Walker's Wood Flooring

Joe was very professional, cleaned up as he went and his work was very good. We are very happy with how the floors turned out and would recommend Joe highly to anyone.

Excellent job, professional. Joe gave a prompt estimate, showed up exactly when he said he would. I have very pleased with his professional results.

We have used for 7 or 8 years. He is a great guy. He is very personable, thorough, and reliable. He is also on time and runs a good business.

BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE WITH MR JOE WALKER AND WALKER'S WOOD FLOORING, THERE DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE ANY CORRELATION BETWEEN ITS MOTTO THAT "WE STAND ON OUR QUALITY" AND AN ACTUAL COMMITMENT TO PERFORM WHAT I WOULD DEFINE AS QUALITY FLOOR REFINISHING IN A MANNER THAT WOULD BE ACCEPTABLE TO ANY CUSTOMER, REALTOR OR POTENTIAL HOME BUYER. WHEN I BROUGHT MY CONCERNS TO MR WALKER's ATTENTION, HE DID NOT DEMONSTRATE A COMMITMENT TO QUALITY WORKMANSHIP. MR WALKER HAS NEVER ACKNOWLEDGED HE MADE ANY MISTAKES OR COULD HAVE DONE A MUCH BETTER JOB. INSTEAD HE CHOSE TO FOCUS ON A MINOR SPILL I ADMITTED WAS MY FAULT SAYING HE WOULD HAVE TO CHARGE ME APPROX $1000 TO REPAIR THE SPOT BECAUSE IT WOULD REQUIRE COMPLETE SANDING OF THE ENTIRE ROOM (IT'S QUITE LARGE). MR WALKER'S ATTITUDE FROM THE TIME I BROUGHT MY CONCERNS TO HIS ATTENTION DID NOT REFLECT A COMMITMENT TO QUALITY WORKMANSHIP OR AN ATTEMPT TO IN ANY WAY ADDRESS MY SPECIFIC CONCERNS. INTERESTINGLY, ABOUT THIS SAME TIME I ASKED A COUPLE OF REALTORS TO GIVE ME AN ESTIMATED SELLING PRICE OF MY HOME. BOTH (UNKNOWN TO EACH OTHER) GAVE ME A SIMILAR PRICE ALONG WITH RECOMMENDATIONS TO INCREASE THAT PRICE BY MAKING REPAIRS AND/OR IMPROVEMENTS. AT THE TOP OF EACH REALTOR'S LIST WAS "HAVE HARDWOOD FLOORS REFINISHED THROUGHOUT". FOLLOWING IS MY EXPERIENCE WITH MR JOE WALKER OF WALKER'S WOOD FLOORING: 1. PRIOR TO THE START OF ANY WORK, MR JOE WALKER REQUESTED & I PAID HIM 50% OF THE TOTAL ESTIMATED COST OR APPROX $1750 2. PREVIOUSLY MADE PLANS WITH OUT-OF-TOWN RELATIVES TO STAY W/THEM W/MY 3 DOGS FOR 2.5 WEEKS WHILE MR WALKER DID THE WORK, INFORMING MR WALKER OF SUCH. HE ASSURED ME THAT WOULD NOT BE NECESSARY BECAUSE THERE WOULD BE NO DUST OR ODOR. CANCELLED THOSE PLANS BUT SUBSEQUENTLY REGRETTED THAT DECISION BECAUSE THE ODOR CREATED BY THE STAIN (COLOR), APPLIED ON DAY 2 OF PHASE ONE MADE ME SO SICK I COULD BARELY FUNCTION, LITERALLY FELT HIGHER THAN A KITE, DIZZY, DISORIENTED, HAD ONGOING HEADACHE FOR 5 DAYS. I HAD TO STAY OUTSIDE WITH MY DOGS DURING THE DAY AND SLEEP IN MY CAR FOR 4 NIGHTS UNTIL IT DISSIPATED. WITHIN A FEW HOURS AFTER MR WALKER APPLIED STAIN, I CONTACTED HIM BY PHONE TO TELL HIM ABOUT THE HORRENDOUS ODOR & ITS AFFECT. HIS RESPONSE "IT DOESN'T HAVE ANY ODOR TO ME, I GUESS I'M USED TO IT ". 3. AS A RESULT, DURING PHASE 2, MY 3 DOGS & I LEFT HOME FOR A WEEK. 4. Upon my return home, I had concerns about the condition of the floors, contacted Mr Walker specifying the floors: A) felt quite rough in various areas particularly in all doorways, often used traffic paths, perimeters of rooms near walls and around the fireplace hearth, B) had no sheen, C) looked dry, thirsty D) looked somewhat orange rather than blond (white oak) and reddish brown (red oak) E) newly installed floor in closet had what appeared to be dents from a hammer, cracked wood, open gaps near door jam He agreed to look @ the floors in a few days. Prior to his return, I spilled a small amount of paint on the wood floor in the living/dining room. I immediately cleaned up most of the spill with a clean wet cloth and dried the area. I was unable to remove all of the paint because it fell into the crevices of the wood planks. I did not want to use a chemical solvent on this area for fear of permanently damaging the floors without advice from Mr Walker. I informed Mr Walker of this prior to his inspection. 5. Upon re-observation of his work, Mr Walker indicated to me he thought he did an adequate job. He said he'd be happy to apply a third coat of finish but it would cost $412 because he would have to fix the area of the paint spill. A day or two later, he told me he'd have to charge me $950 because he would have to start from scratch on the living/dining room floor in order to repair the paint spill and he'd put a third clear coat finish on the rest of the house. I told Mr Walker I'd think about it. 6. Subsequently, I had 3 highly recommended, very experienced professional floor refinishers examine all wood floors in the house including where I had spilled/cleaned up the paint. All company representatives, independent of each other, indicated the problems with the floors were: After the initial step of sanding the floors, it is critical that they be thoroughly cleaned preferably several times with a commercial vacuum cleaner to remove all wood saw dust and debris left from the sanding process. Sanding removes the existing finish and is PART of the floor preparation process for the additional steps required to bring the wood to a smooth surface to best accept the new stain and finish products. In their professional opinion, this didn't appear to have happened and was particularly evident in: A) all door areas including jambs B) all around the brick fireplace hearth C) entry threshold, inside the house and the wood step exposed to outside elements such as sun, rain, etc. (D) most perimeters of all rooms where new baseboard had previously been installed. To confirm this finding, each pointed out that there was no evidence of any marks from the sanding machine on the walls or baseboard meaning that most likely the sanding machine did not get close to the baseboard nor did it appear those areas had been hand sanded. E) a number of areas thru out all rooms appeared to have been missed in the sanding process and/or were not sanded as well as others. THEIR CONCLUSIONS: Prior to buffing the floors and/or applying any finish coats, Mr Walker should have checked these all floor areas to ensure the wood was clean & smooth everywhere. If not he should have cleaned those areas again and/or hand sanded where necessary prior to buffing and/or applying any coats of clear finish. In regard to the small area where I had spilled and attempted to clean up the water-based paint, each said it was NOT NECESSARY TO RE-SAND THE ENTIRE FLOOR IN ORDER TO FIX THIS AREA. 7) I contacted Mr Walker & informed him of these professional opinions/recommendations indicating I was willing to pay for the paint residue removal &/or repair (no more than $50) but I was UNWILLING TO PAY HIM ANY MORE MONEY FOR REMOVAL AND/OR REPAIR OF THE SAW DUST & OTHER DEBRIS HE DID NOT REMOVE AS PART OF THE CONTRACT BECAUSE AT THIS POINT I BELIEVED I HAD ALREADY PAID HIM FOR THAT WORK WHICH HE NEGLECTED TO DO . He did not acknowledge he made any mistakes. Instead, Mr Walker repeated his latest offer to re-do the floors for a cost to me of almost $1000 emphasizing that is what it would cost to fix the small paint spill area. In other words, he was trying to make the problem appear to be about the PAINT SPILL (my problem) rather than addressing concerns #6 A-E above. TO ME, those were the REAL PROBLEMS - issues directly related to poor quality workmanship by Walker's Wood Flooring. I finally told him I wasn't going to pay him any more money except for a maximum of $50 to repair the paint spill area. 8) After this discussion with Mr Walker he contacted me by phone and email a number of times with the same offer which I declined on the basis of the verbal findings & recommendations obtained from the above-mentioned professionals. Mr Walker had no comment other than to keep repeating his $1000 offer which I continued to decline. In the meantime, I informed Mr Walker that I planned to hire an independent floor consulting company to examine my floors, evaluate Mr Walker's work, prepare a written report of their findings & provide me with supporting photos. In addition, I indicated to Mr Walker that if this issue continued without resolution, I would be forced to bring this matter to the attention of small claims court and/or State Contractors' Review Board . I indicated if I had to make any additional expenditures (except for $50 to fix the paint spill), I would be requesting reimbursement from him for the following: (a) cost for the independent inspector, report & photos (b) expenses for keeping the storage POD beyond the time I had planned according to the work schedule Mr Walker submitted to me prior to starting the job in June and (c) monies paid to another floor refinisher to correct the mistakes made by Mr Walker excluding the paint spill area. 9) I told Mr Walker the appointment date & time the private inspector would do his inspection which was approx one week away giving Mr Walker time to consider his options. A day or two before that date, Mr Walker left me a phone message indicating he wanted to speak to me in person to present a proposal to resolve my concerns. In response to his message, I sent Mr Walker an email asking him to submit his offer to me in writing via email, not in person or via phone because to be honest, I felt I had been reasonable and patient with Mr Walker and didn't feel comfortable having Mr Walker in my home just to hear him repeat the same offer - $1000 & such a waste of my time. I received no response from Mr Walker to my email. Then, about an hour before the private inspector was to arrive, Mr Walker contacted me by phone asking me if the inspector was at my home because he wanted to talk to the man. When I told him he was returning to Sacramento from an inspection in Carson City, NV & was running late, he told me he had contacted some flooring association who told him that he was entitled to immediately receive a copy of the inspector's report. I told Mr Walker that information was incorrect but was open to reviewing any written directive requiring me to do so. INDEPENDENT INSPECTOR'S FINDINGS: The same as those listed in #6A through #6E above. MY RECOMMENDATION REGARDING WALKER'S WOOD FLOORING AND MR WALKER'S PROFESSIONAL WORK ETHICS: Do you really want to risk the potential of any of this happening to you considering there are so many other highly rated flooring businesses available?

I was totally comfortable. I'm a stay at home mom so I needed somebody in the house with me. If he was gonna be in the house with me I needed to feel comfortable with who was gonna be in here with me. He was professional. I have kids and dogs so he was very accommodating to work around our life and also get the job done. He was neat.