Sometimes you get what you pay for. We did.

we are not looking at engineered flooring but braz. cherry light.

I don't remember any issues with LL other then they did not have enough product in stock when we needed it and weren't to good at guestimating when they would get it.

My DH loves our floor -- I think it is beautiful but a PITA to keep looking clean because every crumb, lint and smudge shows. We do have a couple of cracked boards and dents (and of course scratches) so it no where as durable as a tile floor.

The order came in on time. But when our installer started installing it we found:
30-35% of the pieces a have variances in width and height causing gaps.
A significant number of pieces are not cut straight again leading to gaps.

Over 60% of the pieces are 1 ft pieces.

The finish is very nice.

I called them and they wanted me to send them smaples but then agreed to accept pictures. They don't want me to continue to install, leaving the house in the torn up state. According to them if oyu install it you have accepted the material. I sent them the pictures but have not heard back from them. Its now been three days.

Faisal

1. All the 12" pieces had ends that were not cut square. This left gaps at butted ends.

2. The board widths were 3 1/2"...give or take. As pointed our in an earlier post, this will leave gaps in the next row if you do not plan ahead and find boards of equal widths for the row you are installing.

3. I found occasional pieces where the finish on parts of the edges would flake off.

4. Some pieces came in with broken/split tongue and/or grooves.

5. A few pieces were split (possibly due to grain of wood), knicked/marred (due to poor packaging or mis-cut at the factory).

I was less impressed with the over all quality of the wood. Especially since the exotic hardwood was rated harder than the Red Oak I previously installed and more expensive $$$.

10 days after purchasing the flooring and having the $2,000 + taken from our debit account, no one had contacted us regarding picking up our flooring.

I called the store here only to find out that there wasn't enough flooring to fill my order! I realize it is 1st come 1st served, but 10 days and no one emails or calls to say "hey, we ran out, here's your $2000 and some dollars back?"

So I clicked the link to write to the President, but what I got was an email from some flunky saying "it's 1st come 1st served" not even addressing that now 14 days has passed and Lumber Liquidators had our money all this time and didn't even bother to notify us!

My thing is where is their inventory tracking software that automatically stops sales when the inventory of that product is low? Where is the checking to make sure that no one's money was taken without them getting product?

Seems like amateur night to me and I think Bob Vila, Rush Limbaugh, Ty Pennington and the others that flog this product must get it for free or they'd complain too.

Lumber Liquidators solution? To give us back our money 16 days after taking it, leaving us with no product. Not even a discount on a different product due to the hassles we went through and the fact that they had our money that long. Lousy customer service if you ask me.

We purchased 2400 sf of Brazilian Redwood, which we had installed by LL's recommended installer (by the way, LL claims their materials are first-quality, not seconds--ask them), and it looked good for about a month. Then, the problem started, and LL's response was to give us a small credit for more of their products (in other words, "Have more of our terrible stuff") if we would not pursue this any further.

Now, we're looking forward to the day we can afford to tear it out and go with oak flooring from someone else. Dealing with their "Customer Service" department, you realize that *no* problem will ever be because of their flooring--it is always you. At this point, we anticipate participating in a class action against them.

We had barely any waste, which was great. There were some minor annoyances, like some widths being slightly off, so there are a few planks that don't fit perfectly up next to the adjacent one. But honestly, with a handscraped look, it just blends right in - sort of the rustic look.

We did not have LL install it, however - we used our flooring guy. We also let it sit in our house for months to dry out (we live at high altitude where it is very dry). That may have helped.

But now that we are working in the home we are planing on never moving out of, we have vowed to NEVER shop there for this house!

So, I guess it depends on the boat your in and what you are willing to put up with and how much money you have to invest in the project you are doing.