Santi Hardwood Floors

Moving to the city of Durham, NC from Los Angeles, CA, knowing nobody in this new city and having a very bad experience with the natural slate tile previously installed in my property in Los Angeles, I was very skeptical and cautious when working with any local installers for my request, again for natural slate tile installation for my new single family home construction in Treyburn Forest community of Durham. Julio, Mario and their tile crew at Santi Hardwood Flooring did the excellent tile job for the first floor with Brazilian Montauk blue 24"x24" natural slate tile and two shower rooms of this new construction. Julio and his Santi Hardwood Flooring teams continue to work on the second floor with Hickory solid hardwood planks. With his teams' great success in the natural slate tile installation, I have no doubt about his teams' skill on any solid hardwood installation which I believe, his teams are the experts. Absolutely, I would highly recommend Julio and his Santi Hardwood Flooring company to my friends and neighbors who would have any flooring requests for great installation service with a very competitive price. Viet Pham ( Durham, NC)

Santi flooring was great. They were responsive and quick to do the job. My new floor looks wonderful. Very satisfied with the service.

At first they seemed great and were very accomodating when we had to delay a week from our original schedule. Floors were heavily stained in spots and we were told that would be no problem to sand out. I said we would be okay with darker finish to hide whatever the sanding couldn’t remove. They did not sand out the stains. I tried to reach julio to make sure we would go with a darker stain but he did not respond until after they put down poly and now say it is too late. They also removed the baseboard trim and were supposed to put it back but they did not. We do not know what they did with it and haven’t gotten any response except for an automated thank you asking for us to review them. We were not expecting to have to replace all of the baseboard trim. Not sure what to do. Very disappointing. They were very nice but now we have to hire someone else to come back and do the job right.

I was overall happy with the outcome of my stairway and floor! I had several estimates and felt great about Santi Hardwood Floors. I only gave a rating of fair for punctuality because I had to wait an hour or so from the time that I was given. I understand that they may have gotten stuck at a job or pulled away for something else. It was not a big deal because I had nowhere to go, but others may feel different. I had great communication with Julio and Gizelle. I am sure that I spelled her name wrong. They both understood any concerns that I had and worked to make this a successful transaction. I would definitely hire them again and highly recommend to others.

Communication between owner, crew, and customer a little rough. Crew did a fantastic job, floors look better than original. Crew covered pictures tv on walls etc, but seems like the sanding truly was dustless! 3 days to sand entire first floor and steps, and 3 coats of highly rated water based urethane. No puddles, dirt or hair in the finish. Looks great.

Outstanding work. Timely and priced right. Then purchased a kitchen table top for two.????

I'm pretty happy with their service and the fact they contacted me promptly.

I met Julio and his team when they came to finish a job where another flooring contractor left us hanging (hardwoods in hall bath installed but not finished). They were so responsive and pleasant to work with that we went straight to them for putting hardwoods in our kitchen where there was laminate. They removed the old floors, installed new oak floors (feathering them in with the adjoining rooms) and finished to match the color of existing hardwoods. They were wonderful to work with and plan to contract with them for future jobs. I would be sure to specify your expectations at the beginning of the job, but I felt like we were in good hands with this team.

Pros:
     They arrived promptly at around 8am and immediately began working. They covered our hall doorway with a plastic curtain and taped the sides to prevent the sawdust generated from sanding the floors from circulating into the rest of the house, which was helpful. They used a water based stain, which dried within the day and were therefore able to finish the entire process faster than had they used an oil based stain. *Update: They used an oil based stain, but told us it was a water based stain. It did not take that long to dry therefore we had no problem with it.
Cons:
      They did not clean the floors thoroughly enough before laying the stain. I know that this is a very crucial part of the refinishing process and I was surprised that they did not pay more attention to this part of the job. They said that they did clean the floors and that we should have turned off the air vents while they were working because it can expel debris, however, I do not believe that to be so and if it was in fact a factor that could impact their work than they had the responsibility of requesting us to turn off the air flow. Nevertheless, we had a few pieces of wood shaving debris that had hardened under the stain. We complained and they simply nicked a part of the stain to remove the debris, rebuffed the floors and added another layer of stain. This did not entirely remove the evidence of the debris that was there, however it is not entirely evident unless the light hits it at an angle or you stand directly above the affected areas. For the average person this will not be an issue, but for the perfectionist it will be.
     Overall the results and quality are acceptable. Close up pictures are a better judge of quality than an overall image of the room. I will try to upload both our overall picture and close up of the issues i mentioned above so that you may decide for yourself.
Dos:
   - If you do decide to go with them i would recommend checking the floor for debris before they place the stain. It may not seem polite, but you it will save you the frustration in the future.
   - Take pictures
Don'ts:
    - Hesitate to complain.
    - Serve lunch unless you want to clean up ketchup stains off of your new appliances. I found this to be quite rude on their part.

Note: They are a two men team and do not speak very good English. This may cause some communication issues.