Steel City

It did not go well. Tim was nice enough. I liked the carpeting options and chose one that I knew would work. This was not the first time that I have had carpeting installed, so I am familiar with pricing, etc. I felt that the price of the carpet was reasonable. We were purchasing a frieze for our living room, stairway and hallway. Tim kept telling us that he had been with the company for years and it used to be managed poorly when it was Prizant's and "the brothers who were lawyers" owned it. After our experience, I am not sure that the management is any better than it used to be, according to Tim's recollection. Tim went on and on about how their installers had been with them for 35 years and they were the best in the business. That we would have nothing to worry about and we wouldn't have to move a thing. The installers would take care of that. We believed him. We ordered the carpet, put half down and anxiously awaited the call telling us that our carpet was in. Nearly a month later, we got the call that it was in. We were fine with the timing on this as we were not in a huge hurry. That said, I did not expect installation to be the hassle that it turned in to. I expressed that I did not want to have to take off work to do it and would prefer a weekend if that was possible. The installation department said that they did do Saturday installation, but we would have to wait another two to three weeks. I was fine with that. The Saturday that they scheduled turned out to be full of appointments for me so my fiance, who usually works on Saturday mornings, took off work to be there for the installer. Well, that morning the installer did not show up. They called to inform us that their installer (remember those installers who were the best and had been with the company for 35 years?) had quit and it would not be possible for us to have our carpet installed that day. Could we possibly do it on a weekday. Okay, I suppose that these things happen occasionally. We were aggravated that one of us had taken off of work for no reason, but it wasn't the end of the world. I called my uncle, who is retired, and asked if he would mind coming over to the house so that we could get the carpet installed that Monday. He agreed and we scheduled it for Monday afternoon. Monday afternoon came and the installer did not show up. No telephone call from Steel City or the installer to tell us what was going on. By this point I was DONE dealing with this company. My fiance called to find out what was going on. Another hour went by before he finally got a call explaining that we would not be getting our carpet installed that day because their installer's babysitter had to leave and he had to go home to tend to his child. Now I was starting to smell BS. My fiance INSISTED that someone had better be at our house at 5:00 p.m. to complete the installation or we would take our business elsewhere. Finally, they called to tell us that they had found an installer and would have him AND his assistant at our house at 5:00 to do the job. 5:00 p.m. came and went. Finally, around 6:00, Brad (the installer) showed up. No one was with him. We asked him how he was going to do the job himself. His help had quit that day. He said that it would take him until about 11:00 p.m. to get it done, but if we let him come back with help the next evening, they could have it done in a couple of hours. We did not want to see him struggle to do the work himself, so we agreed that he should come back the next evening. Brad also informed us that he is (often) contracted by Steel City Flooring and that they do not, in fact, have their own installers as we were led to believe. Brad showed up the next evening at about 5:30 p.m., once again without help. He told us that he had hired someone that morning and they quit mid-way through the day. Another half-truth? I don't know. At this point, we just wanted the carpeting installed. I was fed up with what I believe to be a string of BS. I just wanted the carpet in and this fiasco to be over. Brad was at our house until nearly 11:00 p.m. He did not bring any help, but he did bring his wife (or girlfriend, not sure) who sat in our living room while he worked. I thought this was very strange but, again, I just wanted the work done. When Brad finished, he had not put the finishing touches on (edging around the fireplace and pieces that go in the doorways). He assured us that he would be back the next afternoon to finish. We never heard from Brad again. Unless you enjoy aggravation, I highly advise against using Steel City Flooring. I would not even recommend them to someone I don't care for.