April 12, 2005
Is Everyone Dumb?
I had this discussion with eburke about a week ago. Let me explain.
So I wanted to put a laminate wood floor in the bedroom in the basement. Its going to be a gym. Seems like a good choice of flooring. So I had priced around and The Home Depot consistently had the best price and they had a good DuPont (Go 24!) product that I liked. Good. About 2 weeks ago they had a sale so I pulled the trigger. I went to the store to buy it.
Now every time you go in, some dude in an orange apron tells you how easy this stuff is. No problem. They even have a free class on Saturdays. I am pretty handy and I think I can do it but I have this gut feel that something isn’t right. So I am about ready to do it myself and then I started asking some more questions about what things I need. Its then that I discover that the floor has to be level to a certain degree or the floor will not work. Meaning if its not flat enough, the joints in the laminate aren’t going to stay together and look flat. I do have a big crack in the middle of the room so maybe I better not.
Oh and then he kept saying that you need a saw to cut the board. Ok, I have about 3 saws so then it dawns on me…what kind of saw? “Oh, a just an ordinary table saw”, he says. I don’t have a damn table saw. What do you think this is — the Yankee Workshop. As I explained that I really don’t want to buy a table saw because I don’t need it otherwise and don’t really have a place to put it, he looks at me like I am slightly insane — “Man do not want to buy table saw. Huh?”. Ok, you guys do it.
So the process is that they send some measuring dude out to check things out. This is good news because its only $50 for that service and it goes towards the purchase. If there is something wrong with the room, this measuring will find it.
So the guy shows a few days later and measures. I tried to squeeze some info from him but he said The Home Depot folks would call back with a complete bid now that he had the info. Ok.
A few days later, an associate from the store calls and says its all set. Come in and pay. Cool. So I go in and we go over the paper work. I asked about the floor not being level. What did they find? She indicates that there was a slope but the quote includes one bag of leveling compound. What if that is not enough? She indicates they will charge me $60 for another. Sounds good. Let’s do it. So we load up a flat cart with the 14 cartons of wood and I pay and check out. They have some crappy ass computer system there so it took about an hour to pay for the service. Not fun. Plus they never get our sales tax right because we live in this weird area. Oh well.
So I bring the wood home and carry the 14 cartons into the basement. They have to be there a few days in advance to warm up to the room temp. Check.
The guys were supposed to come Monday to install but because of the Blizzard of 2005 they canceled and returned today. So 2 dudes show up at my door today. Here to do your flooring? Right on. Come on in. I take them down into the room. Just as we get in there, the doorbell rings and a delivery is here. I have to go and get it so I leave the guys in the room. While working with the delivery guys, the flooring guys come up and go out to their truck. Must be getting their tools? They were on cell phones. What are they talking about? After my delivery they come back to the house and say, “Are you ready for some bad news?”. They can’t lay the floor. Not level enough. I wisely curb my words for these 2 very large Latino dudes. Not their fault anyway. Not much I can do with them. They say they can’t lay it because they can’t correct the floor enough. Would have to have the floor ground down and they don’t do that. Bye.
The Home Depot calls a few minutes later. Heard you have a problem there, Mr. Fuller. You bet your ass. She wanted to talk about next steps. I wanted to know who is getting their ass chewed out. We focused on that and she tried to get the manager but he was busy. I told them to call me back when they get their story straight.
They called back later and it turns out that is their associate’s fault. She was supposed to actually read the measurements and see that this flooring wouldn’t work in that room. Bummer. I put the ass chewing on hold for now because the manager is still busy. I told them I would be in touch. Tomorrow, I am calling and telling them to come and get their shit.
So now tomorrow, Kim is going to run to the place we got our carpet from and see if we can get some low pile industrial type carpet to put in the gym. Another small issue in project basement.
From the start, I was worried about this floor and it being level. I had a gut feel. I asked the whole way through and I still got shafted at the end. How frustrating.
