We hired Mike of Burlco to supply and install the flooring in our new custom house. As our house had radiant heated floors, we wanted to hire someone who had experience with this. Mike had this experience.
We spent several months driving back and forth from our home in Kanata and the Burlco showroom in Merrickville until we found something that we liked and suited our budget. We signed a contract. Four months later and two weeks before he was supposed to start installing the flooring, we get a call from Mike saying that the flooring that we selected "was no longer warranted" for installation on radiant heat. As a result, we had to make an emergency unplanned trip to his showroom to select something that was not only in our budget but was also available without a big lead time. We found out many months later that the flooring we initially selected had actually never been warranted for installation on radiant heat, so Mike was just trying to cover up his mistake with that phone call.
Mike's dependability (to be precise, his LACK of) showed up once the installation started. He would say he would be at our site at a certain time, and would show up many hours late or not at all. He said his crews would take about 7-8 days to install everything (bath tile, floor tile, and wood flooring). In fact, it took over 3 months for him to complete the installation. His crew used the furnace vents as a dump for their sawdust and debris (see photo). His crews complained to me that they were installing a product that they had no training on - which was a big concern to me! The floor was installed crooked relative to the room.
Perhaps this could eventually be forgotten, except for the fact that he did such a poor job installing the engineered hardwood flooring (he installed this underneath the cabinets - a big no-no!) that it has to be completely redone. We are very fortunate that the manufacturer (TORLYS) is stepping up and paying for the replacement. However, we will be out of pocket several thousand dollars as Mike said he would do certain things (like leveling the floor) but he did not and we have to cover this extra cost.
Because Mike was so undependable, we had a different company install the carpeting on the stairs.
We sent Mike a registered letter, and it was returned to us by the post office because he didn't pick it up. Why wouldn't he pick it up? That speaks volumes about this guy - there must be other people after him for other things.
In a nutshell - save your sanity, save your money, do NOT call Mike of Burlco.
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