Empire Today review: laminate floors/baseboard molding issues 14

Thank you for bringing your experience to our attention. We apologize for any inconvenience, and our team would like to work with you to explore a resolution. Please contact us at webcustomerservice@empiretoday.com so that we may be able to assist. You can also visit our online customer center at http://www.empiretoday.com/Customer-Service.

Sincerely,
Consumer Advocate Team
Empire Today, LLC

Follow up? Was there a resolution? I am looking at the same flooring through empire, but I have dogs as well.

I am in the process of having easy living lamiante floors installed. Before even seeing a sample, I explained the buckle & unlevel spots in my floor and asked if they can fix it, or not. If this is something they cant do, I will call another flooring company. Salesman called his manager, explained in detail my floor and they agreed what to do and a final cost. I do not want a bill after the job! I also explained my 2 DOGS, one is sick and urinated on my rugs so bad, this is why I called to have a floor put down, he explained this is the best possible floor for my situation, great for dogs, and if there is an accidnt it will clean up with no damage to the floors.
Yesterday they came; Every promise that was made during the sale has been an issue, which I had also noted on the contract before signing. The installers came, after ripping up the floor, said they can't do the job. Due to the reasons I spoke about during the sale. He starts to explain I have this issue in my floor as if I dint know. I said I KNOW, Thats why I am paying an additional $600 to have the sub floor put down! They had no idea, I called the sales man, their manager and it was like I never spoke during the sale! He finally could not deny the ponts I originally made, at the sale. But it would cost $1, 600 additional! After all are involved, they say they can do it as originally planned! Now it must be a 2 day job.(which they didnt start until 12 noon after all this) When I was told they would start at 9am. and be complete in one day.
And is a big inconvienence in my work schedule!

Now, I read another post above; in regard to the specs on the warranty about the pet urine, and water damage not being covered. All which he Clearly sold to me as a benefit of this floor. And the sub floor, mold, mildew, water resisdant underlay they say will be installed.

This job is not even complete and I am thorougly disapponted!

the post abovc is my story too! the only difference is that it got put in all on time, and quick. i dont know about anyone else but i watched them install the whole house worth of flooring and it seemed like they beat the heck out of those boards! and that what i also know is that when i installed IKEA lam. flooring "in the KITCHEN" 4 years ago it lasted all the way tell EMPIRE TODAY ripped it. ive had this floor since OCT09 2 months later it needed repair do to one of our young dogs having an accident, they repaired it after i fought with them over the phone! now today OCT10 had a roof leak, warenty yeah no-go! glory to insurence? but if you havent look you cant just buy replacement boards from EMPIRE, they have to install! just try to find the same product in your home! i dare you. :)

I've had the same issue. I was told by the sales rep that these floors are great for dogs and are resistant to water damage so long as the water does not stay longer then 15 minutes and is cleaned up right away...couple months after installing my dog knocked over a bucket of water in the kitchen which I cleaned up right away. A few months later the seams started to rise and spread apart and other parts of the floor stated to bubble up...called empire and they said the warranty is no good cause of the moisture in the floor from the water. If the flooring was installed correctly then water should not have seeped into the seams since it was picked up immediately. Never going thru empire again, waste of money!

Job # FE35851-927698. Install # [protected]

Empire was the worst choice for home improvements we have ever made. We have not even had our laminate flooring for a year yet and it is buckling and the seams are pulling apart as well as peeling parts of laminate. They sent out one of their inspectors to find the problem and they said it was dog urine meaning they will not fix it unless we pay and the funny thing is we do not even have a dog. We have 2 cats who are litter boxed trained and have never had an accident outside of their litter box. Empire is very unprofessional and do not know how to return calls and it is a huge waste of our precious time. I would never ever in my life even recommend Empire to my worst enemy. What a waste. Please take my advice and shop around.

I also would not recommend Empire and in fact, I have told everyone who will listen what happened to my flooring. We had Easy Living laminate installed in our kitchen. Within a year, it was buckling and pulling up on some of the ends. I repeatedly called Empire and FINALLY, someone agreed to come and look at it. He came into the house with his water meter and pre-canned script all ready to tell me it was not Empire's problem. First he said the meter showed moisture under the laminate. "It must be coming from the water line in the refrigerator" he said. I advised him that there was no water line going to the fridge. Then he said it was coming from under the sink. I asked him to prove water damage to the wood under the sink. He could not do it. He kept to his "trusty water meter" and could not leave fast enough telling me there was nothing Empire was going to do to fix it. He was rude and very unprofessional and acted like I wasted his entire day. Empire is horrible to do business with. During the sale, you are King. After the sale, you are dirt. Please shop around and do yourself a favor.

We had the exact same experience with Easy Living laminate from Empire. It was a huge waste of money. The salesman said all the same things: great for dogs, water resistant, durable. It buckles if any water gets on it, and it will chip if anything of any weight falls on it. Ours has chipped in several spots and is buckling all over the place. We were completely lied to by Empire. We had someone come out and take a look at it and he acted like everything was normal and there was nothing he could do. I would do anything to be able to rip these floors out and put in a different flooring, but I cant afford to after forking over $5, 000 to Empire. I would never recommend this company to anyone.

I have this similar problem with Empire's exotic Acacia wood floor, which I had installed a few months ago. Several of the installed boards are poor in quality; cracked, splintered, chipped and defective. Worse a few boards have deep and long gouges. Empire workmanship leaves a lot to be desired, as I have floor boards that don't even meet the quarter-round - the installers brilliant solution, brown caulk. Oh, let me not forget to mention all the dents and impressions left from the installaters mallet and equipment. Why customer services continues to send out the same two installers to evaluate the problem that installed the problem, is beyond nonsensical. To worsen matters, the installers did not install a vapor barrier between the subfloor and hardwood floor, which means trouble later down the line and quite possibly is the cause of the current cracks. I had 3 additional rooms to receive hardwood at the time of installation. I chose Empire to install floors only in 1 of the 3 rooms. In hindsight this was a smart decision, based on the first install, they fall short of future business. As for this consumer, I own an accredited newspaper in Chicago with a modest circulation; 30, 000 readers per week. My experience with Empire, coupled with pictures, will I believe make a very convincing argument to readers in the market for flooring to think twice who they call.

Empire flooring is terrible, never use them, The job was done poorly, i could not even talk to the installers as they did not speak english. I had to call the install supervisor to have them come back several times to fix problems, The repair guy even said the floor was not installed correctly. Asked for an extra couple of pieces of flooring and they will not give or sell it to me. Customer service is terrible, contacting an attorney now, phone numbers of the sales rep and installation supervisor are disconnected. Total B.S. they will not even commit to making sure they carry the flooring in the future so if you do have a problem you might not even be able to get it fixed.

We had Easy Living laminate installed throughout our home only four months ago. It is curling, lifting and looks dirty all the time showing any footprint. This was a terrible choice and so wish we could have had Pergo installed which is the laminate flooring we had for many years and it held up so much better. That sure was a waste of $6, 000. on our part. Never again!

We had Easy Living laminate installed in our entire basement in Nov 2015. We had some water damage a week ago or so and the floors have buckled so much that we have to replace the floors, however, it was only on a small part of our entire basement. First let me say, we had this type of water damage with our last floors we had that were from Costco and zero buckling with those floors...these Easy Living floors buckled and bubbled within an hour of the water damage.
I called Empire to get someone to come out to help us assess the damage and then hopefully pull up the damaged boards and replace (at our cost of course since water damage is not covered in the warranty). Sure enough, these floors have been discontinued so her suggestion was to have a sales person come out to see about all new floors...seriously? I paid over $6k for these floors and only a small portion is damaged and now the only way to have them fixed is to replace my whole basement floor? She offered me no other explanation or suggestion. I will NOT be going through Empire again to replace my floors...I will spend $6k with another, more reputable flooring company. I wish I had read some of the reviews about Empire before i had them come out.
On another note, I cannot find Easy Living products ANYWHERE - not sure if they are an Empire specific brand or not.

Very disappointed. They laid down a plywood subfloor and then my ceramic tile floors on top. It's cracked all over. Every installer I spoke with said, they were supposed to use a concrete subfloor.