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Lumber Liquidators

16 years ago

Has anyone had any good / bad experience with Lumber Liquidators? They look like they have some reasonable prices, and I have seen them at a home show.

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Comments (8)

susanjn
16 years ago
Do a search on this forum. You'll find lots.
alfton
Original Author
16 years ago
All I can say after the recommended search is "OUCH"! They sure did not get very many good reviews. We have a local showroom in Houston, I am still going to go by and look. Yes, I know "Curiosity killed the cat". MEOW.
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We did a DIY purchase-and-install of approx 800sqft of engineered Brazilian Cherry from Lumber Liquidators about a year ago (I think this is it). We have a LL under 45 minutes away, so we loaded up the pickup. It was all instock*, so we walked out the door with it the day we bought it. (There were samples that came home first, obviously!) Exception was two pieces of stairnose that we needed: those had to be ordered, and there was definitely a longer delay in getting those than I thought reasonable. Questions about how easy/difficult things are to install is going to vary by brand and what material it is. Solid hardwood will have more variations than, say, engineered. I don't think we had ANY pieces that were unusable due to poor quality (curves, bends, breaks in tongue/groove, surface marring, etc). The boxes looked pretty chintzy/cheap, but the product itself was beautiful. No kids, but three cats and ongoing construction (heh), and it only has a few marks - mostly from extreme circumstances (let's just say my husband is sometimes careless about where he THROWS a hammer. ahem.) Anyway. The actual installation is pretty straightforward, though the details again vary by what product. We rented a compressor and nail gun, because we did the nail/staple installation. We took turns being the "nailer" and the "feeder" - the "feeder" was responsible for mixing lengths of pieces, intermixing boxes, cutting end pieces to length, etc. It took us close to three full (12 hour) days to get it all down - again, 800sqft in four bedrooms and weird shaped hallway, and we had to shift furniture from room to room - so a living room should be a one-day project. There is some good information online, as far as installation instructions/tips/etc - including the LL website. It really only takes some basic carpentry skills (cutting to length, nailing neatly), and some forethought (which way should it run, marking parallel lines occasionally, etc).
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Yes.. it is resolved, they gave me some money back. They promised they will start supplying all solid wood all through since my incident. You should be able to buy with confidence now. It's not veneer in the sense that it is 1/64" thin, the maple is 1/4" with 1" oak in betweem. It's still very durable. I havn't had a problem with it so far. Not that I need to talk about my fix anymore because no one else should encounter this now. It is important you use the butcherblock right away because I waited a bit too long and the store manager was being difficult with me. It took combined effort of the GW "angry mob" until I got a call from their corporate guy :) BTW love my wood counter top, the "sound" especially. This one island counter I created from the LL BB, if I didn't tell, you wouldn't know there is oak inside.
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This not only has to do with laminates but also with engineered wood flooring. Yikes, we installed LL engineered wood flooring about 5 years ago in some rooms in our house. Have not detected any odors or felt discomfort but it is worrisome just the same. I plan to call the class action lawyer tomorrow, for a start. Made in China stuff, of course.
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Lumber Liquidators, so far so good, but……
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The extra dark/light are ideal for closets, at least as a random board here or there, so don't throw them out! The shorties can be good for when you have a short (if you need 18 inches to get to the wall, it's a great time to use that 2 foot board). You're still going to have some waste when the installers start cutting. If Floor Tex installs cumaru, ask to see some of their work. If they do good work, they will be proud to show you. Also, you can get a feel for how they use some of the less desirable boards.
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floorguy
16 years ago
Big time issues. DO NOT GLUE their thin solid to concrete!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
forgotten
16 years ago
Seems to me what I hear is their domestic hardwoods are of decent quality but then the exotic lines are kind of troublesome. Knowing a few inspectors in the business and guys that have experience installing the product, the finish on the exotics seems to be pretty touchy. Anotherwords it actually crumbles or shatters if you pound it too hard with a mallet.

I guess it's like you get what you pay for. Many have their own set price point or budget to spend. If you need a good price, Lumber seems to be the place to go, but don't expect high quality.
srickard
16 years ago
Check out www.ifloor.com . They have a Houston store and the have a much better reputation than LL. Their prices are good and so are their products. Their Westhollow line (unique to them) is well regarded by many pros. I have had a very good experience with them.
alfton
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks srickard, I did not know the ifloor and a location in Houston. I will definitely put them on my list
taifun1
15 years ago
I've had some pretty bad experience with them. I have posted it before, but want to make sure people know about my story, as I couldn't find any bad reviews when I tried to google Bellawood before ordering (I think I know why now).

We have had over 700sqft of the Bellawood Maple Natural 3/4" x 4" installed and I can confirm that there are all kinds of irregularities with this flooring.
About 70-80% of the planks are milled wrong, pieces are thinner than others, narrower on one end (which leaves gaps) and had minor cracks. So I have a lot of gaps, ups and downs and due to the irregular thickness and location of the tongue and groove some planks are squeeking as they are not fully touching the floor.
Again, we bought "NATURAL" grade, which is next to "SELECT" and is only supposed to have more color variance not milling defects!
LL says I should not have installed the floors, but called them, brought all the wood back, waited for new flooring to arrive at the store, gotten that, and resheduled my installation for a later time - Sorry, but this was a new construction and I couldn't wait around for the floors I had hoped for. And with almost 80% of the 700sqft being bad, I figured my chances for everything to be good
quality next time to be very slim. The wood grain is pretty, but that's about it. For now we have to work with wood filer to hide all the gaps between the planks.

When trying to post a review about their floors on their website, they never posted it and when contacting them, they said that they could choose what reviews to post. I didn't know such a misleading practice is even allowed!!!!!
susanlynn2012
15 years ago
Thank you taifun1 for the warning! We all appreciate it when someone posts their bad and good experiences with companies and manufacturers.

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