
Walker's Wood Flooring
About us
Walker's Wood Flooring was established in 2005, we have finished hundreds of floors, including commercial, and specializing in residential installations. Joe Walker is the sole proprietor and worker for Walker Wood Flooring. Jobs are local to the Sacramento Area but we have gone as far as Washington State. We specialize in installing, finishing and staining floors. We also install tile and laminate flooring products. We pride ourselves in meeting the individual needs and desires of each client we serve.
Business highlights
Services we offer
Custom Hardwood Flooring, Engineered, Free Estimates, Installations & Refinishing, Laminates Glue Downs, Pre Finished Floors, Solids, null
Amenities
Free Estimates
Yes
Number of Stars | Image of Distribution | Number of Ratings |
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80% | ||
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20% |
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
"It was recently brought to my attention that this review had been posted and all I can say is, WOW. [member name removed] is completely off based, so off based that she failed to mention she hired an independent inspector certified by the N.W.F.A ( National Wood Flooring Association )that cost her $500.00 to inspect my work. His findings was that the work was done completely with in industry standard and had no cause for further complaint. For further reviews on my quality I urge you to also find me on yelp. Thank you, Joe Walker."
Licensing
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