In August 2018, we had a small water leak in our half bath. It damaged 2 walls, 2 pieces of baseboards, and about 10 pieces of laminate planks. We wanted to have the wall dried and the floor repaired. We searched online for a company that would do both, and Harris services caught our attention because of the following statement on their website "We will take on any size project with care and professionalism".
We called Harris Services. A person came to examine the damage shortly. He also told us to contact our insurance company because the cost would be over our deductible. As for the repair part, we asked whether we could just repair the part of the floor that was damaged, and he said yes. He told us they were booked all the way until Labor day, but for a small project like this, they could easily squeeze it in before that.
Now, please understand that the reasons why we only wanted to repair the damaged part of the floor were: 1. we just installed new laminate flooring in 2017, and we LOVE every aspect about our new floor and 2. when you are doing your research and dissertation, you just can't spend time on other things. We thought "if this project could be done by Labor Day, that would be perfect!" and signed the drying part of the contract.
They quickly came in and tore out the damaged laminate planks and started the drying process. At the same time, the person told us that when our insurance adjuster came, he would be here because sometimes an adjuster misses an item or two.
We set up a time that Harris Services, the adjuster, and us agreed on. However, when the adjuster arrived, no one from Harris Services showed up. We called, and they told us the person was in a meeting and someone else was supposed to come. The adjuster told us it was a good opportunity to get any floor that we had always wanted. For the reasons mentioned above, we asked the adjuster whether we could just repair the damaged floor damaged. The adjuster said it was totally fine, but he only had the option to describe the floor as continuous, which meant the insurance company would pay for replacing the entire floor. No one from Harris Services showed up before the adjuster left.
At the end of August, our insurance company sent the estimate to us. We told Harris services that we would like to start the repair. After a week, the insurance specialist came to our house (late) to look at our insurance estimate. He noticed that some items were missing in estimate, so he would like to contact our insurance company first. We asked him if that was really needed since we were only repairing the floor. He gave us a few reasons to convince us that it was needed and said he would take care of this.
In the middle of September, he came with another person to evaluate how to repair the floor. Not a word about replacing the entire floor was mentioned.
In mid October, we saw that our insurance claim was closed and called Harris Services.The insurance specialist emailed us and told us that there was not much he could do about the insurance company and said that "You guys as the Policy holder have to find out why they would do that knowing it is not completed. You will have to keep on them unfortunately as they don't always respond quickly as we have found out".
OK, we called our claim representative. She told us that she has never received any email from Harris Services. Hmm... She gave us an email that Harris Services could send information to and gave us a new estimate in a week.
Finally, in November, they sent one person in to fix our floor. They had us sign a repair contract that he never gave us time to read. The person was dropping heavy tools on our undamaged floor and left many scratches. We noticed that a few new planks were damaged. We let him know about it, but he proceeded with the baseboards and told us he would only fix it if his boss tells him to do so.
We contacted Harris Services about this, and they told us that as long as we don't sign the form that says we are satisfied with their services, everything would be fine. The repair person's boss came in and took pictures of the damaged planks, and set up a time to redo the flooring.
The day before the repair, they told us the owner did not want to redo the floor because the damage is caused because we chose to repair. We either stop it here or let them replace the entire floor. We asked them for an estimate on replacing the entire floor and never got a response.
On Jan 18, we received an email saying "The flooring issue that is the small chips we feel is from doing a repair as you wanted instead of the whole project, which consisted of flooring in kitchen and Livingroom, and we do not want to proceed any further on your project" that included our bill. The bill was issued on Dec 28, and we were left with only 10 days to pay without a penalty. Please notice that "the whole project" idea only came into the conversation after they talked to their owner. read more