Flooring Design Concepts

The [redacted] contracted me to remove their carpet and overlay the floors in their home.   Everything was masked off purposely and the job finished in a timely manner. As often happens, the acrylic sealant formed a small singular bubble in one area of the living room which was immediately...

remedied.  There was an area by the stairs which had been repaired before  which took several hours to fix, which was fixed at no charge. They were  asked if they wanted the commode removed and they did not.   The floors were purposely installed and the [redacted] inspected and approved the floor and paid for my services without any complaint whatsoever.  Now, some months later Ms. [redacted] contacted me and said something was wrong with the floor. I followed up to look at the floors. When arriving at the house, neither adult was home for our scheduled appointment, but their 18 year old son was.   The son showers me the floor area that they had concerns about.   In the kitchen area there were areas that were opaque. It was obvious something had contaminated the sealant by either being soiled or spilled onto the floors.   In the kitchen in front of the sink was a mat,  when lifting the mat, there was no opaque areas under the mat or under the movable bar, yet a perfect outline had formed around their circumference.   It was clearly evident that something had contaminated the floor while the mat and bar were in place, and that the floor had been contaminated by the [redacted] or their incontinent dog.  I was able to clean off some of the contaminate and the floors came back to clear in some places but not all.   I showed the son how the opaque stains were clearly something on top of the floor. He confirmed to me that they had indeed soiled something and tried to clean it up and the opaque stains were a result of their own contamination.   I contacted Mr. [redacted] by phone and explained to him that the floor would need to be properly sanded and resealed. I said that I would be happy to do it for them without a labor charge. I only asked that they cover the cost of the sealant as the damage was a result of their own doing.   I informed him that it would take us a day to do it and it would cost them only the couple hundred I would have had to spend on sealant. I did this because I'm a conscientious, and kind person.   The husband understood and agreed.  Mrs. [redacted] then contacted me via phone and insisted that I fix there mistake for fre . I informed her that the floors had not been harmed by my actions and that her son confirmed that they had indeed caused the floor to develop these spots and that I was only asking that she cover the material cost to fully reseal her floor.  She then tried to lie and say it wasn't a contamination. When I told her that there was no other way that the floor mat would be perfectly outlined unless something was spilled topically while it was in place and it was never in place while I was there and that the floor underneath the mat was still in perfect condition, she became irate and abusive saying I should provide a free warranty service regardless of fault.   I restated that I would fix the floor but it was not my fault and that I only ask that they cover the couple hundred in sealant to reseal it.   I also told her that her son had told me she spilled something. She got more irate and said she would call me back. She never returned the call and I never heard from her again until this farcical complaint.   Again, the homeowners contaminated their floor and then got mad when I wouldn't fix it months later for free.  The homeowner was negligent in their care of their floor.

First of all we did not contact Mr. [redacted] to remove our carpet or vinyl.  We removed all of the carpet, vinyl and trim.  Mr. [redacted] was hired to provide stained concrete only.  He failed to mask anything which he indicated he would do in the contract (copy attached).  There was stain over spray on my walls, door trim, doors, toilet, tub, cabinets and fireplace.  The walls in our office (he calls it a study in the text message) was so bad that he refunded $200.00 of his contract (see attached text message).  As a result of failing to mask anything we had to repaint the office and all of the doors and trim.  We still have not been able to get all of the stain off the fireplace (pictures attached). In response to the second statement which he indicates there was one singular bubble in the floor.  That is completely untrue.  There were numerous bubbles which formed small craters about the size of a quarter.  They are located in the formal dining room, formal living room, and office (current pictures of all attached).  In addition to the photos, I have attached copies of text messages, which include a picture, that indicate our concern for the bubbles and Mr. [redacted]'s response.   The third statement in which he indicates the area in front of the stairs was previously repaired is completely untrue.  He is the only contractor that has ever worked on our floors and he was hired to place an overlay on the floor which he indicated would repair the holes in the floor that were made by the carpet tack strips.  Mr. [redacted] indicated he would repair the area but never did.  I have attached copies of the text messages where he indicates he will repair it and the method of repair. The fourth statement is also untrue.  We met on the first day of the job and I explained that I had not removed the toilet.   I told him that if it was a problem, I had considered switching the round toilet with an extended oval toilet and that I would remove it.  He stated that it would not be problem because the overlay was thin and it would not be a problem to work around the toilet.  He also indicated that if I wished to change the toilet in the future it would not be a problem because the bases of all toilets were the same.  Regardless of whether the toilet was removed or not is irrelevant.  A good contractor would not have left if like he did.  I was completely surprised that he concreted my toilet into the floor.  After he finished putting the overlay on the floor the concrete was approximately 1 inch up the side of the toilet.  I was sure he would clean it up but to my surprise he actually stained the excess concrete and the base of the toilet the next day.  Again I thought he would chisel the concrete off the toilet but he continued and actually put sealer on the excess concrete and toilet.  Being concerned that he was never going to fix the problem I took the time to chisel the excess concrete off the toilet.  I also had to clean the stain off the toilet and had to chisel all of the excess concrete off the walls, door trim, cabinets and dishwasher.  I couldn't even replace the baseboards without chiseling all of the excess concrete from the floor and walls. The reason that we chose to have our concrete floors stained in this home is based on several things.  We previously had stained floors in another home and really liked them.  We had found that the stained floor was very durable and looked nice.  We did our investigation and had several contractors in our home to discuss this.  We chose Mr. [redacted] because when discussing the floors he indicated that he had the exact same floors in his home.  He stated that he had a large dog and the floor is great for pet owners because their nails and urine would not damage the floor.  He stated that the only way we could damage the floor was if we drug a "gun safe across it".  He even indicated that if we did drag a gun safe across it he could fix it.  He indicated in our conversation that the finish and floor would be "bulletproof".   In addition to the conversation in our home we went to see a job that he was working on as part of our investigation.  When I went to that home I was impressed that all of the walls and trim were masked (We are not sure why our house wasn’t important enough to take the same care). The residents of the home gave him good reviews and he seemed to know what he was talking about.  The one important thing to note about this home was that there were numerous bubbles in their floor also.  I didn't think much about the bubbles because he indicated it happened as a result of the sealer curing.  He indicated that the bubbles would all lie down and would not be visible when the sealer cured.  (We now know that is not true) I am incredibly offended that he indicates that we somehow contaminated floor and that we have an incontinent dog. He indicates that there is a clear line under the movable bar so we moved it and took pictures of the area under the bar (pictures attached).  We have also taken photos of the area below the mat and you can see there are also spots there as well.   You can clearly see in the attached photos that the spots are everywhere.  We have not even mopped the floor so I am not sure how we could have possibly contaminated it.  Spots are appearing under furniture, area rugs low traffic areas, high traffic areas, the pantry and even in the closets which we seldom enter.  The opaque spots started to appear shortly after he completed the job.  They have continued to appear and are now in numerous areas. Based on his claim that the floor was "bulletproof" It is ridiculous to think that we somehow contaminated the entire floor.  It is also ridiculous to think that our miniature dachshund could have possibly caused so much damage since she is kept in a kennel while we are gone and is not allowed run of the house.   He indicates in his response that we waited several months to voice a complaint about the opaque spots.  It was actually 1.5 months.  The first message regarding the opaque spots was October 05, 2015 (see text message).  Our delayed request to have the floors repaired was because we were cleaning up the mess he left, moving all of our furniture back, replacing baseboards and the process of the opaque spots appearing was gradual and we really did not want Mr. [redacted] back in our home.   Based on all of the photos and text messages that are attached you can see that Mr. [redacted] is not truthful in his response.  He performed poor quality work, provided a poor quality product and it shows in the final result.  We paid him in full not because we were happy with the job but to cut our losses (see attached text message).  We made the decision to cut our losses because his solution to fix the problem of the bubbles appearing on the floor was just to apply more xylene and sealer.  We didn’t want him in our home again, the smell of the xylene is terrible and his previous attempts to repair the bubbles as indicated in his text messages had no result so we decided just to live with the floor.  His cure for every problem was to use xylene.  He stated it would correct problems with the sealer, remove the bubbles, and remove the over spray from the walls, trim, fireplace, and cabinets.  None of his claims about xylene were true as seen in the photos.  He even tried to use xylene to correct the opaque spots with no result.  In addition to the xylene he tried to cover the spots with stain which made our floor look worse. We don’t feel he is trustworthy or capable of repairing our floor so that is why we haven’t contacted him again. We have had several second opinions since he came back to assess the opaque spots.  Each contractor has expressed surprise at the extent of the problem and have all asked if our floor was supposed to look the way it does.  The contractors I suggested that the only solution was to either grind the overlay off the floor and start over or cover it with a wood floor or some other overlay.  Based on the quotes received it is going to cost several thousand dollars to fix the mess.    We want other potential clients that value the Revdex.com, as we do, to see this complaint and make their decision accordingly.