DAVE'S HARDWOOD FLOORING

Dave’s flooring was hired to do our floors where they would add in new wood floors and then sand and stain all the floors and use a UV technique to harden the top coat. The person who installed new wood where the carpet was did an outstanding job. He integrated the new floors with the old floors perfectly. The job took him a week, a week in which we lived out of our basement and bedrooms and stayed off of our main level. The following week Dave’s came out to sand down the old floors and the newly installed wood floor, which happened on Monday and Tuesday. They applied the stain on Tuesday, it dried and then on Wednesday they came and put on a top coat. Thursday they came and put on another top coat. On Friday they came with the UV machine to harden the top coat. The final coat, which they put on Thursday, May 5th, was put on in the afternoon. We had to wait until 9:00 PM until we could walk on it with our socks. The next morning, Friday, we noticed that different areas of the floor had a different top coat on. In the living room and dining room there are “pockets” by the main patio door. Both of these rectangular areas look like they were covered with a matte finish. The rest of the room was covered in what looks to be a satin finish. We wanted the satin finish. One is shiny and the other is not. The person who did the UV coat on Friday said that he had never seen two different looks on one floor before and he got on the phone to talk to the person who put the top coats on. Besides those two areas, the kitchen was a matte finish (like I said, we wanted satin throughout). The dining room was switched, the part closest to the window was a satin finish and the rest of the room was matte. The rest of the floors seemed to be in satin. The person doing the UV coat did not know what to do since he had never run across this situation. He called the guy who applied the coats, and this guy swore up and down that he had put the same finish on the entire floor and that he shook every can. This person had someone helping him out who said the same thing. Being a logical and rational human being and looking with my eyes, I am telling you that there were two different finishes of top coat on the floor. Dave’s insists there was not. I invited neighbors and family who saw it and they said the same thing, there were two different finishes on our floor. The only other explanation is that the finish types were mislabeled at the factory. It is theoretically possible, but I doubt it. The person who put down the top coat had to have made a mistake, which happens, but they would not admit it and everyone I dealt with at Dave’s would not say those words either. After a half hour on the phone it was decided that the kid would run the UV light over the floor and that Dave’s would come out Monday and re-do the top coat and UV. This way we could walk on the floor without scratching it and lead a semi-normal existence. I found this solution acceptable. On Monday, May 9, 2016, I received a call from Dave’s and they still insisted the top coats were the same. They wanted to put a different product on the floor that is used in commercial buildings that would cure with chemicals and would have 80% of the hardness of the UV coating. I told them I was worried about my dogs scratching the floor while it dried. This happened at my neighbor’s house and their floor is covered in scratches after having their floors done. With the UV coating were zero scratches from the dog over the weekend. I wanted them to put it in writing that this new coating would be just as scratch resistant as the UV type, or else they would come out and redo the floors again. They would not do that. They told me I already had the UV coating on the floor and there was no problem, and I had to point out that they screwed up the coating and the floor is 100% different finishes and that was not my fault and it was a problem. Anyway, I called them back and insisted that they come out and redo the floors with the UV coating. Dave’s sent out two different guys to fix their mistake. Once again they tried to talk me into using a process that I did not want and did not pay for initially. I insisted that they use the UV coating. They told me this process is not perfected and that there was no problem with my existing floor. I asked them why they would sell a product that they do not trust. There was no good answer. The guys got to work and they put a new finish on the floors. This time the floors looked like they all had a satin finish. They were beautiful. One thing that did **** me off is that he called this “warranty work.” If they job is not done right and is not completed, I would not refer to it as warranty work. I would say you are there to do the job right. He then had the cajones to ask for the final payment, even though they needed to run the UV machine over it and then install the trim that they took down. I told them they would get paid when the job was done to my satisfaction. Not once did Dave’s ever say, “We screwed up and we will fix it.” Not once. I have not dealt with a business that would not take responsibility for their mistake. Even on the remote chance that the top coat cans were mislabeled at the factory, a .001% chance, they should still have taken responsibility. Instead the original layer of the top coat insisted that he did everything 100% correctly. The only person who saw this as a problem was the kid who ran the UV machine the next day. He did not say that they messed up and would fix it. I was made to feel like this was my fault, that they were doing me a favor by fixing it, and that the product they sold was not good enough for market. They lose the last argument because when they had someone out there who knew what they were doing the floors turned out great and we now have hardwood throughout our main living area. I gave them a “B” because the end results were fantastic. The floors look great. The other issues I had with Dave’s Flooring is that there is no one person you talk to for your project. There is no project manager. The results of this are that you get phone calls the day they are supposed to work from the person doing the work. They could start in the morning or in the late afternoon. The person who installs the wood has no idea how long the rest of the process should take and they have no idea who is going to do the work. If they had a few project managers working they would have a system where the person talks to one contact person at Dave’s and that person could give you times the crew would show up for every step of the process. The person who installed the new floors was truly a craftsman. He did some of the best carpentry work I have ever seen. He took pride in his work and it showed. It is because of him that the entire project turned out so well. So if results are what matter, then Dave’s does good work. Be prepared to argue over steps in the process and be forceful with what you want fixed.