Rhodes Flooring America

see above it wont' let me cut and paste!

We visited the Rhodes store in Ocean Springs to spec out replacement flooring for the majority of our house. We would be replacing the builder-default wall-to-wall carpeting in our living, dining, hallway, and home office areas, and the vinyl in our kitchen, with hardwood flooring, and the vinyl in our 2 bathrooms and laundry room with higher-quality vinyl than what the builder had supplied. Basically, the only flooring in our home what we would NOT be replacing would be that in the 3 bedrooms.
It would be a pretty straightforward removal and installation project with the exception of my home office; in this room I had installed office furniture over the base carpeting after we moved in, and this furniture was (is) sized and installed such that it could (can) not be removed...it's basically now and quot;built-inand quot;. This meant that the new wood flooring would need to be installed as seamlessly as possible with the furniture as a and quot;built-in obstacleand quot;.

The salesperson (and store manager) at the Ocean Springs store, Debbie Tiblier, immediately demonstrated her knowledge and experience, as well as her awareness that the MS Gulf Coast market is not generally an and quot;upscaleand quot; market...she realized that we would be looking for a and quot;high-end-likeand quot; job but at mid-market prices. She also made the right recommendations based on an on-slab installation and with previous regional hurricane flooding potential in mind (even though our location did not, and has not, previously flooded). She also willingly provided me her Email address and communicated with me promptly multiple times during the decision process to address my questions and concerns. Finally, she demonstrated an understanding of the challenges that my home office furniture obstacles would present.

We appreciated that before leaving a deposit to get the job started, Rhodes provides a free measuring service (in contrast to other vendors who charge for this service and only credit it back if you choose their sales/installation); Rhodes is confident enough to risk this cost in order to earn your business. Their measurement man, Eddie Vuyovich, was an installer for 30+ years and I found him to be thorough and knowledgeable, and again willing to expertly address my questions and concerns about the home office furniture part of the project once he saw my setup in person. He took photos and detailed notes.

Based on our desires/requirements, the measurements, and her expertise, Debbie recommended a mid-priced engineered flooring solution for the hardwood areas, a mid-priced vinyl solution for the wet room areas, and a and quot;glued downand quot; (as opposed to and quot;floatingand quot;) installation process. She allowed us to bring home the applicable sample pieces of the choices we'd narrowed down, in order to make our final selections.

Next, she put together the estimate/proposal. Unfortunately, her first draft was not to the level of detail I required (a complete listing of the chosen merchandise and exact work to be performed). When I questioned this, she told me that this level of detail is not usually included on these proposals (normally just a high-level summary), but for a $12K job I insisted on all the details. I also put my request in the context of and quot;what happens if you're no longer working here between now and when the job is performed?and quot; and while she initially replied by citing the many years she'd been working for Rhodes, when I wouldn't back down she complied and fully documented the proposal to my satisfaction. This will become particularly pertinent in a paragraph coming up below. I provided my deposit of half of the bottom line cost, and the order was placed. A few weeks later, I was able to nail down my personal work schedule and thus provide some options for when I would be home to host the installation crew.

In the weeks leading up the installation, Rhodes' installation coordinator, Chris Craig, contacted me to confirm the dates and to advise me which crew would be performing the installation. I was pleased to discover that the crew contracted for my job would be led by their measurement man Eddie's own brother, Dale Vuyovich, another experienced installer. Chris also advised me the identity of the plumber who would be tasked with the removal of my commodes in concert with the installation crew, so that the bathrooms could have their vinyl removed and installed. (The proposal called for Rhodes to line the plumber up for me but for me to work with and pay him directly, which I had no problem with.)

I discovered along the way that Chris is relatively new at the coordinator job, having replaced someone else who had done it for 30 years. While the following does not cost Rhodes any stars/ratings on this review, some small matters are noteworthy: (1) He did not inform the plumber that he would also need to handle the plumbing disconnect/reconnects on the refrigerator and my washing machine, and (2) He did not inform Dale's crew that the job would include the vinyl remove/install as well as the wood. Both the plumber and Dale's crew did not learn of these tasks from Chris until the day the installation started when they stopped by the Rhodes facility to pick up the materials. Obviously these communication/coordination oversights did not adversely affect the finished job (hence the A ratings across the board), but for me to find out about these oversights from the workers right when they arrived the first morning was initially troubling to me. Still, all's well that ended well. I trust that after hearing of this review from his management that Chris will apply lessons learned, and those reading this review, if they choose Rhodes for their job, will benefit from my feedback and Chris will communicate/coordinate everything on their jobs perfectly.

I also discovered on the day that my installation began that my salesperson, Debbie, who had been with the company for many years, was no longer with the company as of the previous week, and furthermore had departed abruptly for some reason and was no longer even living in the area anymore. Again, a troubling discovery right when the job was getting underway, and one that made me glad that I demanded my job to be documented in complete detail on the proposal...which was my only tangible paper trail (aside from my deposit receipt) leading up to installation. Advice to everyone: NEVER ASSUME that any person with whom you're working at any vendor company will still be working there through the span of the project...you're doing business with, and making a contract with, the COMPANY, not a person. Document EVERYTHING, IN DETAIL, and never accept and quot;Oh, I'll be hereand quot; as a substitute for detailed documentation. (Now, in fairness, and this is key: While the job was underway I dropped Debbie an Email and she replied back to me from her new home location, and expressed a willingness to help see any issues through if I had any even though she had left the company and the area. I personally appreciated that level of commitment.)

These concerns aside, Dale and his crew were SPECTACULAR, and if you do business with Rhodes I would strongly recommend that you request them, and adjust your schedule to accommodate their availability. Upon their arrival they took the time to walk the house with me and understand my requirements and concerns (especially in my home office), and then they went to work. They were through, knowledgeable, professional, clean, polite, respectful, and most important of all, expertly competent! They even came up with incredibly clever solutions for working around my office furniture obstacles (and reviewed them with me before proceeding), such that the final installation is so seamless that you would never know that the flooring in that room is not wall-to-wall and that there's still carpeting installed underneath the units. Just amazing. (FYI, I purchased 3 e

Everything so far looks great. We were happy with the price. They did it in two or three days once the materials came in.

They were very friendly. We got our pets and everything out of the way. They were able to get to work. They’ve been in business a long time, so they’re very experienced.

I intend to use them next year to lay carpet in my bedroom.