I am in the middle of a remodel and spent weeks picking out a new floor in my living room and bedroom. Nothing fancy, just a nice laminate that came to about $6000 installed or so Lowe’s claimed. Their flooring specialist told me to not worry about a thing because they had it all covered.
I will skip the part about when they lost my measurements, estimate and missed the material delivery by over a day because that is all small potatoes now. I took two days off work to be home for the installation, the installers showed up and refused to do the work because the estimate was wrong in their opinion. The wanted an extra 2 - 3K to even start the process because of underfloor leveling that should have been covered in the estimate. Anybody that knows me would realize that you simply don’t ask for extra money and I have a signed contract in front of me already.
Hell hath no fury like a Shagnasty scorned. I am a vindictive and petty fucker. I have been on the phone with Lowe’s corporate headquarters and the local store all day and still haven’t come up with a resolution although I have insulted as many of those involved in this clusterfuck as possible. I haven’t ever done it before but I think I am going to need to sue them in small claims court although this claim will be close to the state limit. I will do that even if I don’t win a significant amount of damages just to waste as many people’s time as possible just like they did mine.
In the mean-time, show some solidarity with me by never shopping at Lowe’s again and encourage friends and family members to stay far away as well. I need their entire incompetent flooring department shut down for good and all of their employees fired.
I’d like to share solidarity, but a family member is assistant assistant general store manager or something, and he’s a not crappy one - and I detest Home Depot. However, the closest big box home improvement store is Menard’s, so they’ll get all my small-ticket purchases.
Keep on them. Persistence is key. Repeatedly using words like lawyer, news, and lawsuit can be helpful. Throwing in lost time from work is an added consequence, even if it’s paid as vacation.
But seriously, feel free to burn the local Lowe’s down! Metaphorically speaking, that is. Get (shag)nasty!
Did the estimator actually show up and examine the floor or did you just show up with the measurements? Seems as though the workers are getting punished here for wanting to do a quality job. If the subfloor isn’t level, the finished floor will look bad and will eventually develop cracks along the seams.
I know when I wanted floors installed, the hardwood guy came to give me an estimate and told me it wasn’t even a possibility – the floor was too uneven. As it turns out, it was possible, but it involved me tearing out 150 years of flooring and shimming all the joists.
I had almost exactly the same experience fourteen years ago with Lowe’s. They gave me an estimate, I planned the work for two weeks before Christmas (when I’d have houseguests), they came in and tore up the carpet–
and discovered that we had super-stupid subflooring. Like, part of it was asbestos tiles, and part of it was 1970s-style wood wall paneling.
They told me there was no way they could install the hardwood we’d asked for, without getting a hazmat team in to take away the asbestos. So we had to switch, on the fly, to a carpet installation.
I don’t know what your situation is; maybe it’s a reasonable change to plan, like this one was.
However, some years later, I got Lowe’s to install cabinets. They lost the original plans, someone went on vacation and didn’t tell anyone how to access our records, they missed days for installation. The kicker was that I’d agreed to pay $70 to haul away the old cabinets–or so I thought, since I paid $70 to haul away the “boxes,” which I thought meant the old cabinets.
Nope. Instead, it was $70 to take away the cardboard boxes our new cabinets came in, and I couldn’t get out of paying that fee.
I paid it, but I’ll never do home improvement through Lowe’s again.
No, the estimator showed up in person to take a close inspection. I don’t know anything about floors so I paid the people that claimed to. The written contract supposedly covers everything (except for that pesky extra 2 - 3K to even get started and up to four weekends that were never mentioned). I was told it was an easy job that would only take two work days if I could just be home. I don’t blame the installer. He seems to be the only one that actually knows what he is doing but I am not going to pay for someone else’s mistake(s). The only reason I picked them to begin with was that the price was competitive and the quote and workmanship were supposedly guaranteed.
There is plenty of blame to go around. This has been a shitstorm from the beginning. My daughters and I had to cancel plans last weekend because the supply truck didn’t show up on Saturday and refused to give a specific time on Sunday that they would show (it turns out they think that 7am is the perfect time to unload thousands of pounds of flooring into your living room).
I think your best bet is to just get your money back and walk away. Unless you want to get the local news to turn it into a sob story that will get the public on your side so that Lowes Corporate kicks in the extra money, it’s likely going to result a lot of lost time and money for you.
Check out their Facebook page, it’s generally just full of people complaining about the exact same thing.
If I were you (and this may be easier said than done), I’d go back to the store and if they can’t get the floor installed in a reasonable amount of time (1-2 weeks) ask them to refund the entire charge and get the materials picked up within a reasonable amount of time (2-3 days). If that refuse, call the number on your credit card and have the charge reversed…assuming you used a credit card.
Going forward, you now know that the floors probably need to be leveled. Keep that in mind when you have the next people look at it.
Also, Lowes brings in 60 billion dollars per year. You can sue them 'til yer red in the face and they’re not even going to notice.
I have already gotten the “have you considered carpet” speech from Lowe’s headquarters. They must have that as part of their playbook. The answer to that is not no but hell no. I already have carpet. That is what we are replacing.
They also offered, “Well, we can do two rooms instead of four for the same price!” Have you ever heard a special like that in your life. Apparently these fucktards think that makes some kind of sense in their world. No, I am remodeling the entire house I can’t move on until the floors are done.
If they don’t come up with a good solution by the end of the day, I am just going to report it as fraud to my credit card company and have the charges reversed. Then I will take to social media and start writing about their wrongs incessantly.
Reading what you posted while I was typing you’ll have to figure out if the installer is a great installer (or even too good) and knows what he’s talking about and just trying to do a really good job OR he’s trying to con you (even if he does the work) out of an extra couple of grand.
I still think your best best is to get off the phone and go in and (calmly) explain the problem. They did an estimate, you signed something
[quote/contract]
, you paid them and now they’re not doing the work and see what happens.
You might even refer you the installer as you/your guy/lowes and say things like “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now, I paid you guys the amount of money you asked for, then when your guy asked me for an extra $2500 and I explained to him [something], he walked off the job, what’s the next step here”.
I’d probably try to bait them into saying ‘what? they’re not supposed to be asking you for money, let me schedule a new installer’.
If they don’t fix the situation, that’s when I’d work on getting my money back and getting the supplies out. Be mindful of any Satisfaction Guaranteed thing that has an amount of days attached to it. Don’t let them purposefully or accidentally run out the clock on that.
The OP should contact the local “news on your side” person and get him/her involved. The threat of negative publicity on the local news hour may bring them around.
Well, giving you as estimate without an inspection of the sub-floor was plain stupid. But did they give you an estimate or a Firm Fixed price contract? If the latter, then yes, it’s on them to see to it the installation occurs as priced.
If you’d like, you can send me a scan of the contract for review. I do this for a living, and I’m d*** good at it.
Thanks for the support and feedback. I may do just that but I am seriously considering a small claims civil suit just for fun because I have never had that experience. According to my lawyer friends, it should be an easy win in money terms but I don’t even really care about that as long as I cause everyone involved significant hardship just for being a world class fuckup - here is your medal.
Does anyone have experience with small claims court proceedings? I know how to file one in Massachusetts but I don’t know much about how to present my very legitimate claim and win against a mega-corp. I am going to shoot for something like 5K in lost time and wages.
The news and social media are also on the list but I don’t know if those two ideas are incompatible.
Lowe’s was in the news in Canada when it was found that they gave discounts to US military personnel in the US, but Lowe’s Canada did no such thing for Canadian military. When this hit the news and went public, as a good corporate citizen Lowe’s Canada did the following: exactly nothing. Essentially their message was that they’re happy to set up shop and take Canadians’ money, but they are no way part of the community. This “fuck you” attitude inspired calls for a boycott.
I once got them to estimate the cost of a window insert for the front door, which was a non-standard size that they didn’t stock. No horror story here except that while I was thinking about it, a local business with a truck-full of different styles of window inserts was going door to door selling them, and I got a really nice one installed right there and then for about half the price that Lowe’s was asking just to get it ordered into the store, and I would have had to install it myself.
I wouldn’t say that I’m totally boycotting Lowe’s but it’s right at the bottom of my list of preferences and I’m very rarely there, so there’s my solidarity.
I have always gotten great service from Lowe’s, but was very disappointed when I tried to buy flooring from them and have it installed.
I chose my flooring, and had the subcontracted measuring people come over to calculate everything. The subcontracted installers were supposed to follow up in the next day or two to schedule my install. After a week, I called Lowe’s to ask where the hell my installers were. They called their subcontractor installer, who then called me with the “We had the wrong number and couldn’t get in touch with you. We were hoping you’d eventually call back.” Seriously? It would have been that hard for them to call Lowe’s back and verify my phone number?? It must be nice to not need business, and be that half-assed about booking a new client.
That was pretty much all I needed to hear. I cancelled my plans with Lowe’s, and got another, smaller, flooring store to do the job. I ended up getting better flooring for he same price. Plus, they were a joy to deal with, and my install was flawless. They did not use subcontractors.
I still like shopping at Lowe’s, but will never bother with having them install anything. They blew their one and only chance with me.
