I've had a lot of contractors in and out of my home over the years, so I appreciate the good ones…read more
First off, sales: Alisha was very helpful with my flooring decisions and I really appreciated her advice. She came to my home to measure and she brought flooring samples so that I could see the colours where they would "live".
Once the sale was done, I had two crews from Alexanian in my home: one for the main floor hardwood; another for the upstairs carpet.
The wood floor crew: Huseyin introduced himself and then got to work. I stayed out of their way, but I believe there were two or three women on the crew. This was clearly a subcontracted job. They did not greet me or introduce themselves, but rather set up a speaker and began to play loud music before getting to work.
My first complaint about the hardwood installation is that they left the doors wide open all day. This meant that every fly and moth in the neighbourhood flew inside. I was working in my office upstairs while they worked downstairs, and sometime around mid-day, I realized that the music and hammering noise had stopped. I ventured down the stairs to find the house empty, my garage door wide open to the street, my back patio sliding doors wide open (screen door too), and my front door open.
The contractor's van was gone as well, so I presumed they had gone for lunch.
They hadn't let me know they were leaving. I was upstairs -- while all my doors were open, anyone could have wandered in and helped themselves to whatever was in my home and I would have just assumed that any sounds were coming from the flooring crew. With my garage door open, anyone might have come in and gone through my tools and supplies without my knowledge. I closed all the doors, but again, the flies, bees and moths had already made themselves at home.
And the loud music. I was upstairs trying to work. Their music was not appreciated.
Otherwise, the installation went okay. Not great, but just okay. There is a new large chip in one half-wall near the garage, and I hear "popping" sounds when I walk over certain areas, so my engineered wood feels more like a laminate, but I hope those will go away in time. There was a gouge in one board, and Huseyin came back to "fix" it, but he simply coloured it with a black marker (that he borrowed from me) and it looked pretty bad. When I said that the "repair" wasn't right, he became annoyed and said that my floor was going to get marks on it and that I should learn to live with it. I asked to have the board replaced but later change my mind, as I was concerned that his repair might look worse than the gouge. The hardwood crew gets 1.5/5 stars.
Now, the carpet: A week after the wood floor, Zephara and another man came to install the carpet. Zephara introduced himself and looked at the plywood staircase that I had stripped, sanded and painted white (I had hoped to have a runner down the centre), and he kindly asked why I'd changed the work order to have the stairs fully carpeted.
I showed him the problems that were not fixable with a sander and paint, and he agreed that, while painted stairs and a runner would have looked nice, it wasn't going to work for my situation. (I appreciated the validation!)
He asked me to show him the area being carpeted and then cheerfully told me to "go and relax".
Zephara and another man (I didn't catch his name) were pleasant and respectful towards my home. They were very courteous. The second man carried the leftover carpet to my garage, and I propped open the door - he closed it when he was finished. (Little things make a difference).
We chatted a bit as Zephara worked on my stairs, and a few hours later, they had finished my carpet. It looks really great. (They even vacuumed up all the carpet bits!) Zephara pointed out the (nearly invisible) seams in the doorways and advised me not to drag furniture across them. I felt like they respected that this is my home and they did careful work. This carpet crew gets 4.5/5 stars.
EDIT: The two crews average 3 stars for Alexanian, but after several weeks, I'm rounding my rating to a 2 because my floor still "pops" louder than Rice Krispies.
