Certi-Dry /Crown Flooring

Review: Crown Flooring/Certi-Dry was initially called in to inspect our floor to determine the extent of water damage that occurred. After the initial inspection, we were given a name firm that completes mold testing. We had this firm test for mold and the mold test came back negative. We scheduled a time for our floor to be fixed by crown flooring and also have the whole floor re-finished. An initial down payment was payed to crown flooring in April of this year. Prior to the first week of work [redacted] described by phone that the floor job would take additional time because we decided to have the floor stained in addition to polyurethane. At this time he said more time would be needed for a procedure called "water popping". The floor is coated with water to make sure that the grain takes the stain better. This is a common practice for maple flooring. Week of June-16 to June 21: (Initial job started) After 6 days of having our floor re-done, we came into our home to find deep sanding marks, wood that had been sanded against the grain, extremely poor finish job covered with dust particles and hair and polyurethane splattered on carpet, door handles, baseboards. Week of June23-June 28: (Second job started) The person who normally leads flooring re-finish projects at Crown Flooring ([redacted]), came to our house and promised that our floor would be perfect if we allowed him to redo the job. We were promised at this time that our hotel stays for the times that we could not be in our home were payed for by Crown Flooring. We have this in writing in an email. After 6 days of floor re-finishing, we came back to find that there were "sanding chatter marks" in our floor, sanding gouges, and once again a poor finish with polyurethane puddles and streaks, dust particles and multiple (>12) hairs. Week of June 30 to July 3: (Third job started) We spoke with [redacted] from Crown Flooring and [redacted] and it was determined that the problem with the new job was in part due to equipment not being properly calibrated and at this time talked to him about getting someone else to do our floors. At this time [redacted] threatened to not pay our hotel stay for the prior week (~$900) and not refund any money paid to them unless we let one of his sub-contractors start a new job. We spoke with the sub-contractor (AH Smith flooring) and agreed to another full sanding. At this time our base boards were removed and Crown flooring was going to re-finish them in order to remove the polyurethane splashes and edge sander gouges from the first job. After AH Smith flooring started the job we were told that they were going to run an experiment and re-sand part of the floor that had the sanding chatter marks, but would aggressively buff out the finish imperfections in the front room of our house. While AH flooring was adding stain to the re-sanded part of the floor, it was noticed that it was more blotchy than what is usually seen with maple flooring. AH flooring always does water popping when staining maple flooring, but this was not done because the part of our floor that was not re-sanded was not water popped (even though we were told that it was going to be). [redacted] (acting as [redacted]) told AH Flooring that they had to use the same products and techniques that their staff used in order to match the two parts and he told the contractor that he was overthinking the job when he expressed his concerns. At this time we agreed to continue with the project because we thought the stain looked OK and we wanted to get back in our house. The final coat of finish revealed the following: 1. The portion that was not sanded still had many of the imperfections that were present from the previous job. 2. The finish dried too quickly and there are a lot of finish streaks, and sanding marks in the portion that had been re-sanded. July 7: We scheduled a meeting to discuss the floor, but no-one form Crown flooring showed up. [redacted] did not respond to phone call. Talked with someone named Tracy from Crown flooring who said that he would meet at our house on July 8th. July 8: We invited an independent contractor to help us talk to AH flooring and Crown Flooring. Tracy from Crown flooring did not show up for the meeting. When asked by the independent what needed to be done to make the floor right AH flooring indicated at this time that a re-sand would be required. We tried to contact both Tracy and [redacted] by phone with no response. July 9th: We decided that Crown flooring would do no more work in our house due to the following: 1. Poor project management leading to 3 failed attempts at finishing our flooring. 2. Items were missing from our house totaling ~$300. A police report has been filed. 3. We received a bill from the insurance company with multiple charges for work that could not have been completed in our home. (One example is charging for moving our built in oven). This padding of the insurance bill is another reason why we lost trust in Crown Flooring/Certi-Dry. 4. During the course of the time that Crown Flooring was doing work in our home items were damaged. (carpet, baseboards, trim, refrigerator hose.) Our base boards were returned to us, but 7 out of the 14 are cracked and one has a deep rut and wood putty was squirted on it with no sanding.Desired Settlement: 1. We will pay for the work that Certi-Dry/crown flooring completed. We will not pay the whole amount because there are items that were charged to our insurance that were not completed.

2. Refund of $1770 that was payed as a down payment.

3. Reimbursement of hotel stay for second week. $990.

4. Payment for damaged items. $1,000. (baseboards, carpet, splashes of polyurethane on trim, replacement of refrigerator hose)

5. We will return money to our insurance company for fraudulent charges.

Crown flooring has said that we need to have our floors finished by their company due to the fact that they have invested a significant amount of money in our project. We believe that we should not be responsible for problems caused by incompetent staff and faulty equipment. These are items that should be charged to Crown Flooring builders insurance, not to us.

Business

Response:

In response to the complaint filed by Mr. & Mrs. [redacted]: I personally worked as the coordinator for this project and was involved with the discussions as the project progressed. The following is an outline of the timeline for work completed. Please note that our company recognizes the concerns and has made several offers to correct the areas of concern with no agreement reached,

Initial Project Prep

The homeowner met with our designer and selected a general stain color desired. This is a maple floor which has a few options for stain application/technique. Our crew arrived the week prior to the beginning of the work to sand down an area and show the homeowner a few stain samples. The sample look the client desired was used and the floor was stained normal. Due to the way Maple accepts stain often times it is "waterpopped" as a technique to help the stain stay consistent, that was not the look the client selected.

Sanding

The sanding process is a 3 day process, the stain process is a 1 day process and application of finish is a 2/3 day process. The final coat of finish is the gloss coat and that coat of finish magnifies ALL sanding imperfections. This process was done a second time by the same crew and a second time the sanding was not within tolerance. The issue was diagnosed as an equipment issue and a decision was made to have an alternate sanding crew come to the site to resand the floor with different equipment. It was our belief that an alternate crew would also alleviate the homeowners concern. The alternate crew is a subcontractor for our company and he came to the home right away to meet with us all and assisted in the diagnosis as well as came up with a plan for resolution.

Correction of Concerns

The homeowners agreed to allow our subcontractor to resand the floor. Some areas a full sand and some specific to correct finish only. At this phase the homeowner had NO concerns for how the stain looked. The homeowner was made aware that due to the 4 day work week the crew would only be able to fully sand the main areas and the front room and entry would not be fully sanded for 2 reasons. Reason 1: not enough time in the week to complete the process if sanding all areas Reason 2: these areas only had finish coat concerns and did not require sanding. Our contractor was confident that the front area would blend, however made it clear that if these areas did not we would return after the July 4th weekend to sand those areas.

The crew began work and within 4 days completed the finish coats, applying the 2nd coat mid day Thursday. A decision was made to open the windows on the south west side of the home to assist with any odors in the finish and hopefully allow for proper drying so that the homeowner could move back in the home quicker. Unfortunately the opening of the windows resulted in a breeze and the finish coat dried without smoothing out the ridges in the applicator pad. This is similar to paint lines occurring on a wall that do not blend.

The homeowner notified me at 8pm when they arrived at the home for the evening that lines were in the finish. Per our text messages we reviewed with them that if lines were in the finish this would require a second top coat to be applied. Additionally the homeowner felt that the front room finish issues were still visible. (my technician stated that these were corrected and were not a concern without kneeling on the floor and getting about 18" away) These finish issues are correctable and were brought up prior to sanding as a possible issue requiring work the following week, they were not an oversight as you have to wait for the finish to dry to see if it corrects the issues.

The homeowner requested a meeting on Monday evening after they returned home from work, Our Sanding crew lead was still not back from his Holiday weekend and was not aware of the meeting yet. Unfortunately this meeting was not properly confirmed with all parties and resulted in the homeowner believing that our company was ignoring their concern. The meeting was rescheduled for the following night and the following people met: the [redacted]s, our subcontractor and a new contractor for the [redacted]s. The meeting lasted about 45 min or so and according to my subcontractor the issues in the finish were correctable with a second coat.

the second concern on the table at this point was the stain technique used. This was NOT a concern during the first phase of sanding and staining and was only brought up after the [redacted]s had contacted another contractor. It is our belief that the [redacted]s were satisfied with the look of the Stain at prior meetings and only bring this up as an item to discredit the quality of work by our crews. if this had been a concern it would have come up when we stained the first time. At this time the [redacted]s were moving furniture back onto the floors.

Punch list items: Finish on trim, carpet etc. These are not issues that were brought up previously so I am not sure the extent. I will say however that these sound like punch list and final cleanup items when our crew removes the drop clothes, plastic, painters tape etc. All correctable. the item I was aware of was a cut in the baseboard that had filler in it prior to baseboard being removed, this was reviewed with homeowner, I am not certain if it was photographed?

At the meeting our subcontractor would agree to refinish all the floors if that's what the homeowner wanted in an effort to ensure they were pleased. The homeowner told him that they would get back with us. The following morning I received an email from the homeowner demanding our company not return to the home and return their deposit for work. I replied to them asking them to please allow our company to finish the scope of work outlined the week before by allowing our subcontractor to finish. About 30 minutes later I received a phone call from my subcontractor advising me that [redacted] had contacted him apologizing to him for stopping the work, thanking him for his professionalism, and asking him if he would be interested in returning apart from Crown Flooring to complete the work and that they would pay him directly. Since our subcontractor has an obligation NOT to work directly for our homeowner he immediately notified us to ensure that this would not jeopardize his contract.

In Conclusion:

We fully understand that the homeowners concerns with the original sanding work/crew were valid. We addressed this by changing equipment and crews out. We believe that the homeowner is satisfied with the Crew that was in secondly to finish the work. We are willing to return to the home and complete the final coat of finish as well as punch list items. We have made this request through multiple avenues and we are hoping that the Revdex.com can help open the communication with the homeowner to allow the work to be completed. We are NOT in agreement with the homeowner selecting an alternate contractor to fully refinish the floors.

Regarding the insurance billing: The homeowner is referring to what is called an insurance scope, this is a breakdown of all the work needing to be done to restore the home. The homeowner did some of the work themselves during the process and these items will not be billed on our final billing. These show up instead as Homeowner credits.

If we cannot agree to finish the work and punch list needing completion we can only move forward with billing the home owner for all services completed, knowing that the floor has finish concerns still. We will credit items not completed as well as the hotel stays, reinstallation of baseboard. we will credit some punch list items with proper documentation provided by homeowner since these items were not previously documented.

We sincerely are sorry that the [redacted]s were inconvenienced due to technical issues on the refinishing. Unfortunately with this type of work you do not know there is an issue until the finish is applied. It was never our intent to pass off the quality of the work as acceptable. We were aware of the concerns and took appropriate steps to resolve.

Sincerely,

Business

Response:

Revdex.com Representative:

On 8/4/1 [redacted] requested by email to meet with me and requested meeting to be setup on Friday August 8th. At that time I requested that [redacted] send me copies of her documentation from alternate contractors/inspectors for review accompanied by an explanation of what she was requesting from my company as resolution. I had explained in email that I would like the chance to review the request and documentation prior to meeting with her and her new contractor.

The next contact we had was on 8/5/14 after [redacted] reached out to the Revdex.com.

We have made several attempts/requests by email to work toward a resolution and at this point without the broken down request from Mrs. [redacted] accompanied with the documentation she is stating to have we cannot make a determination exactly what she was looking for from our company nor were we able to determine if her request is warranted.

Our Proposal: we are certainly willing to review the [redacted]s concerns, once we can be provided with the supporting documentation to their request. At this time we do not believe a blind meeting with the homeowner is the best direction, and instead we would like to ensure all of the documentation is available to make a determination and come to a resolution prior to meeting. If you would please request from the [redacted]s to send the documentation from the other parties we would appreciate it.

Regards,

Consumer

Response:

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.