The Hardwood Flooring Stores

I went to the Hardwood Flooring Store on the east side of Victoria Park, just north of Steeles. I needed hardwood flooring for approximately 510 sq. ft. I ended up choosing a coffee-coloured engineered bamboo product, which the salesperson assured me all his other clients loved and had no problems with it. As soon as the new flooring was installed, we were not happy as the work was sub-par. The flooring was uneven, and the quarter-round was poorly installed. In fact, when we asked our painter to go over the quarter-round, he needed to fill in all the gaps prior to painting (since it was very obvious) and he charged us more to do it. Within a couple of weeks, numerous planks started cracking right down the middle; some had multiple cracks! (See photo). We called numerous times to complain about it, but they kept delaying and the salesperson only finally came to visit 1.5 months after installation. He was shocked at how bad the damage was. He went back to the Store promising to fix the problem. However, he ended up being unreliable and unresponsive so we got the President of the company involved. He was even worse. He didn't want to take any responsibility for the faulty material and poor installation, and tried to blame the damage on the dryness in our condo. After weeks of stress and many conversations, they finally agreed to re-do the flooring, with a different product (I chose a maple wood) and I had to pay more - the difference in the pricing between the bamboo and the wood. There was no compensation for what happened, including the extra cost I paid to have the quarter round filled prior to painting. Of course the installation was planned according to their schedule, and they ended up ripping out the bamboo on a Friday, and installing the wood on the Monday. I was extremely lucky I had another place to stay during this time or that would have been more money out of my pocket. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, when they ripped out the bamboo, I noticed the cork underlay was only 2.5mm thick, but I had paid for 4mm cork. So I had not been in compliance with the Condo Board for 2 months! When I called the Store on it, they said oh, the contractors probably just grabbed the wrong one. They sort of just waved it off and admitted it so I'm almost positive they do this to all their clients. Unless you're there while they're laying it down, you don’t know what's under your floor! I had also called around to other stores to find out the price difference between 2.5mm and 4mm cork, and I realized the pricing at this Store was very expensive compared to others. The underlay is usually an incidental cost you wouldn't normally pay any attention to, so that's where they'll try to make some extra money. Overall, the customer service was terrible, and they were unprofessional and unethical. I was very disappointed and unhappy with the entire process. The Hardwood Flooring Store is definitely a store I would NOT recommend to anyone.