ComplaintsforShamrock Hardwood Flooring Ltd.

• Initial Complaint

  21/04/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  In March 2020, our dishwasher had a leak and damaged our hardwood flooring. After our insurance company provided us with an assessment, we received two quotes to have our hardwood flooring repaired. The company that we chose to use was Shamrock Flooring. We chose Shamrock Flooring based on the assurance that our floor was going to fixed and in the event it wasn't fixed, the contractor would return to our home to fix the floor to industry standards. The floor was repaired in Sept of 2020 and we were satisfied with the immediate result. In Nov 2020 we called back Shamrock Flooring to come back for an additional quote to refinish our stairs. At that time, we shared with him that flooring he had originally refinished was now crowning. His response at that time was to let the floor settle for a few more months to see if it goes down. As time went on all the boards did not settle and needed further repairs. We contacted him numerous times about the floor and it requiring further repairs. As time went on, he decided that we must have had another leak and wanted us to put in another claim with our insurance to come back to fix the floor. We contacted our insurance, told them we had no leak, and our insurance hired a official flooring inspector from Winnipeg. The inspector came to our home, inspected our floor and confirmed there was no leak, in which he provided our insurance company with a detailed report. The report stated that the boards were crowned which meant the flooring was refinished with too much moisture in the boards at that time. We provided him a copy of the report and he continued to discredit the official report. He said he would get a hold of his own inspector. In January 2022, we sent him an email stating that we would like our flooring repaired as per his original agreement. In Feb 2022, we advised we would get a hold of BBB if he didn't respond.

  Business response

  31/08/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 15, 2022/08/31) */ ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Good evening My sincere apologies for the delayed response to this complaint. I have been working out of province. Further to my conversation with your office I am writing to respond to the complaint filed with you by ************** Case ID # *******. In March 2020 Mr. ****** had a leaking dishwasher that damaged his hardwood floor. Mr. ****** put a claim in with his insurance company and I was contacted, as well as another flooring contractor, to give a quote to sand and refinish the floor. When I inspected the job there were 4-5 boards in front of the dishwasher that were damaged (cupped). At that time Mr. ****** told me that he himself had installed the dishwasher and that he himself had fixed the issue. I informed him that, given his stairs was made of the same flooring, the floor would be a different colour to the stairs. I submitted my quote and was later told that I was $1800 more expensive than the other contractor that had priced the job. I was asked to meet the other contractors price but when I stated that I was unable to do that, Mr. ****** said that he would pay me the difference himself so that I could carry out the work. A date in September 2020 was agreed upon to carry out the work. At that time I checked the moisture content of the cupped boards and the relative humidity in the house. Both the moisture content and the relative humidity were within the NWFA (National Wood Flooring Association) guidelines. In the case of 'cupping' in a floor and under the correct conditions (moisture and humidity), sanding the floor will fix the 'cupping' issue. I carried out the sanding and refinishing and the floor was in perfect condition when I left the home. In November 2020, Mr. ****** contacted me to ask me to quote him for the sanding and refinishing of his stairs because it did not match the rest of his newly refinished floor which as previously stated I had told him would be the case. He told me that he was going to get the insurance company to pay for it. I told him it would be very unusual for the insurance company to pay out for this work. He told me not to worry and he would get that sorted. I did give him a quote for this work and later learned that the insurance company paid him out and he actually got a friend of his to re-cover the satirs instead of doing a sand and refinish. When I did call to the house to give a quote on the stairs, Mr. ****** told me that he had a small issue with the boards in front of the dishwasher. When I inspected the boards there was a small amount of damage that appeared to look like a small topical spill. A topical spill would cause the boards to cup and given that the spill looked to be minimal I informed him that over a short spell of time the boards would settle back down. Mr. ****** denied that there had been a spill but it was visible that there had been one. I told him that I would check back with him in a few weeks. We arranged a time that worked and when I inspected the area there was what appeared to have been, a major leak. The damage was 5 times more than what the initial damage had been when I did the job in September of 2020 and ten times the damage that it was when I had inspected it a couple of weeks previously. The water damage had travelled far beyond the scope of the original issue. The boards were wet and water damaged and that had not been the case with the original leak. It was very apparent that there had been a very significant leak. Mr. ****** denied that there was another leak and I explained to him that in my professional opinion there had indeed been a leak and this was not the fault of the work I had carried out. Mr. ****** said that he had a plumber out and there is no leak. I asked him why did he call a plumber if there was no leak. He digressed. Remember please as previously stated, Mr. ****** installed the dishwasher himself and told me that he himself fixed the initial leak. I contacted the insurance broker and shared photos with him of the original cupped boards that were the original issue in September and showed him photos of the current damage which was obviously a leak. The insurance broker agreed with my evaluation and alluded to the fact that Mr. ****** does not want to put the claim for a second leak through insurance as he does not want to pay the deductable and knows his premiums will go up. However, Mr. ****** continued to insist that there was not a second leak and/or spill. The insurance broker contracted a flooring inspector from Winnipeg. I was sent a copy of the report. The inspector did not definitively blame my work. However, Mr. ****** seemed to think he did. I called the inspector and had a lengthy conversation with him It transpired that he does not have any experience with sanding and refinishing hardwood floors, his primary occupation is a carpet installer. One very obvious thing that did stand out on his report was the reading he got on the relative humidity in the home when he did the inspection. It was reading at an excessively high rate of 69%. A reading this high in a home can most likely be explained as indicating that there is water damage. He did not have an answer when I posed that question to him. The report he supplied was copied from the NWFA website but he is not an NWFA member. I contacted two inspectors from the NWFA and shared the report with them. They both disagreed with the report findings and stated that I should not carry out any work on the floor because to do so would be akin to claiming responsibility when it was very apparent that there was another leak. However, in order to appease Mr. ******, I offered to pull out the damaged boards and carry out a repair. However, in order to do this correctly I would have to rip out the subfloor because it was the incorrect product and likely badly water damaged. Mr. ****** refused this offer and asked me to refund him the $1800 that he had paid me over and above the insurance claim amount. I declined. He said that he would forget about everything if I paid him that money. I refused. His son called me and spoke to me in an intimidating manner telling me to get the matter sorted out - a kind of 'or else' phonecall which I did not appreciate. I called Mr. ****** again and reiterated that it would me my preference, and more expensive on me, offering to rip out the boards and subfloor. He again refused and said he did not want me to do that and wanted me to pay him back the $1800 and he would put the matter to bed. I spent endless hours on the phone through text messages, emails and phone calls with to Mr. Couple over the time span of November 2020 to January 2022 trying to resolve the matter. I spent hours on the phone to his insurance adjuster and flooring inspectors. It was just not possible to resolve the issue with him and at this stage I am not willing to engage with him any further. I made an offer to remedy the situation twice, and he refused both times. Thank you. ****** ******** ************ Consumer Response /* (3000, 17, 2022/09/15) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) It is very interesting that Shamrock Hardwood Flooring had until *** 6, 2022 to respond to the initial complaint, we received notification *** 9, 2022 that no response was provided yet now he conveniently claims to have been out of province for 4 months and submits a report full of fallacies. It does not seem warranted to engage Mr.********s fallacies any further. It is unfortunate that Mr. ******** of Shamrock Hardwood Flooring has provided a great deal of inaccurate information. At the end of the day, if he would have stood behind the commitment he made to us when he was engaged to perform the work, we would not have had to spend the past year and a half trying to get this resolved. Mr. ******** has made no attempt to come and look at the floor or have any of his experts come , he has been even more inept at responding to phone calls or returning calls. The attempt by our insurance company to have an expert come and report on the findings in our home has been disregarded by Mr. ******** even though it was performed by a member of the National Flooring Association. Mr. ******** will not accept the fact that human error on his part has resulted in where we are today and not a second leak in our home. If anyone is engaging Mr. ******** for future work we would welcome them to contact us for a reference.

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