Empire Today

They went out of their way to stay late and get everything ready for me in a timely manner. They were wonderful. The tile we had installed is very high quality. I will use them again when I decide what kind of window treatments I want.

We purchased a home that just had new carpet installed throughout by Empire. After we moved in which was only about 2 months later we discovered the carpet was coming up in basket fulls! We called and was told that this was normal. After another year of continueous problems we called back and was told that the warranty was not transferable which was a lie! I found out by the manufacture that it was indeed transferrable and that the carpet must have been defective. They told me however that Empire had to file the claim which they refused to do! Now we are going to have to pay to have a whole house of carpet replaced that is only 3 years old! The carpet is the worse quality that I have ever seen or heard of!!!! They came out and the inspector saw how much carpet was coming up with every vacuum, this has been going on for nearly 3 years! The carpet has thinned out in all of the areas where we vaccum. The company denied the claim say that all of the details weren't meet to allow the warranty to be transferred, the reason they weren't complete is because when I tried to make a claim over 2 years ago, EMPIRE told me that they wouldn't take care of it so we there wasn't any since in trying anymore. I hadn't heard from this company for nearly 3 years until just this last month when I left a report with Angies List, thank God, customers have a place to voice their complaints and hopefull help someone else from being robbed!

Very smoothly. Workers know what they were doing and did it efficiently. There were a very few nicks on larger pieces of furniture, but easily fixed. Rugs have been in for two years and people still comment about how good the quality is, etc. We are very, very pleased.

The contractor that worked for this company was Jason Holmes and he did a great job. There was a small scratch in it when he was done that he promptly replaced it. He was prompt and go the work done in two days. Very professional man and I would recommend him to anyone.

The salesperson, Ken, was very polite and informational. No high pressure sales tactics with Ken, which I like. Ken went over the carpet types and colors and answered all my questions. Ken measured the rooms to be carpeted and did the calculating for the cost. I choose the carpet and color, then made the date for installation. I did have reservations about paying for something before the job is done. This is something you learn in a business class..."never pay upfront for services" and I had a REALLY hard time with that. I thought about it for some time and then finally agreed. The carpet installer called 30 mins ahead to let me know they were heading to my house. When they arrived, there were three men to do the installation and they got started right away. They cleaned the floor after pulling the old carpet up and started putting down the pad and then the carpet. The only thing I questioned was the brand of my carpet, which was not written on my invoice nor on the carpet itself. The installers did not know, but I was told it could be Empire's carpet, since they sell their own brand. The carpet I choose from the salesman's selection was Mohawk and I just wanted to make certain that is what I was getting since that is what I paid for....but no one seemed to know. It took about 7 hrs (including a lunch hour) for the job to be complete. The installers moved the furniture back and there was no messes for me to clean after they left. Also, there was no damage to my walls or furniture. They did a good job. This was my first experience with carpet installation, so I wasn't sure what to expect but all went well. Again, I am very leery of paying for something up front and usually will not do it. I think empire should consider how their customers feel on how and when Empire wants payment. I am not aware of any other company that I have done business with that reguires payment before the job is complete. I can not find a category to rate the payment issue nor the question about the product brand I recieved, but if there was one I would rate a C for payment and a B for not having listed the brand anywhere.

The ENTIRE experience was awful. Each time I walk down the stairs I step on nails and you can absolutely feel the floorboards under the carpet. It's like there is no carpet on the stairs at all. Dealing with customer service and the sales team has also been awful. They sometimes took over one week to call me back or never returned any calls. When the sales guy actually came by to finally check out the work he agreed that it was a bad job, but never followed up. It took me multiple phone calls to Empire to finally get someone on the phone. When they sent back some installation guys, who barely spoke proper English, they told us the nails were normal and that they could do something about it, but it might ruin the carpet. WHAT? Who thinks nails sticking out of carpet is normal??? Their only option was to refund us $100. Epic fail. Will NEVER use this company again.

Their estimate was for $10,000 but I did not accept it. They started out with $14,000 to $20,000 and when I told them that it was crazy, they cut it down by half. It was still too high and so, I did not take it. I would not recommend them.

They came out, gave me the quote and discussed the product and then let us make a decision. He came in and brought his samples of carpeting and kitchen flooring and while I looked at them he took measurements of the living room, hallway and kitchen that I am having done. After he took the measurements he discussed the product and process with us. We made a choice of what we were interested in and when he knew what we were interested in he told us what it would cost us if we go with them and with another company. He left the decision to us whether we wanted to go with him or not. I felt that they were good and the organization was good. I think their price was very fair and that's why we decided to go with them. They would be coming out next week to do the job. So far I have had no problems with them.

We had two installations - one for tile and one for carpet. Both were very good experiences. The crews were punctual and very tidy. The tile and carpet both look great. I had a great expereince with my sales person, as well. She was very knowledgeable and was certainly trying to close the sale, but I never felt too pressured.

My wife and I recently remodeled our basement and the last item besides decorating was choosing flooring. We didn’t have a lot of money for the flooring, but also didn’t want to skimp on quality. Our original idea was to make part of the basement vinyl flooring (the area where we would eat) and part of it carpet. For financial reasons we decided it was best to go all carpet. Enter Empire Carpet. Far and away they had the most aggressive pricing. My wife and I signed the agreement and a gentleman, whom we’ll call C for this review, and his teammate showed up the next day to perform the installation. Things quickly began to become uncomfortable. C made us feel uncomfortable from almost the very beginning of the job. I asked him how long he thought it would take for the job to be complete. I wasn’t trying to pin him in, but rather get an idea how long he would be at our house on a Saturday. My wife and I just wanted to make plans for the evening and I shared that with him. He responded that he can’t tell me how long a job will take because when he does people get angry with him if he doesn’t end by that time. All I wanted was an approximate window and I felt I made that clear. Next I reviewed that the carpet was the last step in the basement remodel and everything else in the room was brand new. I kindly asked that they just be super-careful when working around the walls since everything was new and freshly painted. C’s response was literally to stare at me. Right into my eyes. Uncomfortably. For a long time. It was seriously creepy. C responded by basically saying he’d do what he could, but there were no guarantees. Excellent start, fellas. As a disclaimer, I was already feeling uncomfortable when I mentioned to C how important it was to my wife and I that the walls stay clean, so I tried to make that reminder in the kindest way possible. I was going over the top in my attempt to not be an annoying, high-maintenance homeowner. Maybe thirty minutes later C called me downstairs. He showed me on the wall where his jeans had scraped against the wall and a black mark was now present. I couldn’t tell if it was a joke, if he was serious or just being kind of a jerk. Yes, there was a black mark on the wall from his brand new black jeans that had not been in the wash yet (leaving some dye on my wall), but this was something that was quite clearly going to just wipe right away. He apologized several times and told me he’d clean it up. I was just like, “OK…” I mean, it was a little black mark from his jeans that was not in any way permanent. Why the drama? Again, totally uncomfortable. The gentlemen worked to prep the floor and were traveling in and out of the back door of our home to their van. At one point my wife and I look out the door and C has our brand new carpet face-down on the driveway cutting it. Our filthy driveway was the best place he could think of to size and prep our brand new carpet. C did ask me how we wanted the top of the stairs installed. Unfortunately, due to the way our tile in the kitchen meets the stairs, the traditional carpet installation of just stapling the carpet into the flooring wasn’t going to work. He sort of jerry-rigged a solution, though, that worked and still holds today. We appreciated his ingenuity. As C was working on the stairs, he began coughing. It sounded like he wasn’t in the best of health. Then it sounded like he would die in our basement. For about an hour he just wheezed as he performed his work. Loudly. I doubt it affected the work or anything, but it really sounded like something was seriously wrong with this guy. At one point I was out in my garage and walked by the installer’s van. I saw a cockroach. A cockroach in the van on the carpet that was in the van. Since our carpet was installed by Empire I’ve noticed four bugs in our home. Maybe it came from C’s van, maybe not. This much I know: I’ve lived in this house since November of 2004 and I’ve never had a roach. It’s been a couple months since the carpet was installed and the problem has subsided, but it was gross when I saw it in the van and it was gross when I saw it in my house. Toward the end of the job C did an absolutely fantastic job sweeping up the carpet. I didn’t realize how much carpet is sucked up into a vacuum when the carpet is brand new. He probably spent thirty minutes sweeping the stuff up. If he hadn’t done what he had done we’d be emptying our vacuum every couple of minutes with little pieces of carpet. I appreciated his diligence in trying to have it prepped for us. When the job was complete, C asked me to come down and take a look around. While the carpet looked great, there were several pockmarks on my brand new walls and black scuffs everywhere. I was being asked my thoughts because C and his teammate believed they were done. I just wanted these cats out of my house so I told them it looked fine. My wife and I have come to realize that brand new drywall is going to have marks. It’s life. But at that moment I was disappointed that these two guys walked around down there and found their work acceptable. I told them it looked fine (the last thing I wanted was another uncomfortable interaction with these guys). Next C gave me a survey to complete. He watches me take the survey question-for-question – questions about him. So, guess who got all good marks but didn’t deserve them. C. Again, super-freaking uncomfortable. I later tweeted something about the audacity or just sheer stupidity of the survey process. Someone from Empire got in touch with me and actually gave my wife and I a 10% refund on all we had paid them. We appreciated it, but I wonder if anything’s changed. Is C still doing installations? Is the survey still conducted with the installer watching you grade she or he? Is the entire installation process still a crazy-uncomfortable experience? Would I recommend Empire? Actually I would. With the caveat that the installer is someone who is personable, bug-free and committed to doing great work. No doubt Empire knows who their best installers are and their ‘other’ installers like C are. Do you HAVE to have carpet installed the next day? If not, I’d suggest waiting on who your sales rep believes would be a great installer. Who is bug-free? And who is not possibly going to die in your basement? The price is right for the carpet and the salesperson we worked with excellent. But be wary of the installation process.

The installers from Empire Today LLC Company did a good job. Their work is holding up fine. I would use them again in the future.

They did a great job on the whole house.

It was great. They arrived the day after I chose a carpet style, and they did a wonderful job with the installation.

John M came out, measured and worked with me on the date for them to do the installation while I could be there the whole day. I had explained that the previous contractor who ripped up my kitchen floors found a lot of debris (trash, dirt, cigarette butts) and I asked them to make sure everything was clean! They brought me down & showed me how clean. John M was absolutely fantastic! We got 60% off our material. Our basement is very large and John E, Terry & Tim worked so hard and I have the most beautiful basement now. I am so pleased with the work! They really worked hard, were on time & kept me updated on when they would be there. They moved my furniture out of the way and back in place once the work was completed. I just can’t thank them enough. My carpet has a 10 year warranty as well.

They installed the laminate flooring well, but they didn't return to do an additional room for free as promised.

The floor looks spectacular! They did a fantastic job, and they really bent over backwards to accomodate me.

Meetings with the in-home rep were fine. Maybe a little personal for my taste, but I appreciate that they were able to get real accurate and particular measurements. The installation itself was the highlight for me. The crew was extremely friendly, very careful with our things, and worked long and hard enough to get a 2-day job done in one long day. They encouraged me to take pictures and answered all of my questions. It really was a great installation experience for us.

It was a gal that came out. My home is 22 years old and I have the original blue prints and offered to show them to her. She said that they would still need to take measurements. Somehow, she ended up with over 200 sq ft more than I actually had in the whole house even tho we were eliminating 5 rooms and the entry way. I read the fine print and contacted manager. The sales lady called her manager and didn’t ask for a price reduction. They took off $6000 immediately. I told the manager even if they offered the whole job for $1000 they still couldn’t come in my home. I had scheduled another guy to come out next day but was so upset still, I cancelled. I looked on Google and found a bunch of complaints on this company! I saw that one family had used this company for carpeting and after 2 months the carpet looked like a mess and couldn’t get the company to return their phone calls. The manager treated me like an idiot because I’m older.

The whole process was fine. They did a good job. They were very responsive. They came the next day. They had a small fraction of products to look at but I don't think they understood what I was looking for as much price stand point. I didn't have the same carpet with their salesperson which I did with the other provider. It's kind of hard to explain. Again all the interaction was with just one salesperson and he didn't have the same comfort level, it was probably more of their personality.

I love the new floors, they did a very good job. They were incredibly thorough. I am ecstatic about how the flooring turned out. Some how, it was not communicated to us that the flooring guys would take the toilet and other appliances out to install the flooring, but that they wouldn't reinstall them. This was sort of a big issue, because not only could we not use the toilet until someone else could come out and install it, but the smell from the sewer was coming into our home since the toilet was off. I didn't know that I was going to have to call a plumber, I think they should make that point very clear so that you can plan accordingly. I got on their website trying to see if this was common practice, and I received a call from Sam Beck right away. He was very kind and offered to pay $125.00 to wards hiring the plumber due to the misunderstanding. They handled this issue with such professionalism.

They did an okay job with the installation but they didn't do a good job vacuuming after completing the work. They moved the furniture for the installation but they didn't reposition all of the furniture correctly after.

Salesperson was punctual, knowledgeable. They ended up being our second choice behind another company that had the carpet we were looking for at about the same price.

The salesman never mentioned this and when I asked about it he said that he would consider it but he did not change the price. I went ahead with the order but after a sleepless night I called to cancel my order. They told me over the phone that the discount in question was figured into the price. I still cancelled because I felt I was not getting the discount. As it turns out the company that I ended up going with was half the price. Now I'm not a carpet expert and I am not an expert in the grade of carpet but there cannot be that much of a difference for Empire to be double the price. It was a bad experience and I would not recommend Empire to anyone. I do want to add that it was a positive experience when I cancelled because they did so without a hassling me. It was the discrepancy in their advertising that was ultimately the issue.

Short version: Empire's sales person misrepresented several terms of our two room carpet installation, including the fact that payment is due *before* installation begins. After reluctantly agreeing to pay first (the installer was already in our home and we had already moved 90% of our furnishings to other rooms), the installation manager claimed our credit card was declined and we were forced to cancel the installation. The card was in good standing with a credit line at least 5 times the cost of the carpet and the card issuer could find no record of a transaction attempt from Empire. I would not do business with Empire again, but if you do I would recommend: * get other estimates first * have a good idea of what type of flooring you want and what it should cost * expect a slick sales person that will say all the right things--even if they are only half true * expect to negotiate if you don't want to over pay * read the fine print of the installation agreements carefully, e.g. the installer will likely have a 8am to 6pm installation window and payment is due before work begins Longer version: Empire sales person, John Z., visited on 10/19/2010 to show my wife and I samples. The sales person was on time and seemed to know his products reasonably well. Selection was limited, but we expected to make that trade-off when having an in-home sales call. After measuring the rooms, he gave us an initial quote of $3,900 for two rooms (totaling about 610 sq. ft.) of 60oz beige carpet. He also made it abundantly clear that he was willing to negotiate and suggested we should name a price. When we declined and told him we'd like to think it over as this was our first estimate, he immediately began bargaining and asked if we would consider signing a contract that night if he could get the okay from his manager to sell the carpet for $2,500. Unfortunately, we took the bait--despite all the classic signs indicating we were being manipulated by a smooth sales person. After a call to his manager and some haggling over the last couple hundred dollars, we signed a $2,500 contract for installation two days later on 10/21 and made a $25 deposit. Our first sign that we'd been misled by the sales person was when we did not receive the promised call the day before the installation to do the final scheduling. That's when we found out the installation window was any time from 8am to 6pm. (And the first customer service rep we spoke with said, incorrectly, the window was 6am to 9pm!) The second sign we were misled was when the installer asked if Empire had told us we needed to pay before the work could start. We had not been told that but later found it in the contract fine print. Had we realized that before signing, we never would have signed the contact. A credit check or significant deposit prior to starting work is understandable. Payment in full before any work is done is a clear warning sign. We asked the installer to speak with his supervisor to discuss the payment terms. The supervisor, Marvin, referred us to his manager, Andy. Andy insisted that we pay first or they could not install the carpet. After also speaking with our sales person, John--who claimed he had told us all along that we needed to pay first--my wife and I agreed to hope for the best and pay up front. When the installer called in the credit card information, Andy told the installer our card had been declined. At that point my wife and I decided we'd had enough headaches and cancelled the order. I later called the credit card company and they confirmed the credit line was sufficient and could find no record of the declined charge Andy claimed. My wife and I naively assumed things would go smoothly when dealing with a company that has been in business so long. Buyer beware.

Estimator came to home to measure, brought samples, we made our selections and received the estimate. Once we decided, the rest was easy. An appointment was made for installation. The installers arrived on time, did the work and left taking all the old carpet and rubbish with them. It happened so fast, and professionally, that we couldn't believe it. We are very pleased with the quality, pricing and professionalism of this experience.