OK, so… April. Yeah, that wasn’t a party.
First there were the two weeks in a four week period that I was on the road for work–that’s more being away from home than I like.
Then there was the massive and literally stunning workload–I don’t want to go into detail about my job here, but the scope of my responsibility expanded by a factor of several hundred percent, literally, and that expansion came along with a large number of this must be done immediately items. This lead to a pretty steep curve for the first while, and I’m still working on that. I have hopes that this will eventually level out at a sustainable place, and within a reasonable time frame.
Those things probably account for my non-blogging for most of the month.
Those things and a couple of other minor annoyances.
Like this:
Details about that, and another extended whinge (with pictures) follows.
That photo was taken on the side of the road, while I waited for AAA to arrive, during my drive home from the latest New England trip. I had decided to stay over until Saturday and drive home during the day (it’s a little more than 11 hours on the road, and I usually stay over unless I can get out by not much later than noon on Friday.)
Ironically, on the preceding trip, in the last week of March, I had been driving on tires that were pretty well worn out, finishing off a set of winter tires, and the car had developed a pretty serious balance issue–the car was fine between 0 and 90, and above 110, but between 90 and 110 shook like it was about to explode. When I got home I got the mechanical things dealt with, and also put on a brand new set of all seasons. On the March trip I had been quite worried about the car, and everything was fine. On this trip I was expecting no trouble, and especially not from the tires.
I was getting pretty pissed during my first hour of the drive home because it was already wicked hot early in the morning, and my A/C seemed to be dead.
I managed to get control back, and shudder to the side of the road.
And I saw what you see above in the photo.
I have a spare in the car, but it’s one of those little “donut” spares–the ones that can’t go over 90, and can’t be used for any significant distance. So I could put it on, but I don’t know the area of northern Mass. near the NH border, so I had no idea where I could go to get a tire and get it put on in a hurry on a Saturday.
I called AAA, had a hard time convincing them that they could accept CAA numbers, and eventually got to talk to a dispatcher. My plan had been to ask the local dispatcher for a recommendation of a place nearby to get a tire. The dispatcher couldn’t recommend anywhere, but said she could send out the truck, and the guy would know the area.
So I did that.
Then I waited 50 minutes for the truck to come (despite being told I was “a priority” since I was on the side of an interstate and would get someone within 15 minutes). The tire dude
I went into the town, followed his directions until I got to where the Tire Warehouse was supposed to be, and there was a roadhouse. Turns out the Tire Warehouse has been closed for nearly a decade.
The garage in town said they closed at noon, and wouldn’t be able to get a tire before Monday anyway.
So I went to police station.
As you do.
The town’s chief told me that no one in the area buys tires in MA, they all pop over the border to get them with no state tax in NH. He gave me a map with the “back way” to get to the town just over the border, along with almost SNL quality New England directions, to where Sullivan’s Tire would fix me up. And they did.
I lost about 3 hours to that. And the $100 for the new tire. Although I’m getting that back from the people here who installed it–the photo is pretty convincing that it was a tire defect.
I do think it’s pretty funny that the police told me to go to NH to beat the tax, and maybe funnier that the mechanic didn’t tell me.
Now the second major annoyance of the month: the flooring saga.
The short story is this: for years we’ve been living with some hideous white carpet that came with the house. Some of it we’ve already replaced, but earlier this year we contracted to have some of the hallways, and the den, done with some laminate flooring we like.
The laminate is nice, but the installer did a terrible job. Instead of my telling you about it, let me show you the content of the email I eventually sent to the salesman who sold us the flooring at set up the install:
It’s been seven weeks since the day that our flooring installation was supposed to be complete, and the work is still undone.
I’ve been waiting now for almost a month since the last time you called and told me that the final materials were in stock, and that things would be settled any moment, and I haven’t heard a word since that call. Additionally, despite several requests, you have failed to provide us with a receipt for the flooring and installation.
I have a number of other concerns with the installation, many of which I have mentioned to you before, and was trying to hold my commentary until the work was complete, but at this point I’m just going to lay it all out and give you one final chance to do something to convert me from the kind of customer who tells everyone he talks to about the nightmare experience he’s had into the kind of customer who at least doesn’t laugh bitterly when reading that the mission statement is “{STORE} want to meet or exceed customers’ expectations of them”.
First, let me remind you of the timelines—we had one of your estimators out to measure the house, and you told us that the job could be completed on February 9th. We spent the preceding weekend moving furniture and removing the old carpet. Your installer showed up on that Monday, and had the following problems:
- He didn’t have any of the transition molding
- He had no solution for transition at the brick in the living room (although one assumes the estimator would have noted this on the form)
- He only had one stair nosing, despite their being two areas where it was required. When this was pointed out to him, he said “I’ll do it later”.
- He had no solution for the large area in the entrance hallway where one side of the flooring area butts against a wooden rail, again despite us having discussed this as a potential problem with the estimator.
- He brought (and installed, apparently without thinking about it at all) primed white quarter-round. Since the flooring is a dark wood, and the walls/baseboard are also a finished wood, this looked ridiculous. Apparently that wasn’t worth mentioning, or commenting on.
We then had to deal with living with all the furniture rearranged, and part of the floor (where the second nosing section was required) unfinished while transition molding was ordered, and we were waiting for the delivery of the “do it yourself” quarter-round.
When the installer did eventually return, he did not have enough transition molding to complete the job. At this point, seven weeks later, this is still undone.
He did cut some unfinished quarter-round, which my wife and I stained, finished, and installed. While I was not thrilled about this—I would have expected that selling flooring would mean having access to trim that complemented the flooring—it seemed like the quickest way to get the job done, and allow me to regain the use of several rooms in my house. Had I known that doing this would have been part of “my job” it certainly would have influenced my decision to purchase.
During both visits, it was manifestly obviously that the installer had no interest in doing a quality job, and just wanted to “get out” as fast as possible.
At this point, I want that last section of molding installed, and I want that receipt, but I also want to show you some pictures of the quality of work that was done, and ask you if this is the kind of work Wacky’s considers acceptable—if you stand behind this work.
Let’s start with the unfinished section:
I repeat, I’ve had that hole in my floor for seven weeks now. And despite repeated communications, I suspect that if I didn’t write this email, it might stay like that for another 70 weeks.
Now, let’s move on to some more general quality of installation issues.
Let’s start in the entry hallway, where we have part of the flooring butting against the railing. Here we have and installation that was made with no professional installation plan—no attempt to route out a channel to slide the flooring under, or even a plan for a transition—just butted ends. Surely the estimator would have realized some work would be needed here? Surely this shouldn’t have been left to the installer’s whim?
I could probably have lived with the butted ends, if the ends were cut level, and actually butted against the rail. But they aren’t, and they don’t:
I showed this to a neighbor who has worked as a contractor and his comment was “Wow, that’s trailer park quality installation”.
Here’s a close-up:
Now, I’m hardly a handy guy, but I’m pretty sure that two of the most important things in this kind of work are being able to cut square, and having sharp tools. It’s obvious from this that neither of those things happened here. Look at the chipping on that board on the right! And, of course, not only do the ends not butt up with the rail, but they CAN’T—because they aren’t cut square, and because there are bits sticking out where the dull cutting tool failed to make a clean cut.
As I said, I wouldn’t expect there to be a gap at all in a professional installation, but I guess I could have lived with a small one (although notching out a grove to slide them under seems like a much more obvious solution)… this one, though, in addition to being not square is also pretty wide: I can fit a bunch of quarters in there.
What kind of professional does a job like that, looks at it, and says “Yes, I have done well here. I am satisfied with this work.”?
Now let’s move to another problem area: the areas in the den where coping was required. As you may recall there is a step into the den. Without getting into the issues of the step itself, let me just show you the job that was done cutting the flooring to fit:
I repeat—I’m not a handy guy; this is why I’m paying for a professional to do this installation, but come on: I can nearly fit a quarter, lying down, into that gap. And look at the “coped” edge—again, it sure looks like either the right tools weren’t used, or else they weren’t maintained in any condition that might be called “sharp”.
On the other side of the room, there’s the same problem with the hearth:
On this side, the installer did tell us that due to the irregular nature of the brick, we would need to caulk. I wonder why this A) wasn’t noted by the estimator, and B) why it wasn’t done as part of the installation. If I’m staining and installing my own trim, and I’m apparently also caulking myself, why am I paying for professional installation? I also wonder if it really wasn’t possible to get closer than the diameter of a quarter.
Now, let me show you where the nosing was installed at the end of the hallways, where there are stairs down to the basement:
The nosing is there, but no trim or finish. Also, it looks like a hack saw was take to the former stair head. I guess this transition is another one of those things about this installation that is “my job”. And this photo is another illustration of what a {STORE} installer looks at and says “Yes, I have done well”.
A closer view:
A similar, but more severe issue exists where the nosing was installed (on the second visit) to the laundry room:
I’m not even sure what he did here—but it clearly ripped a large section out of the baseboard below the nosing, and apparently he thought that was just fine. Is that the kind of work you expect your installers to do? Christ, that’s damage, not installation.
And incidentally, that particular piece of nosing is not actually secured to the floor. When you step on it, it tilts into the room.
Oh, and the flooring in the doorway that borders the nosing? It’s not flush with the wall either—you can actually see the subfloor through the gap. Here’s the top view:
And finally, just for extra bonus customer satisfaction, there are a couple of areas where there are significant gaps in the flooring between abutting planks. Here’s two different such cases:
I won’t discuss the place where the floor feels like a springboard, etc, since I can’t capture that with the camera.
So, having seen all that, are you comfortable telling me that this the experience {STORE} expects their customers to have? If not, what do you propose to do about it?
The email was much more effective than all the phone calls and messages that lead up to it. Within hours of sending it I was contacted by the regional manager of {STORE}, who nearly fell over himself apologizing. He came out to see the job, and then sent us out a new contractor to fix the installation. The new guy did an amazing job–if he had come out the first time, I would have been the world’s happiest customer–and we’re quite content now. If I get excited I’ll take a couple of photos of the proper job.
Let’s hope May has fewer of these things and more happy sanity.
