Like many of you who find contractors using sites like Yelp or Home Advisor, I found this company and decided to get an estimate for floor installation because of the many positive and glowing reviews. After my wife and I picked a floor we liked, we decided to go with them due to the reasonable price point. Out of the 6 contractors we have had remodel our house within the past 6 months, this company ended up giving us the most heartache and nearly got to the point of going to court. Below you can read the reasons why my wife and I will not recommend this company to anyone. I hope this review will save you and your family some stress if you are looking for a quality flooring installer.
1. The crew did not clean up the job worksite on the first day, leaving old flooring with nails in our yard. If they were not told to at least cover it up (with much cursing in Spanish), they would have left it there. We have children in the neighborhood that sometimes play in our yard and we did not want to be liable for any accidents.
2. Just before the floors were installed I painted our dining room and kitchen ceilings. I left plastic sheets, painter's tape, and a number of tools including a power drill near the kitchen area. A couple days after the floor installation, I patched up some drywall and did some touch up painting and found that my painter's tape had been used up, realized they reused my plastic sheets to cover our furniture, found my drill battery dead, and a different drill bit in my drill (I had a double Philips/flathead bit, but found a Philips only bit). I also found out later that they requested to use our shop vac to clean up the area. Make sure the work area is clear of personal belongings and tools or the install team may feel free to use them.
3. We have a living room and family room that have step downs into carpet. No tarp, plastic, drop cloth, etc. were used to cover these areas and were subsequently stained in the process (the staining of the stair edgings and quarter-round were done on site...yes on site). These carpets were newly installed just two months prior. Two carpet cleaning companies later, the rug is still not 100% pre-install condition. To be fair Prospect did cover the costs of these cleanings but could have easily been prevented and saved us both the heartache.
4. The stair nosing for our dropdown from the dining room was incorrectly installed and was not flush with the adjoining floor boards, creating a trip hazard for our 2 year old. The installers decided to install the stair edgings last instead of first. Subsequently, there are many gaps between the floor boards and the stair edgings which were filled in with wood putty...lots of wood putty. Wood putty is like caulk to them...have a gap, fill it in with caulk/wood putty! Looks great and professional! I have volunteered with home repair and renovation organizations for a number of years and have installed a number of floors myself. I have to say, even the volunteers that have no previous flooring experience were able to install a floor without resorting to wood putty to fill the gaps. This was most likely due to there always being a PM on site the whole time though...ahem...
5. This company did not check for levelness of the subfloor, yet the install occurred anyway with only a nail down and no glue to ensure that the boards do not warp over time. IF you go with this company, please make sure in the contract under the section "Scope of Work" you have them check for the levelness of your subfloor. That should be standard practice, but sadly is not.
6. They were ready to bill me after all of the above until I had to get an independent floor inspection report, which showed the gaps in the floor due to its unevenness and flagged them for the uneven stair edgings (which they were quick to fix most likely due to potential personal injury liability reasons). Even after they fixed the stair edgings, the new stain does not match the previously installed edgings.
Overall I would say this company does what it says...it installs floors at a decent price point. However, if it's quality work you want done, this isn't your company. While the company did work with me to fix the issues, the craftsmanship and quality just wasn't there. I will wait and see after a year how this floor holds up and will update this review appropriately. read more