something.” Nevermind that it’s about 35 degrees outside, frigid, and that it’s so dry in here that I swear you could cure beef jerky in my living room. “But,” he assures me, “it’s too humid. So we still can’t install the floors. See this spot in your dining room where the wood is discolored? That’s because of moisture in the substrate, and the differential between that and the flooring is critical. If we install this floor, you’re going to have the same problem.”

Me: “Uh, no. That water stain? That’s from a bucket of water that got spilled on the floor, a juice spill from my kid, and one of the dogs barfing up an entire box of dog treats that she stole from the counter. The moisture got between the seams and discolored the wood. I was there when those happened and know exactly how those stains got there. And by “substrate”, do you mean the concrete slab under my carpet that you didn’t look at? What, exactly, was the differential anyway? ”

Him: “Oh, well, uh, see this part here that’s kind of springy? That’s from moisture, too.”

Me: “Actually, no. That section there? The concrete slab underneath is a bit uneven. When I installed the floor, I didn’t bother putting leveling compound down because it was minor and would have taken a while to dry, so I elected to skip. That bounce has been there since the moment I installed the floor. There isn’t an ounce of moisture down there, and the floor isn’t warped. Plus, I have a moisture barrier down underneath the entire floor.”

Him: “…. Well. It’s still too humid to install the floors.”

What? If the humidity in the house went up and the floors were in the same house the whole time…. anyway. I was not just frustrated anymore, I was angry. So, I turned to the Lowe’s store manager guy, who hadn’t said much of anything to this point. “So, then, what’s your recommendation for how to treat this “problem” that you’ve diagnosed so that I can get the floors installed? Can I have some specifics?”

Him: “I don’t know. I’m not a home inspector.”

Good grief.

I threw them out. Not very politely, I’ll admit. On the way out, I told the store manager that I wanted a refund for the installation, immediately. All of it.

Afterward, I went into each room and pulled the carpet back all the way to the middle of the room. I taped down a section of clear plastic sheeting with duct tape (which is a common way to check for moisture seepage in concrete slabs). I waited. I waited. As of this morning (24 hours later), not a drop of anything wet was trapped in there. Not one.

Saving The Day

I really was beside myself. Here I had an entire dining room full of furniture for the second time. I had flooring, but it was still in boxes. I’d wasted nearly two months from start to finish. I was in tears, frustrated, angry.

My friend Rebecca Otto then popped to mind. Rebecca and her fab interior design firm, Plank Interiors, has been helping me select stuff like furniture and paint for my living/dining room. So in desperation, I emailed her and asked if she knew anyone that could help me get these floors installed. She called within 5 minutes, and sent me the number for her flooring guy.

I called him, and he returned my call within 10 minutes. Not only that, but he could be here at noon the next day (today). He called to confirm when he was on his way, and showed up as scheduled.

The first thing he did was take a moisture reading of the wood floors themselves (I watched him do it). Perfectly normal. Then he pulled back the carpet and looked at the concrete, which was dry as a bone. Where Lowe’s readings came from, I’ll never know. I told him the long saga of what I’d been through, and he just shook his head. He offered a few reasons why a big box store would have given me such a load of BS, and none of them were very flattering for them (I’m so naive sometimes). He measured, scribbled a few numbers, and gave me a quote…. that was $150 LESS than what Lowe’s was going to charge me, AND he would move the furniture, the carpet, and install the baseshoe. Best part? He’d call me later in the day and let me know if he could start tomorrow, but for sure, Monday at the latest.

Day. Saved.

The Lessons

1. The new guy is a younger gentleman, running a small business. He was prompt, polite, honest, friendly and responsive. You can bet that (pending the outcome of course) I’ll be recommending him all over the place. The basic stuff matters. A lot. Namely, your reputation.

2. Established retail doesn’t mean reliable. Even when you complain. Even when they screw up. Even when you start off being nice and patient. Even after you lose your temper. Sometimes, companies just don’t care, no matter how big their brand, marketing slogans, or advertising campaigns. And hey big brands? You don’t get a pass on being assholes just because you’re bigger than I am.

3. Trustworthy networks of people you know are gold. There are good people out there. Word of mouth and referrals are still everything, with or without social media. Having a handful of people that you trust to ask for help means everything, especially if they have personal experiences or references they can refer you to. Thank you, Rebecca, for being my savior, and for recommending an amazing contractor (and I’ll be stealing a pile of his business cards to hand out like crazy).

4. If you’re a business, there is nothing more valuable that you can do than deliver flawless customer service from the get go. If you screw up, the best thing you can do is own it and FIX IT. And if you contract work out to other people, their reputation and performance becomes yours, whether you like it or not.

5. Do the research about the projects you undertake, including industry terms. Sometimes they’ll throw fancy words at you, presuming you don’t know any better about what they mean (most of those conversations are designed to get you to spend more money for them to ‘fix’ a problem that may not actually exist). Get more than one opinion or estimate. If you’re not comfortable, by all means have an experienced friend join you for appointments and to oversee estimates, installations, or anything else. If they give you explanations you don’t understand, ask them to explain it differently, or tell them that you’re going to research their answers before committing to anything. The look on their face will tell you a lot. If they encourage you to get other opinions or even recommend additional experts to help, that’s a good sign.

6. Unrelated to this specific project, but never leave contractors working unsupervised in your home. I had stuff stolen this year because I made that mistake when I was having my bathroom renovated. If you can’t be home for the project, schedule it for when you can be. And do pay close attention to the work that’s being done, or have someone experienced do spot checks. Get inspections for things like electricity and plumbing. You’re paying for it, and you have to live with the results. Correcting a botched job can be incredibly expensive.

So finally, nearly two months later, I may just have new floors in my bedrooms. YAY! Break out the bubbly.

Oh, and I called Lowe’s today to confirm whether my refund was being processed. The gentlemen said – tersely – that it was in process and that the “receipt was in the mail” (and hung up). I’ll be waiting. They sure won’t be getting any money from me anymore, and I’m sure I’ll tell this story more than once. I have a lot more projects yet to do.

So onward, and caveat emptor. The dining room may be full, but dammit if I’m not going to triumph in the end. I have a 2012 to conquer.

P.S. – If you’d like the name and contact information for either Plank Interiors or my new awesome replacement floor guy, let me know. 

P.P.S. – It’s only fair for me to mention that after I called and complained after misfires 1 and 2, the store manager did attempt to reach me “if I wanted to share the story with him personally.” I’ve yet to call him back because at this moment, I’m full of curse words, most of which I left out of this post. I have sent an email to store and corporate management, and may indeed return a call when I’ve collected my calm enough to provide feedback that’s actually useful.

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