Lane Hardwood Floors

We recently hired Lane Hardwood Floors. They refinished existing floors, and installed new Hickory floors. In the end, both the old & new floors look wonderful. The process, however was difficult. There were problems with the newly installed floors, including damaged boards and the using the wrong filler color. When we approached Lane about these problems, they were hesitant to acknowledge the mistakes, eventually did, and worked out a plan to repair the problems, but at additional cost to us. We felt over a barrel, as hiring another company to fix the problems would have been unreasonable, so agreed. It seems unreasonable that we had to pay extra for Lane’s mistakes. It turned out the errors were able to be fixed, but three weeks later, so we were without part of our home for over 6 weeks, and had to leave entirely twice for several days during refinishing. In addition, there were miscommunications on timing & costs. Clean-up was also inadequate. Our perspective on Lane is that they have the ability to do quality work, but are pushing a tight schedule, and communication is lacking. The problems we encountered with our hardwood installation could have been avoided if the initial work was not rushed, and the resolution of the problems could have been handled better. If you choose to work with Lane, you should be prepared to be attentive and available during the process, and to actively communicate throughout.

While the floors looked GREAT upon completion, within 6 months, only the boards that Lane Hardwoods replaced separated and bowed showing the subfloor in the gaps. I contacted Lane Hardwoods and they came out and filled the gaps, which didn't look perfect and didn't solve the bowing, but was acceptable. The following winter the filling popped out and Lane advised me that it was due to the cold and so-called "movement in my floors" that was not their responsibility, they would fill it again as a courtesy but after that, not their problem. After many back and forths, it became clear that Lane Hardwoods was NOT going to honor it's guarantee of satisfaction, that instead their approach is to blame my floors/house for what looks like shoddy workmanship (nevermind that the ONLY area that looks bad is the area where Lane replaced the wood). So here I am, many, many thousands of dollars spent and a floor with one section, redone by Lane, that looks really crappy. Their ultimate position is... too bad for you. Hardly a guarantee of satisfaction. Condescending, too, in that it's obvious something is wrong with just the place they redid, not the entire house or floor. I will not use them again nor will I recommend them. They might do engineered floors just fine, but based on how they handled this botched genuine hardwood job, I can't in good faith recommend them for anything. If something goes wrong with their work, you're on your own.

unknown

The project start to finsih went fantastic.  We couldn't be happier with the work that was done.  
This project started with a great experience during the estimate that Jeff, the owner provided.  Jeff was very through and very upfront about the areas of the project where there could be overages (you can't see whats under your floors until they are torn out).  The estimate was very detailed breaking out his estimates for each item of work during the project (material, demo, refinishing, etc).  I really appreciated the level of transparency in the estimate.  It's not always something you're provided with.  
From there on out everything went very smoothly.  The materials were delivered exactly on time and Tim and the rest of the crew were on time and onsite all day from day one.  
I'll state upfront that the job went over budget, but we have an old house that required extensive demo and Jeff made it very clear from the start that this could very well happen.  Tim and the rest of the crew worked extremely hard and did did an amazing job.  Tim was our lead installer and was excellent.  The work was top notch and Tim was great in helping provide us with advice that ensured that we had best possible floors.  Tim was able to save the original floors in our bedroom which resulted in some cost savings along with beautiful floors.  
We've now had the floors for about a month and we love them.  We had a Christmas party and received numerous comments on the floors.

Reasonable bid, showed up on time,  Did a great job we would and will certainly hire them again

Jeff was very professional and were prompt, cheerful & courteous.  He was very honest about the hardwood floor in the kitchen and save us money.  He even took care of our cats while he was there. They also matched the price.  I'm very happy with the work they did.

 they, and we, were worried that stain spots could not be removed, and show thru new finish without using a really dark stain ,but with

the spice brown stain we chose, the floors turned out beautiful and you would have to stare at it to see the spot stains. all went well.

I highly recommend them.  They are reasonably priced.  They do what they say they are going to do.  They do a good job.  They have quality workers and good to deal with.  I have used them for my office.  They charge $10000 for 1200 square feet of laminate flooring and $3500 for hardwood floors in my master bedroom.  Both products were high quality.  The price was higher than some other places, but I paid for the quality.

Professional job.  Renewed floor looks great.  Put plastic around areas that could be affected by sanding.  Owner Jeff Lane helped with coloring  choice and stopped by as project progressed to check.  Would use again.

I was happy with the work and will hire Lane again to do the second phase of work. Their estimate was comparable to another flooring company, but i had a referral from a friend for Jeff's company. They did a great job on the patching & the replacement flooring. There was a lot of labor involved with preparing the floors for refinishing: leveling an areas with an old fireplace hearth, installing some subflooring & new flooring, patching an areas with pet stains and setting all of the nails of the existing top-nailed oak. The job took about 4 days total. The jobsite was kept tidy. Everyone I had contact with was great to work with.

We got bids and chose Lane because we liked how they itemized the work as we requested in the estimate.  We had 4 good bids from companies that impressed us. Once we hired Lane, they came and did a demo on our floors prior to the work to show us how the stain would look on our red oak floors.  We chose a lo-tox waterbased stain which cost extra, but we are living in the house and need to keep toxins low.  They tore out the flooring in the entryway and reused some of the old oak in damaged sections. We planned to tile the entry ourselves.  They also tore out linoleum in hall and refinished wood underneath and disposed of materials.  We used a neutral stain on the wood to bring it closer to the original color.  That also enhanced the grain.  The floors are much lighter in color, but not as bleached looking as you can get with waterbased vs. Swedish oil-based.  The floors look great.

It went very smoothly with the bid being performed quickly and the installers arriving on time and finishing earlier than estimated.  The particular product had deformities and Lane was able to find a substitute product that looked better while they gave me the same price as the original product.  Prior to this installation I had another vender/supplier install bamboo flooring in the living room, kitchen and back hall way.  This was done about 5 years before.  Lane was able to order the same product for the original vender (they no longer ran a retail shop, just wholesale).  As stated above the product was flawed and while the vender took the product back they did not have a substitute.  Lane was able to find a similar product that actually looked better.  Even though they had to obtain a different product they were still able to finish the job on time and well done.

I liked the outcome. They're pleasant to work with, and they are punctual. They were here when they said they would be. They got the job done a little bit early. It looks fantastic.

I was really pleased with the outcome.   The first floor I ordered was not shipped in my timeframe, but Brad worked to get me a comparable product from another mfgr -- at only a tiny additional cost.  The second floor was not delivered when promised, but eventually showed up -- none of this was Lane's fault, but just one of the glitches you learn to work around when doing any remodeling project.   There were a couple of other bumps in the road -- none of them caused by Lane, but they were proactive in problem solving and made sure I got the floor and baseboards I wanted.   They did a great job and the floors are beautiful.

They did a FANTASTIC job. Ron who worked on our job was great. He was prompt, professional, and gave us great suggestions. We have a baby and he was really good at letting us know when he would be making a lot of noise, when there would be a strong smell, etc. so that we could plan our day to be out of the house during those times. And the floors look great. I wish everyone we hired to do work in our home was as professional as he was. We will absolutely hire this company again when we need work done on our hardwoods.

Jeff Lane did the first visit and was very knowledgeable. Provided a written estimate in a very timely manner. Scheduling the start date was flexible and easy and they were on time as scheduled. Work progressed quickly with very knowledgeable workers. In less than 3 days they installed over 500 sq ft of flooring (including stairs), refinished it (grinding and sanding) and applied the finish coats with amazing results. I didn't think the floors could even be salvaged in some areas, but Jeff's knowledge and experience proved to be invaluable. I would highly recommend using these guys to anyone.

My daughter and her husband purchased a house (a fixer) in the fall of 2007 and intended to have the floors refinished before they moved in. They also planned to gut and remodel the kitchen, which included cutting a big hole in the wall and replacing the linoleum flooring with hardwood to match the adjacent room. They had purchased the reclaimed oak for the kitchen from a building salvage company and had intended to install it themselves, but Lane's estimate for the work was too good to pass up, especially since they have full time jobs and were trying to do this work on the weekends. Lane did a great job installing it and even finshed out one edge where there's a step with a bullnose piece - something they hadn't considered. Before they decided on a finish, they visited Lane's showroom to see some examples and to talk with the owner. They are very happy with their floor and would use Lane again.

I needed this job done quickly due to an impending appraisal. Land Hardwoods was able to schedule the job within a couple of days of my deciding to go with them. I requested Nathan to be the finisher based on Angie's List entries I had read. They accomodated my request without any complaint. Nathan was very professional, friendly and patient with me as I eyeballed the job and requested he rework a couple of areas. Job was very good overall, although there are some areas under the cabinets where the stain was darker than the in the "field" area. Not too bad though, simply looks like a shadow in most light. I'm quite satisfied with the overall job and very satisfied with their customer service.

Pretty well. The workers seemed to know what they were doing, and they all showed up when they were supposed to and cleaned up after they were done. Most of the floors look great, except for several spots in the rooms with newly installed floors. We provided the materials and unfortunately, they choose to use many short pieces instead of using the long (14') pieces that ended up being left over. Means more seams than necessary. Also, they used pieces where there were holes drilled, and where the tongue/groove was missing. Luckily, most of this is covered up. One spot had to be reworked and Lane sent a man out to repair it.

They showed up on time every day, and did all the work promised within the planned time frame. They answered all our (many) questions cheerfully and followed our requests for special handling in some areas. They did such a good job on the matching that you absolutely cannot tell where old wood meets new. The final bill matched the estimate exactly. One concern we had was the first day the crew came, they did not seem to be aware of the scope of work. For example, they were surprised we were getting water-based finish. It was a concern because that takes an extra day. It worked out fine, but it had us worried that they seemed unaware of what had been promised.

Great initial response and a prompt visit from Jeff for the estimate. We had an early hitch when the brand of bamboo flooring we chose, EcoTimber, had discontinued the unfinished product we wanted. Brad found another supplier for the unfinished, solid wood flooring. We were initially scheduled to have the flooring installed during the first two weeks of September but they were able to fit us into their schedule about three weeks early. This allowed us to move into our house earlier than we had planned. The only problem that we encountered was that the finishing crew put down a coat of oil base finish and not the water base we had asked for. After determining that the only real remedy would be to sand the floor to remove the finish and start over, we decided to have them put two coats of water base over the oil base. Brad was very apologetic over the mix up as was his job site manager. They did waive the additional cost for the water base finish, which saved us about $800.

The installers left some noticeable gaps between board ends and sometimes chose boards with voids, cracks, knots or flaws even though there was a significant surplus of material to choose from. When I asked them to be more careful, I was told that "the finishers perform magic with filler and finish. It'll look like a sheet of glass". I was out of town when the floor was sanded and finished. Over the telephone, I agreed to pay for a third coat of finish because "the bid was based on only two coats". When I returned, I found that some gaps had not been filled, bits of construction debris had been finished over and two areas of floor had voids in the finish. At my request, our general contractor asked the owner to inspect the job and Jeff Lane came out promptly. He went over the job thoroughly and agreed it needed more work. He sent Nathan, his 'best finisher', to repair and complete the job. The finish is now excellent.

All was fine on the sales end. BAD on the installation. The floor bubbled even more. In addition to not understanding the click together system, the guys smoked around our house, bringing cigarette scent in. With education from the rep, I found out how the floor was to be correctly installed and called Lane in to do a proper fix. Instead of offering to do the job right, I was told that I must have a moisture problem and they wouldn't test or redo (odd since Environmental Home Center recommended them to do a test if one was needed). Lane's guys came and ripped the floor out, leaving residue from the epoxy and damaged cork on the floor which we had to have removed by another company at our cost. We have since had cork installed correctly by another company at a savings of more than $2,000 from Lane's estimate, including correct barrier and underlayment. It looks good and lays correctly- no moisture problem. It took Lane nearly six weeks to refund our initial $2,700 deposit.

LANE HARDWOOD WAS ONE OF THE FEW FLOOR REFINISHERS WHO WOULD EVEN GIVE US A BID ON A SINGLE ROOM. THE OLD FIR FLOORS IN A BACK BEDROOM WERE SANDED DOWN AND REFINISHED TO LIKE NEW CONDITION. THE ENTIRE JOB TOOK ONLY 3-DAYS. ONE FULL DAY FOR THE SANDING AND THE FIRST COAT OF STAIN AND 2 QUICK FOLLOW-UPS FOR THE SEALER. THE FLOOR LOOKS GREAT AND THE CREW WERE FUN TO WORK WITH. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.