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Two years ago we ordered 3/4 X 4 Natural Maple hardwood flooring by Bellawood at the Manchester Nh location. When we installed the first box we saw it was very poor quality. The boards had a variety of thickness, some up to 1/8 inch difference and the ends were not straight cuts. It made a messy floor with a lot of gaps. We stopped after one box and contacted the store. We brought it back and ordered a new batch. After the wait, the new batch was much better. I agree with other complaints, the customer service skills are very lacking at the stores. They made it seem like it was our fault and we were inconveniencing them.
Now 2 years later we want to do another bedroom and have it match. We ordered the exact same flooring (7 boxes)with much reluctance. We had someone installing it for us during Labor Day Weekend. When we saw the floor it was 75% done. IT was not the same. IT was not the nice white creamy maple. It was 75% darker mismatched wood. Was it a mislabeled batch? We contacted the customer care center. A nice girl Tiffany took my complaint and said it will be forwarded to them on trues. We had to finish the floor and get our house back in order. The rep contacted us on wed and said we are really sorry there can be up to 5% variance in color per box. All 7 boxes had the mixture. He basically said you accept it "AS IS" once it is installed. We do encourage the home owner to be there when it is installed and to stop if you see a problem and contact us. etc etc Why should we have to double check everything? Should i have opened every box to inspect it when I picked it up? and another problem is it was Labor Day Weekend. They did receive the pictures that clearly show it is not the same. We then needed another box to tie in a closet. It had to be ordered. They gave it to us for free. When it was picked up a week later. It was the perfect creamy white Maple that we thought we had ordered. How can that be explained. I think I deserve to be compensated. It is not what we ordered.
I have delt with this company many times and have installed many floors, it is the home owners fault if they leave and do not want to watch the job to its conclusion. It is a natural product and has many variations, also they do vary from patch to batch due to the milling of the product. Why is it that people need to be compensated due to their inability to supervise? why is it always a companies fault when you choose something, instal it, and then decide you do not like it. That is why prices are so high because you expect the companies to take a loss because you did not inspect what you have purchased. I think it is no one elses fault but your own.
Here's a recap of my experience with them and all the horror stories I'm reading online cannot all be the fault of the purchaser as the person who responded saying he's dealt with them for years claims.
www.bobvila.com and www.thesqueakywheel.com are also good complaint sites for this stuff.
My experience was different, but bad. We bought 1000 sq. ft. of hardwood flooring on a big sale the weekend of Easter 2008. We chose store delivery.
10 days after purchasing the flooring and having the $2, 000 + taken from our debit account, no one had contacted us regarding picking up our flooring.
I called the store here only to find out that there wasn't enough flooring to fill my order! I realize it is 1st come 1st served, but 10 days and no one emails or calls to say "hey, we ran out, here's your $2000 and some dollars back?"
So I clicked the link to write to the President, but what I got was an email from some flunky saying "it's 1st come 1st served" not even addressing that now 14 days has passed and Lumber Liquidators had our money all this time and didn't even bother to notify us!
My thing is where is their inventory tracking software that automatically stops sales when the inventory of that product is low? Where is the checking to make sure that no one's money was taken without them getting product?
Seems like amateur night to me and I think Bob Vila, Rush Limbaugh, Ty Pennington and the others that flog this product must get it for free or they'd complain too.
Lumber Liquidators solution? To give us back our money 16 days after taking it, leaving us with no product. Not even a discount on a different product due to the hassles we went through and the fact that they had our money that long. Lousy customer service if you ask me.
Jay, you're an idiot! You are shown a sample, you buy it because you liked what you saw, you should'nt have to sit there and watch your floor being installed. It is the manufacturers/retailers responsibility to make sure the floor is the proper grade and color sold and matches the sample. Just because they give your name out to install their junk you think you have to defend them. Its not 1 or 2 unhappy customers, that is understandable, but we are talking hundreds even into the thousands of people with the same problem. Wise up!
I have installed floors for more than twenty years and I have never seen a poorer product than Bellawood Flooring. After visiting friends in Virginia, my mother decided to pull up her carpet and put down Bellawood after seeing her friends beautiful floors. She decided on Brazilian Cherry. Two years ago I installed her floor and it looked great –for about 6 months! Her home is located in south Ga. and is on about a three foot crawlspace. Before any of the planks were installed, I laid down a DOUBLE moisture barrier (It was my mom’s house). The bottom of her crawlspace had already been protected by a moisture barrier per recommendation by Georgia Power to receive the good cents energy saver discount. The problems began a quarter of the way into the job when I began noticing serious milling mistakes. I also noticed very poor finishing on some of the planks. Both of these problems are a common accordance with hardwoods, so I just grabbed an empty Bellawood box thinking I would return them for a refund. When I finished the job I had more than 3 boxes out of 40 with poor milling/finishes. When I tried to return them I was told that the warranty states that you have to accommodate 5% for industry defects, 8 – 10% for exotic woods. This is B.S. I have never had a problem with returning defective product with any local or national retailer. I guess by translating the warranty 5 - 10 % of the product you have already purchased and haven’t opened is crap. The more serious problems began about 6 months later when the some of the planks began to buckle and some split. When I called Lumber Liquidators I was told that I used the wrong nails. I have installed a whole warehouse full of hardwoods, and the nails are standard. I was also told that the humidity in the home was too high. This might work as an excuse, but if there is high humidity in the home, then why aren’t the hardwood floors in the other rooms affected?(Bruce and Traffic Master). Now, every time my mother goes on vacation, I get called when she gets back to bang down and nail a new buckle. Again, no other rooms with hardwood are affected. I suppose if you install Bellawood floors you have to leave you’re a/c or heat running while you are gone for weeks at a time. Bellawood is the worst flooring I have every installed some much so that I will not install it for any customer and do not recommend it to anyone. By the way, about a year after my mother floors began giving her so much trouble, her friend from Virginia called – Their Bellawood floors began to buckle and split too! If anyone would like to ask me any questions please email me at tgpil@hotmail.com
I am a hardwood contractor in Minnesota. I will never install any product form lumber liquidators. The common problem I have seen is the re-milling of hardwood. This causes the planks to be just shy of 3/4". So when you go to nail your flooring, your gun leaves chips and cracks in the finish from the driver. There are ways to adjust your nailers, but if EVERY PLANK is a different thickness, installation becomes very time consuming, if not impossible. I also agree that Jay at the top here is an idiot.
I recently purchased engineered Cocoa Oak from Lumber Liquidators, and wow... I should have checked their reputation first. 1st, the planks have a very, very large variation in texture and color, many of the planks are damaged and unusable.
I haven't tried to return this product yet, but tomorrow I intend to try.
Conclusion, I will never buy any product from Lumber Liquidators again.
Bellawood is crap, i agree. I am an installer and i walked away from the last 400 feet of a 1200 foot job because the wood was so dry i was afraid i was gonna get caught in a lawsuit when the floor inevitably fails. However, it does say on warnings contianed in the cases of wood from multipule manufacturers that "it is the responsibility of the installer/consumer to inspect this product for defects prior to installation." Also, if you order the same dimension and species of floor from the same company several months apart, there is a chance it will not match because there is a chance its not from the same forest. Or if you order a stained wood, it may not match because it was stainded with a different batch.
Their products are most likely inconsistenty poor. Perhaps they are decent products most of the time, but can be terrible products pretty often too. Remember, they are "liquidators" that means that they are getting this stuff from manufacturers that don't want it anymore; now why would a manufacturer not want their own product and ship it off to a liquidator? Just like the tools sold at the local fire house every year, or the huge discount electronics expos that are alway around, there is a reason this stuff is so much cheaper...
We bought high quality oak flooring for a new room. Within a year, several defects developed, including a bit of splintering. I emailed photos to Lumber Liquidators. I was told that we had mold -- not true -- and that we would have no warranty coverage. Our builder told them we have treated the floor well, and definitely have no mold. Still no warranty work. I've filed a complaint with BBB but would never buy from Lumber Liquidators again -
I installed 2500 sqft. of Brazilian Koa from Lumber Liquidators in Toledo Ohio and not only is everything I read here wrong, But the instructions on the box told me everything I need to know. I would hate to know what your expectations are in comparison to a natural product that grows in the forest. I agree with Jay, Expectations need to be with in region. and the Persons Maple will vary and will yellow over time it is just the wood, nothing to do with the company. wood ages...
Maple is a very unique species.