Quote:
Originally Posted by kevinm55
Good morning all - I am planning to have carpet removed in the bedrooms in our patio villa and replacing all with a laminate floating floor. I would love to hear from anybody who can recommend a quality installer that you may have recently worked with. In addition, I would welcome any and all other lessons learned, tips, or guidance to help make this project a success. Thank you in advance!!
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I join in recommending The Floor Shoppe on 301. We had an excellent experience with them in selecting floor tile and stone for a fireplace surround.
Use Great Lakes in Wildwood at your peril. We have remodeled four houses in four cities over our 56 years of marriage. Great Lakes was the worst experience we have had in dealing with dozens of subcontractors and suppliers. I would not refer my worst enemy to GL.
Last year, we undertook a wall to wall remodel of the house we bought in TV. Our deal with the general contractor was somewhat unusual. As prices of materials and appliances were going through the roof and there were long wait times for delivery, the contractor would only bid for the labor, and the materials for which his regular subcontractors would provide a fixed bid. We had to source and provide the materials and appliances for which he could not get fixed bids. One of those items was laminate flooring.
We found the flooring we wanted at Great Lakes. GL sent a salesman to our house to take measurements. However, when the salesman wrote up our order, he included installation. I had previously told him that we were purchasing material only as our general contractor would do the installation. In response, he told my wife that there would be "no warranty" if GL did not do the installation. This was an outright lie as I had read the manufacturer's sales documents. He next "backed out" the supposed installation cost from the price and refused to simply write up a sale for the square feet of material so I could see what he was actually charging for the material. He next insisted that if I let GL install the flooring, there would be no sales tax but there would be tax if I only purchased the material. This is technically correct, but misleading. For installed material, GL would have had to pay the state the sales tax and then factor it into the contract price, but not as a separate line item.
The final insult was that the salesman grossly over-estimated the sq ft of material by 7 or 8 boxes or, almost, a full room. Over the years, many suppliers have been known to do this, with the excess material ending up in their inventory although paid for by the homeowner. I don't know if this was the plan of the salesman or if he was simply incompetent to take the measurements of our house. I ended up returning many unopened boxes of flooring to GL. That was over 6 months ago and I have still not received a refund.
As I said in the beginning, I wouldn't refer my worst enemy to Great Lakes and anyone who deals with them does so at their risk.