Hardwood Flooring Products

The quality of the floor refinishing was acceptable. A hole in the floor that had to be repaired did not turn out well. The carpet removal was not great--there was a large amount of heavy debris left in the house, as well as remnants of carpet and hundreds of staples left in some areas. Some vent hole covers needed to be ordered after fact, and I had to call the company many, many times to get them to follow through with the order and delivery of the covers. The main issue was that the shoe molding was never provided or installed, although this was paid for. I requested a refund for the shoe molding by email and USPS certified mail from the owner. The owner provided a partial refund, claiming additional expenses that were never discussed or part of the contract. In short, this company was a headache to deal with, and I truly regret hiring them. The previous negative review by another Angie's List user rings very true.

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In two words: Never again!

Here's how it went at our home in 2014:
We contacted Hardwood Flooring Products to install a floor in our living room and hallway to match the adjacent hardwood in the foyer and dining room. Owner Gary Colwell arrived promptly and measured the space. We explained that we chose Hardwood Flooring Products for the living room to match the older floors as closely as possible because we were pleased with the work he had done for us in the past. Ten years ago, this contractor had matched the existing foyer to his new hardwood installation in the dining room. The job included installing the hardwood (red oak), stain to match the existing floor, and three coats of poly finish; the removal of carpeting, removal and re-installation of baseboards, and hanging plastic to help protect the rest of the house from the dust and fumes.

A week before the job was to start, we were contacted and told we were required to pay 46% of the total cost up front. The job started on Tuesday, July 8. Workers took four days to remove the old carpeting, padding and tack strips, lay the new floor and sand it. On the following Monday, the floor was stained. To our dismay, the new floor did NOT remotely match the existing floor. We called the owner, who came the next morning and inspected the work. He gave us the option of having the new floor re-sanded and re-stained, or having the old floor sanded and stained to match the new one. We appreciated the choice. While the color of the new floor was not one we would have chosen had we been given the opportunity, the color did look nice, and we knew that the stain should match (no more guessing), so we opted for that.

We were surprised to receive a phone call later Tuesday afternoon from the HFP office, requesting final payment for the floor - this despite the fact that the living room floor still needed two additional coats of polyurethane, and the work to fix the error of applying the wrong stain color had not even begun. Our concern was that if we paid most or all of the balance, the impetus to finish the work and fix the bad matching job would be gone. After unfruitful discussions with Cheryl, the office person, we spoke with the owner. We offered and it was agreed to pay the remaining balance in three installments: the first upon the last coat of poly of the living room floor; the second upon staining the old floor to ensure that the floors reasonably match; and the third on completion of the job.

We had several other surprises: The crew had cut the carpet just past the bedroom door, leaving a loose, floppy stub. We were told that the hanging piece of carpet is the and quot;homeowner's responsibilityand quot; to finish, as is the gap between the wood floor and the tile leading to the kitchen. This may be accepted business practice in the flooring industry, but we were not prepared for it. This would have been good to know in advance. Also, an entire bundle of hardwood was removed from the job after the floors were laid. We had paid for the flooring and did not know that the general practice was apparently to take the extra without corresponding credit on the final bill.

Other observations: the crew frequently seemed disorganized. Nearly every day of work, workers said tools were missing from the truck, and/or they made complaints about equipment (i.e, “bad” electrical cable; the missing ladder; a vacuum that wouldn’t stay plugged in), or they didn’t bring plastic/ladders, etc.. The workers also mentioned at least two jobs they were doing over.

We spent the following weekend moving all the living room furniture back and moving all the furniture and rugs out of the dining room and foyer. The crew arrived on Tuesday and put plastic up, but they declined to affix the plastic to the ceiling of the two-story foyer between the work and living areas. They only went up about two-thirds of the way, which allowed copious amounts of dust and fumes to permeate the rest of the house. The floor matched well (they had used the leftover stain from the living room.)

On Friday morning (July 25), when the crew arrived to put the last coat of polyurethane on the floor, we were asked to send a check back to the office with them for the final payment. We declined, as we had not yet seen the finished floor, which was still wet. We wanted to wait until the floor was dry. On Sunday morning, July 27, we took the plastic down to look at the work. The floor had “chatter” marks throughout. On Monday, we called and reported that we were less than happy about the wavy floor. The office said they would send the owner over the next day.

On the next Monday morning, Mr. Colwell took a look at the chatter marks. He offered to do the floor again.

The next morning, the same crew as before was sent out to tackle the floor yet another time. We had asked in advance that the plastic was put up to the ceiling this time and were told it should have been done that way; however the crew did not bring a long ladder and had to borrow one of ours (don’t lend yours if you don’t have the liability insurance to cover it). The crew took a lot of time and effort to try to seal off the work area from the rest of the house. They even covered our chandelier. and quot;Rand quot;, who had mixed the original stain, mixed his formula again, and they stained the floor on Thursday. Unfortunately, our home wound up being almost as dusty as before. The crew apologized for the dust and offered to help clean up. The pffove even offered to put on the polyurethane over the weekend so that the job would be done on Sunday. That was great, because we had already suffered through nearly four weeks of fumes, dust and disruption.

On Sunday, August 3, the crew arrived early in the morning buffed the floor to ready it for the final coat of polyurethane. The workers removed their plastic, and ----- IT DIDN’T MATCH. AGAIN! The guys were going to go ahead and coat the floor anyway. When we asked if the final coat of polyurethane they intended to put down would make the floor match, they said they “doubted it”. They volunteered to text the owner and tell him that the floor still didn’t match, and they left.

At this point our patience was about as thin as our floors. We contacted the owner on Monday morning, who said he and quot;would do what it takes to make it rightand quot;.

Once again, they sanded the floors. This time, they brought a box fan with them, which helped reduce the dust and fumes. (We wonder why they didn’t bring it the previous times.)

This time, the fourth time, the stain finally matches. However the final result ( see photos) is that floor STILL has chatter/waves throughout. The “corrected” floor is noticeably lower than the new floor. The finish from the old floor to the new floor looks sloppy. It has streaks and debris trapped in the finish; there are discernible rings and swirls where stain color was evidently tested directly on our floor, and there are unsightly overlap marks onto the old floor. The old floor looks shinier than the new floor. You can sometimes see places where a brush was dropped on the finish. (Mr. Colwell even denied that the crew used a brush, but they most certainly did.)

On August 18, Mr. Colwell again inspected the work. He informed us that it the floor “looks okay to him” but agreed to fix the finish where the two floors meet. We implored Cheryl at the office to send over their best guy for this, and she replied, “we most certainly will”. The next morning, the same man who had bungled the job all the previous times (evidently their best guy), showed up with two “helpers”. The man did some work on a small area of the floor. We did hand over our final check on the spot as promised, despite the fact that we are disappointed with our result.

The following day, inspected the dry “repair”. We were not surprised that It looks pretty

All services and contacts were excellent. The staff were prompt, courteous, respectful, professional, and caring toward our suggestions. Even though they were extremely busy, they placed our hardwood floor down in record time so as to not inconvenience us. The result is absolutely gorgeous as well as highly professional skilled work. Also, they returned promptly to fix a defect in the wood itself which could not be picked up till all coats had dried. They even returned again to fix my goof when I accidentally stepped on the wet polyethylene coating and left footprints. We cannot praise this company enough. Everything was professionally and efficiently done in a reasonable amount of time.

They were great. They did a wonderful job and it was very reasonable. We actually had estimates from a number of competitors and theirs was the best and the work was just excellent. He was just marvelous. I would never have been satisfied as much as I was with them. I will hire them again.