Lumber Liquidators

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In September of 2011 my husband and I visited the Duluth, MN Lumber Liquidators store looking for information on hardwood floors. The salesmen were very informative and helpful promoting all the positive qualities of the Bellawood product. Our house sits on a concrete slab and the sales staff assured us their products work very well on concrete slabs and showed us some samples of different adhesives. At this point we decided to purchase a floor and chose the Bellawood Brazilian Cherry in 5/16 x 3? size being assured by the sales staff that this would work perfectly. The staff went on to promote the Elastilon Self-adhesive underlayment touting the quality of the product ? ?well worth the investment?. At this point we were given a quote for all the materials and the advertisement packet, which included a coupon to use for LL in-house installer. The same day we called LL Professional Installation Services to make an appointment for the installer to come and give us an estimate for the installation costs. Alan Barbe, the installer, met with us on September 8th with his estimate and we proceeded with the project. All materials were purchased and Mr. Barbe started work in mid October. At the time of the quote he estimated it?d take about a week to lay the floor but blocked out 2 weeks to finish the project.Once the project started it was two weeks plus of Mr. Barbe - LL professional installer - and his helper showing up at odd times and days of not showing up at all. Once the floor was down it had so many problems:The flooring butting along the entryway/living room wall did not meet the wall leaving a gap that the molding didn?t even cover; a section in the hallway was the same. An area in the dining room had the blue vapor barrier sticking out from the molding. Whole sections in many areas did more than ?float? ? these areas would sink when stepped on and could be seen from across the room. In the dining room there were several strips that were not seeded properly and it had a ripple effect. The kitchen had major gaps that would fill with food crumbs and in the center of the floor there was a chipped and oddly cut board that really stuck out. We had gaps between boards running lengthwise that were very obvious from a standing position. One gap was so bad you could see all the way to the Elastilon underneath. The floor was unpleasant to walk on barefooted due to the feel of ridges especially in the kitchen. One of the boards in the walkway had a large crack which gave us some worry since it was in a heavy traffic area. There were several boards that had no finish on parts of the board so the installer proudly used fingernail polish to cover it but it didn?t blend very well. Quite a few areas had gaps large enough from what looked like splintered boards that they filled them with LOTS of wood putty that kept coming up due to the movement of the floor. My husband called Mr. Barbe when he got back from his vacation and voiced some of our concerns and he assured us he?d fix anything that wasn?t right. He came out and looked at the floor on January 1,2012 and immediately concluded the whole floor needed to be replaced. Mr. Barbe set the weeks of April 16 and April 23rd as his time to replace the floor and assured us that he?d have no other obligations to interfere. My husband helped as much as possible including picking up the flooring for the installer since he was out of town. Before the installer showed up my husband had removed all the molding, the old flooring in the kitchen and dining room and then helped remove the rest of the floor with the installer on Friday afternoon. My husband then thoroughly vacuumed all the rooms to make them ready for installation. Mr. Barbe showed up two ½ days the first week of our scheduled installation. The second week of installation had many late starts and a couple no show dates as well. Once again the installer was up against a deadline for his vacation which happened with the first installation. He left town on May 2nd, for another vacation leaving about a third of our living room, a third of our den, our hallway, all the molding and the chore of removing the glue to be finished sometime after his return on May 12th. We were able to move our appliances back into the kitchen after my husband cleaned the floor of all the glue spots in the kitchen and dining room, which helped with our living arrangement but we were so distressed at this point that my husband insisted that the installer hire someone to finish the floor for him. Mr. Barbe did agree to send his son to finish the project and the man was very professional and did a very good job finishing the work along with his helper. My husband and I tried to be understanding in this whole situation and as helpful as possible but can?t help but feel like we were taken advantage of. We lived out of our bedroom for 2 1/2 weeks, cooking and doing laundry at our daughter?s house for the second time in five months. It was difficult on our pets, our family and our daily quality of life. We have labeled this the Worse Experience Of Our Lives. We were assigned a contact person from LL customer care department. She never contacted us personally through the whole ordeal. I have written a lengthy letter to the home office, emailed letters to the customer care department and complained to the store manager. The only contact I received back from customer care was a call asking if the floor was finished so they could close the files. When I tried to voice some of my frustrations, the woman said all she wanted to know was if the floor was finished ... that's all she wanted to discuss. The Lumber Liquidator installation was a nightmare and very unprofessional -- both times. The Customer Care department was not helpful and never took responsibility for anything. A sincere apology from someone along the way would have been appreciated and soothing.