Draper Floors

Outstanding

could not have gone better

I'll try to stick to the facts and keep all emotion out of this review. Overall- D Price - B ... the price seemed good at the time, but we thought we were getting the guarantee. We would have gone with our cheaper guy $1.50/sqft. if I would have known about all this mess. Quality - D ... because of the uneven areas. Other than that our floors look amazing. It's when you walk on the uneven areas that you can tell they're uneven. I'm not sure if those areas will settle over time and be better or worse. I just feel like we're paying so much for flooring, I'd like it to be done right. Responsiveness - B... normally Mr. Draper was easy to get in touch with. My husband did hang up on him once and another time just handed me the phone without letting him know he was done talking. Mr. Draper hung up on me once but when I called him back, he did answer the phone. Punctuality - A!! ... I was actually late to our first appointment! Professionalism - F... my review will explain this grade. Here's the good: 1. This was installation only. We bought our floors from a different company, which was AMAZING! I wish I could put the info here. 2. The price was decent. $1.95/sq ft. plus $50 for floating compound. 3. Mr. Draper was very nice when we met him which is part of why we went with him. He's a small business owner and we wanted to support that. 4. My floors LOOK great. The installer knows how to install, I guess he just didn't want to take the extra time to get the surface even. Here's the bad: We were responsible for purchasing the moisture barrier and I asked several sources, including the manufacturer and they all said all we needed was the black plastic that we could get from Lowe's or Home Depot. Mr. Draper told my husband that his installer would use a straight edge to make sure our flooring was level. When the installer came to my house, my husband wasn't home. The installer DID NOT use the straight edge. I showed him where the moisture barrier was and asked if that was the right kind and he said "yes". So I left him to it. When he was done, my husband and I walked in our room and immediately heard crinkling noises when we walked in certain areas and in those areas felt as if we were falling into dips and holes. We told him it was uneven, that you could see and hear the areas that were uneven and he acted as if that were normal. I knocked on the cork so he could hear the difference of it being directly on the concrete vs. the hollow noise of the dip. There were 2 areas that I found right away and showed them to him. He said "the floor is good". My husband called Mr. Draper and told him what was going on and that his installer didn't use a straight edge to check for levelness in the first place. Mr. Draper was telling my husband that his installer told him he did and he believes him and there was nothing he could do for us. My husband then told him he believes his wife (me) over his installer and hung up on him. (He later apologized for hanging up on him.) I then called Mr. Draper back to see why they wouldn't come back out. I asked him personally to come out and see what we were talking about. He said "I've already been out there once". He was out there earlier in the day when the floor was about 1/4 finished. I told him that I don't expect him to believe me over his installer but he did not use a straight edge. He walked in my room and looked around, put a lamp in my bathroom and said it was good and level. Mr. Draper said his installer would be back at his business in about 15 minutes and that he would call me back. He called me back and said that his installer would be coming back because he asked to see his straight edge and he didn't even have it with him ( which would mean he didn't have it to check the floor to begin with ). So when the installer came back out 3 days later, he took up the floor up to the 2 areas that we pointed out before. We asked him about the other areas of the main room and in the closet and he said he would have to take up the whole floor to do that. My husband told him to do what he needs to do. We called Mr. Draper and told him that his installer was only doing 2 areas and he needed to check the whole room. Mr. Draper said the same thing to me, that we only pointed out those 2 areas and they'd already been out twice and that's all they could do. I told him that it's not my responsibility to find all the defects, I'm not the professional and if it had been done right the first time then he wouldn't have had to come back twice! He said, "I'm sorry we've done all we can do." He said he'd never seen moisture barrier like that and it's bunching up in some areas. The installer also tried to blame it on the moisture barrier bunching up. He said it's supposed to have something else also. When I asked him why he didn't tell me that when I asked him 3 days ago, he said, well you asked me and I said it was good. OK?! So then it's not the moisture barrier that's the problem. It's the UNEVEN surface! Mr. Draper also informed us AFTER they started that he doesn't normally install floors bought online because he can't guarantee them. When he was at my house the first day, the installer showed us 3 planks that had surface scratches maybe 1/4 inch long. Other than that, there didn't appear to have any structural damage to the actual product. But Mr. Draper was also saying that the planks probably had manufacturing defects and that's why they were uneven. So the 2 areas that we pointed out have been repaired and guess what?! No noise from the moisture barrier! And it doesn't feel like I'm walking into a dip! There is still at least one area in my room that is uneven and a few areas in my closet. We were expecting him to come back and measure all areas like he should have done in the first place. If I would have known he would only re-do areas that I complained about, I would have checked out every inch of that flooring and been on the phone with the details. At this point we have 2 options... have the entire floor taken up and re-done by someone else or suck it up and be happy with it. We paid a pretty penny for our cork floors so we don't want to spend twice what we've already spent to have them exactly right. It's sad we didn't get them exactly right in the first place. Mr. Draper also said to me "You need to put your furniture back in and enjoy your floor". Wow. But I guess that's exactly what I'll be doing whether it's right or not. He also said "I don't want you to be mad at me and I don't want to be mad at you, I just want to move on." That's easy to say when it's not your floor. Had it been his own floor in his house, would he just accept the work that was done? I guess it just blows me away at the lack of integrity. Doing things right the first time or making it right. I know they came out a second time, but why not do the whole thing RIGHT? It wasn't done right the first time so it's not my fault that they have to come back twice. AND why am I expected to find all the faulty areas? That's exactly why we paid money to have our floors put in instead of doing it ourselves. I just don't get it. If you want to feel like you're dealing with someone with integrity, go with someone else. Does anyone actually read these reviews in their entirety? Even if not, I feel better just getting it out.