If I could give a zero star rating, I would. I paid California Hardwood to refinish my American Cherry hardwood floors in March 2018. To start, they left stain all over my built in cupboards and on baseboards. There were also spots that looks like they had been over-sanded. By July, I had noticeable ridges all over my floors where wood filler was popping up between the boards. With winter here again, there are now cracks with the wood filler breaking up. When I reached out to Bart at CH, he came to look and said it was humidity related and there was nothing he could do. The humidity in my house ranges from 30% in the winter to 50% in the summer according to my two digital hygrometers. I have done a lot of research online and spoken to some hardwood experts who looked at pics of my original floors (which had noticeable spaces between the boards). Because the humidity is lower in the winter, the boards shrink and there may be spaces. Then, in the summer when the humidity is higher, the boards expand. CH should have noticed that there were big spaces in March when they did the floors and the humidity was 30% and explained to me what could happen if they used filler in every one of the spaces and what the options were. My floors look awful. Spend your hard earned money somewhere else!! Very disappointed with the work and the response.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $11,000.00
- Company Response
Dear svanrassel
First of all we haven't use any stain on your flooring, so it is impossible to leave any stain in cupboards and baseboards (we used just wood sealers and natural finishes).
Second, you didn't want to remove us any baseboards, what is strongly recommended during the refinishing process (removal and re-installation of the baseboards costs extra money).Third, even if we dirty the baseboards, you should tell us, we are always happy to come back and clean it.
Regarding the flooring: what is happened with your flooring is typical "hardwood cupping", what I told you when I visited your house in September (refinishing was done in March). Cupping occurs when the edges of a board are higher than its center.Cupping can occur due to excessive moisture which causes the wood flooring to swell, crushing the boards together and deforming them at the edge, that is why the wood filler was popping up between the boards.It may happen when you went on vacations for two weeks and you may shut down your AC (or AC may shut down for few days by itself), this year summer was very hot and with very high humid.
Anyways, we agreed that you will call independent, certified, hardwood flooring inspector and I know that he was in November in your house for the inspection. We agreed that if the hardwood flooring inspector would say that we, California Hardwood Flooring, had done anything wrong, any mistake, we would fix it for free.YOU HAVEN'T CALLED US SINCE NOVEMBER!!!
Bart
California Hardwood Flooring.P.S.
We are doing refinishing for more then 12 years and never happen that after few months, after the refinishing processes was done, "hardwood cupping" occurred.
It is not a coincidence that "hardwood cupping" started during the hot, very humid summer.
