The Hardwood Flooring Stores

We met with Richard Barclay at the Vic Park Ave store to discuss flooring for our home . Richard was knowledgable about his products and was able to answer all our questions and educate us on the different wood strengths and weaknesses . There was no pressure and we were able to leave the store with lots of information to make our decision.
The installers Vitali & Andrew arrived puctually every day and did a superb job . They were real craftsmen , completed our house when the said they would and were able togive us help & advice re baseboards which they also installed for us..
The whole experience from start to finish was a pleasure ..it isn't often in this day & age you are able to say that.

This company should be your first and last stop for Hardwood floors. After several other local stores gave me the run around by misrepresenting product that was either from China or second quality goods. The knowledgeable staff at The Hardwood Flooring Stores educated me and pointed me in the right direction for my flooring needs and requirements.
The Installation was done beautifully and they showed up on time and hauled away the garbage as well. This was the most positive experience throughout my entire renovation project and the fact that their pricing on top quality Canadian Hardwood could not be touched by their competitors did not hurt either.

Highly recommended!!

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.

We have been shopping around for hardwood flooring. The "hardwood flooring store" has a good website so we visited their store. We were pleasantly surprised to find oak flooring at a very good price. The associate, and later the owner/president helped us to select flooring to match an existing floor and our price. We were given samples. When we asked about different grades, our choice was only downgraded because of the size of the boards i.e. many short and only 2 1/4" wide.They were considered "still select and better" , except for the width and length. We purchased the following week, only to find the boards were only 1/2 inch wide, instead of the 3/4 we were expecting. We called the store, and were only advised to return the product. When we returned to the store, the owner said "What more do you want, you got your money back." There was no apology, no attempt to find an alternative product, no effort to make it right. Wow!! We were blown away at the terrible customer service, and all this from the president of the company! The only good thing I can say, is the warehouse guys were apologetic that we did not buy what we had expected. All said, we had poor customer service, and would never recommend or revisit this store.

Gave estimate willingly from floor plan. Took time to convert cm to ft. for each room. Gave good advice on flooring and with a smile had patience to fully describe the differences.

The store has a large selection of wood flooring options. There are a number of sale items in many different styles which are a great deal. The minimum installation fee was approximately $300, which was considerably less than the other places I considered. The sales agent will haggle so push for a deal. The installers cut the wood outside to limit mess inside the house and cleaned up after themsleves. One year later the floor still looks great.

I found the service was exceptional. This company has prices that seemed so low compared to the other companies I called. Beautiful workmanship. My family room floor is perfect. They needed to match the new floor (3/4" thick maple) with the floor in the adjoining hall (1/2" thick maple) and the job was superbly done. I'm very impressed.

The sales rep at this store was very helpful and courteous. He took the time to show us the different between the different types of wood and was able to help us make an informed decisions on what we should go with. We were very pleased with the result.

The hardwood was purchased at the Victoria Park store, which also arranged for the installation. The job involved only about 200 square feet whereby the old floor needed removing prior to installing the hardwood.

Problems include:

- several installed strips had cracks.

- they cut out a space and installed a 4" X 12" vent cover, even though the previous vent opening was 4" X 10". The deflector on the new vent cover would not even open properly.

- they somehow managed to dislodge the baseboard from my plaster wall and it will no longer go back in place due to debris falling behind the baseboard -- they had been instructed to leave it alone because of concerns for the plaster wall.

- the floor now squeaks although it did not squeak before. They were instructed to screw down the sub-floor prior to installing the new wood. They had already installed a section of the floor, when I discovered that they had not screwed down the sub-floor. The installer insisted that putting in screws was not on his list! What? I had discussed this previously with the salesman on more than one occasion. After I called the store, the installer's crew did start work on screwing down the floor from the other side of the room, but they also concurrently continued installing the floor.

- They did not cleanup the huge mess left in the basement, underneath where the floor was installed.

Remedies provided to date:

- the installers came back and resized the vent opening by replacing some strips of wood.

- they replaced some of the cracked boards. There are still 2 or 3 cracked boards which they refused to replace because they insist they are mars in the finish. No way -- these are real cracks, albeit they are smaller than the ones on the boards they replaced. Also, during the replacement of the boards, they managed to get glue stains on top of the wood. I cannot get these stains off even with nail polish remover.

- they put caulking in the gap along the baseboard. The baseboard is still out of position and not flush against the wall and the caulking job was extremely poor, still leaving a gap and not flush with the top of the baseboard. The baseboard (which is original to the old house) will likely need to be removed and replaced (thanks to these guys).

- No remedy was provided for the squeaking. The installer insisted that the cause of the squeaking was a damaged floor board. I'm thinking that the installer damaged the board during the removal of the old floor - they were not gentle -- since the floor did not squeak before. When I purchased the hardwood, after explaining the condition of the floor to the salesman, he told me that they would repair any damaged floor boards as they go along. They did not do this. Moreover, as professionals, I'd expect them to raise the issue of the damaged floor board and offer a solution prior to installing the hardwood. They did not do this.

I have been dealing with the store manager about my complaints. At first, he seemed quite genuinely interested in fixing the issues. But after talking with him the last time, which was still prior to having the installer come back and fix the problems, he said that it was only 200 square feet of floor, and that I got the wood at a reduced price ($4.49/sq.ft) so I shouldn't be overly concerned with it and perhaps I would need to alter my expectations. (At no time prior did they inform me that because of the price that I should expect less than a perfect installation.) Well, dear reader, perhaps you should alter your expectations of the Hardwood Flooring Store too!

I will still need to deal with the manager on the outstanding issues but really, who needs these headaches?

We purchased Satin Finish hardwood flooring, a Canadian brand, from this store at a very good price. We'd been to a number of other stores (both high-end and low-end) and none had this store's combination of product knowledge and price. One really telling sign (and what sold it for me in the end) was when I suggested that we'd like to do one room at a time. I asked if the price would change if we'd just bought the whole lot at once. He said no, as the store always gives the best price no matter how large the project. At the other stores we'd been to, the price magically changed depending on the quantity ordered as well as whether we'd pay in "cash". Uh, no thanks.