CUTTING EDGE WOOD FLOORS

Cutting Edge Wood Floor team was a great company to deal with when we replaced our hardwood floors. They were prompt, efficient and completed the tasks just as estimated without surprises. The floors turned out better than we expected - we would definitely recommend to anyone that needs flooring! Anytime we had an questions, they were quick to respond.

The floor has warped and is uneven. Very unsafe and unattractive. We have contacted them however, they do not return calls. Poor workmanship and poor customer service. Don' let them touch your home.

lower in this segment, i've listed 5 things to make sure you do before installing wood floors. here's my experience with Cutting Edge Wood Floors When Don removed the carpet in the living room, i noticed the concrete slab had some cracks and some moisture rings. I pointed them out to Don and he told me not to worry about it so i didn't. When i suggested a moisture test should be performed, Don told me not to worry about it and no moisture test was done. that advice turned out to be horrible. read on. it gets better. when his installers put down the moisture barrier (a layer of vinyl which is common), his installers poked holes, YES HOLES, (to get rid of air bubbles)in the vinyl which appeared to be an odd thing to do considering if you put a hole in the vinyl, any moisture would come through. (which it ended up doing) About 4 months after the wood floor was installed, it began cupping and bowing and finally buckling in spots, clearly due to a moisture problem. After NUMEROUS un-returned phone calls on which i remained good natured and good humored, i finally got a hold of him. (it was clear he wasn't going to call me back). Don is great at returning calls for new installations, but if you have a problem, expect to have to hunt him down. he just assumes you'll go away. After over ONE YEAR of waiting he finally agreed to replace the floor. When he removed the floor they had installed, small pieces of the slab came up with the floor. It was clear the slab has some issues and wasn't really a good candidate for a wood floor, the first time OR the second time. what he probably should have said at this point is recommended tile or something other than wood. but... Don suggested I have the cracks filled and the top of the slab refinished. So i took his advice and did that at a cost of $1000 to me, and Don promised the new sealer he'd use would solve the problem. this time, he did use a moisture meter which showed moisture wasn't as bad as it was, but was still higher than normal. about 6 months after the second install, the floor again began cupping and buckled in several places again. Again, it took months of leaving messages to get Don to take any action. Finally, he sent out one of his workers (didn't even have the decency to come out himself) to look at it. what i found out later on after talking to other wood floor installers is the following: 1) Moisture Test Make absolutely sure a moisture test is done and record levels. Watch it be done and record the readings. Then verify with the manufacturer of the wood, not the installer, what acceptable moisture levels are. i was told some installers will 'fudge' the numbers and install even when moisture high just to get the sale. 2) Leak Test: Always always always get a leak test done to make sure water pipes in your slab are not leaking. this can be done with an $8 pressure gauge bought at home depot. (Look on youtube.com for how to perform it. it's easy. ) if you detect the pressure is going down, you must have a leak. then higher a plumber to find the leak And if you live in a townhome or condo, guess what? you share a slab with your neighbors, so you they must do a leak test as well. Don never advised i do a leak test before the first install, and before the 2nd install, never advised to do a leak test on neighbors. it turned out the neighbors did have leak, and due to lack of due diligence. for someone as experience as Don to not recommend this stuff is surprising and disappointing. also, some installers won't tell you to do the leak test as it could ruin or delay the job if a leak is found. therefore, some installers don't even want to mention the leak test. or the moisture test. or anything that could get in the way of the job. 3) Level Slab make 100% sure you're installing on a level surface. you can do this easily by purchasing a long piece of wood and run in across the surface to see how level it is. if the surface isn't level, there's air between the slab and the wood which allows for moisture and other problems. good installers will see this and using a cement like product, level the surface first. on the first install was not done and this is probably related somewhat to initial cupping. it was leveled on the second install. 4) Hilly area? we happen to live at the bottom of a big hill. i never thought anything of it, but since this experience, i've talked to other installers who will warn the customer that if you live at the bottom of a hill, the earth under your slab is probably very very wet, not the best to put a wood floor over. generally, a good moisture barrier that was installed when the slab was laid should prevent it, but not always. still, something i would have like to have known about before and was never brought to my attention 5) Sliding Glass Door our living room is next to our sliding glass door which leads to our patio. after the second issue, Don told us that well, sometimes moisture comes through the frame of the door, etc, etc. That was only told to us afterwards. maybe knowing that before, we could have tested it or at minimum, been aware of it. or maybe we would have replaced the sliding glass door as it's about 30 years old. the bottomline is this what i've discovered after this experience is that installers just want the business and in general, won't warn you about things that may delay or prevent the install . the just want to install, collect the money and be on their way. i guess that's why their angie's list so others can be aware and we can look out for each other since some vendors don't. At this point, which i've shared with Don was to simply ask him to remove the floor and we'll be done with it. Months now have gone by, i left several message, wrote Don a letter per his suggestion. He even hung up on me today. So in addition to pursuing legal options, I felt obligated to post this to help others considering wood floors.