Lou the Floor Man

He did a great job, and quickly.

Lou was great. He is low-key and friendly. Not easily ruffled by anything. He has many years of experience installing tile, carpet and other floor coverings. The experienced showed in his work and deftness with the tools and materials. He stated he is also available for flooring repairs. He will patch tile floors or re-stretch wall-to-wall. He's a troubleshooter and very handy with the jigsaw. He cut and fit the 1/4 ply quickly in a small space with lots of complicated cuts. The total flooring was about 160 sq. feet, but it was complicated and there was a design with the two colors of tile. He has a can-do attitude and takes pride in his work. I had researched period-appropriate materials for my 1970 Airstream, and I did a lot of studying up on Marmoleum after I decided on it. It's hard to find the product and installers outside of major metro areas. It's a green, non-off-gassing product. Old fashioned, flexible and warm to the touch instead of cold and rigid like VCT. Marmoleum is particular that the installer lay the tile before the adhesive has flashed off, so I was concerned to find someone hip to this and skilled. I interviewed many installers, and was convinced that Lou could do the job. He sounded experienced and took it in stride that this adhesive was different from regular composition tile (VCT). He wasn't concerned, yet he still gave care and attention to the Marmoleum specs. The tile looks excellent and there is no shifting so far, but several days will tell. I will be sure to edit if there are any events to report. Lou brought a lot of flooring equipment to the job site in his work van. He had the heavy roller and saws and all kinds of tools to do my job, as well as carpeting jobs. I had priced out the job with my local floor and carpet shop, but the price they quoted was pretty shocking. The cost of material alone iwas twice what I spent in ordering the materials. But the labor was sky high. They wanted to charge three-four times as much, and they didn't sound confident or eager to work on a trailer. I was nervous. Lou had a long commute from Middletown, so he wasn't here that early. There was one tool issue the second afternoon, but it was resolved overnight and Lou finished up early on the third day. If his commute wasn't so long, he would have been able to complete the job in 2 days, no problem. The only notable thing during the install was that Lou brought his mother to the job site on the first and third days. She remained in the van, sometimes got out and looked at the work (it was taking place in the trailer, in our front yard). It was unusual, but not at all disruptive. Lou seemed to be keeping an eye on her by bringing her. He is a very small operation and his mom was an oldster and very nice and spry. I was surprised when he showed up with her, but as long as the work got done and there was no disruption, I was cool with it. There was no down side at all. I wish I had more work for Lou to do, but we have sold our house and are traveling x-country in our trailer to relocate. I highly recommend Lou. We paid him in cash and I'm afraid I did not catch his last name. But if you call him I'm sure he'll be happy to give you that info. I'm happy to be able to set up a new provider listing for Lou. I'd like to make others aware of the excellent service I received so that he can, perhaps, get more work through Angie's List. He's a phone guy rather than an emailer. Call him!