I have ordered my engineered unfinished hardwood from Hurst Hardwoods but it hasn't come yet so I cannot give a definitive recommendation, but so far I have had lots of help from their phone reps on measuring, figuring out the best grade for my project (they sent me samples in the mail), staircase choices and dealing with an unusual subfloor plus a unique underlayment we want to use to DIY. In that respect, the customer service has been very good, but I can't comment as the actual flooring as it hasn't come in yet. I was also interested in Hoskings Hardwood but their price for my material was significantly higher there. Both of these companies are not local to me but are shipping my order in (be sure to consider shipping costs if you are pricing that way, my special upgrade order had to come from a different mill so the price was higher than the site's online shipping calculator gave me).

I will also mention that I went to my local flooring supplier (not a retail place, but the place lots of the hardwood floor installers get their material from - after visiting a dozen floor stores in my town including LL, HD, local retail, etc.) and though I liked them and wanted to shop locally, they couldn't get me to the price I needed and wanted me to choose a lower-quality material to meet my price point. They did say they could offer contractors better pricing than I could have direct if I used an installer, but the whole point was that I couldn't afford the labor plus the quality material, so that was sort of a non-helpful offer. I'll be sure to post back when we actually receive our order and when we get it installed so I can let you know how it goes, but it will be at least two weeks until I get my wood delivered (special mill order).

Thank you so much for your reply. I am looking forward to when your wood arrives. Is builddirect.com and floormall.com the same company? I googled Mazama and it says that it is exclusively owned by builddirect. Floormall sells it as well and shows it is located in the US.

Right now I would not recommend Hurst Hardwoods (aka The Discount Flooring Co). My flooring has been backordered another two weeks and I have been having to chase Hurst down to even get a response from them about what can be done - is there another supplier or another option Who knows, because they are avoiding me. I should not have to initiate all the contact - and when I call and email, I expect a call back. So far, not happy.

MiaOKC I am so so sorry to hear to hear this. My husband decided we should buy a Bruce 3/4in x 3 1/4 Hickory from Home Depot. He decided he wanted a name brand product for the warranty and someone local to deal with for returns etc. He felt if it gets ugly for some reason it would be better if they were local to us. Honestly, I feel that it is despicable that these retailers do business like this. I hope that we made the right decision as well. I will not be able to post any install updates for awhile, we need to let it acclimate for 3-4 weeks, as Utah is so dry. As soon as we start the sorting install process I will be sure to post updates. Here is the link to our flooring.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Bruce-Country-Natural-Hickory-3-4-in-Thick-x-3-1-4-in-Wide-Random-Length-Solid-Hardwood-Flooring-22-sq-ft-case-C0710/202665076#.UkniuT81Dpw

Good luck with your install! We purchased a moisture meter from Lowe's to help us figure out when the wood has acclimated (well, once it gets here), in addition to waiting the recommended amount of time. In this instance, it's not so much that I blame the retailer for the originating problem except for their lack of professionalism with communicating the issues from the manufacturer (which is Owens, FYI), who simply doesn't have the material to mill our product. It is very frustrating, though.

I'm sorry to hear of your experience, Mia. I too am looking for a hardwood flooring supplier and I think I have settled on Hurst Hardwoods as well. I ordered samples from Build Direct and Hurst Hardwoods, but the samples of the same quality wood seemed to be nicer with Hurst Hardwoods. Prices were comparable at both places. I hope your floor comes in soon, Mia. I am actually going to order from Hurst Hardwoods tomorrow, but I will be following up regularly to check on my order. Keep us posted, Mia.

TX, I called again yesterday and spoke with one of the owners after my sales rep told me they had held part of my order from a different supplier (stair treads) without telling me about it - they were supposed to have shipped last week and I had it in writing that they would do so - however I guess the rep purposely kept it from shipping due to the turmoil with the rest of the order (the actual flooring, which is a special order so all has to be right to work together) ... which might have been OK, but they SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME. UGH. We had decided to go ahead and tear off all the carpet on our stairs so that we could work with what we (should) have this weekend and then do the flooring when it comes in. Thank goodness I found out now, but jeez.

They have apologized for their poor communication of the issues with my order, but are unable to do anything about actually resolving the backorder - the mill is the one who doesn't have the material to make the order so they are caught in the middle and they can only say that it is a very high quality product and they think we will be happy when we finally get it. They will not offer a discount or expedited shipping or anything, so it is really a "take it or leave it" situation.

One thing I wish they had told me before I ordered but only mentioned yesterday is that they say there is a chronic shortage of white and red oak raw material in the US right now. Makes the walnut I was looking at previously to seem like it would have been the right direction to go!

I've had success with Lumber Liquidators. They will supply and/or install.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lumber Liquidators - Acacia Hardwood

MiaOKC, That's frustrating for sure. Especially when you are on a timeline. A delayed shipment can throw so many things off. I hope your order arrives soon.

I ended up waiting to order our floors because I wasn't 100% sure. I have since talked to a company called Hull Forest Products, which is a lumber mill up in Connecticut. They seem to be very knowledgeable and helpful. I am awaiting samples.

This post was edited by TXBluebonnet11 on Mon, Oct 7, 13 at 16:45

I recently bought over 2000 square feet of finished Santos Mahogany flooring form BuildDirect and just had it installed throughout my whole house. Before I ordered it, I got samples from a number of places both online and local. It came down to the all-hardwood from BuildDirect and an engineered hardwood from a local flooring company. So, based on the samples and cost, I decided on the product from BuildDirect. The sample piece from BD was gorgeous, the quality of the sample was good and it took a significant amount of beating (I dropped keys, pebbles, scrapped keys etc.). It was very easy to deal with BD over the phone and via email. They were very accommodating and they had really good prices. The product shipped on time (but shipping costs were much higher than I initially thought). When I got the boxes, I opened one and everything looked good. Individually, each plank looked and felt good. The boxes sat in my house for about 4 weeks before we started installing them.

However, once we started installing them, we basically uncovered why this flooring is priced "well". Here are the observations from my flooring installer:

1) The ratio of lengths has a much heavier distribution of really short pieces. By short I mean between 12 and 18 inches. In almost every box, at least a third were short pieces which resulted is extending the installation time.
2) We found an abnormally large number of pieces (regardless of length) which are not cut straight and thus makes it hard to line up straight and fit without gaps. Some of these defects also include tongues which don't line up with the grooves where they are either higher or lower then the adjacent pieces and thus cannot be used. Around 5% of the pieces are essentially unusable and can only be used in sections where the full width isn't required. Around 5-10% of my installed floor has larger gaps than we would have liked and the installer had to do a lot more work to correct some of the defects and we have a lot more wastage (I was lucky that I ordered around 15% extra). According to my installer most premium flooring would have around 2% of the pieces that are off in one way or another. I confirmed this with a couple of other flooring installers and local stores.

Because of these issues, my installer took longer to complete the installation and that has translated to a larger installation bill for me which when I total all of the costs up (material, shipping and installation) than I had originally budgeted.

At this point there is nothing I can do. I am stuck with the floor that I have and we have to live with it defects and all. One positive note that was pointed out to me by the installer is that when after a few years I refinish the floor, a number of the defects will be covered up and the refinished floor will look better than when initially installed.

My takeaway is that you really get what you pay for.

I see this post has floated to the top so thought I would update on the shipment from Hurst Hardwood. The flooring did arrive as per the new revised schedule, and in good order - no bashed ends, broken boxes, etc. An angel in a FedEx uniform unloaded the boxes about 10 at a time, put them on a pallet jack, and rolled them up to our rear-load garage then unloaded into the garage. He was AMAZING and it took about an hour for him to unload all. His pallet jack couldn't lift the whole pallet (too heavy, he said) so I lucked out that he had to unload piecemeal and took pity on me to pull up the hill and into our garage. Our delivery only specified curbside delivery, but thank goodness he put in garage because it rained that night. Husband and I carried boxes from garage indoors, about 20 a night over three nights (until my arms were weak) to begin acclimating. From there, after a week or so we began dragging upstairs (ugh) and have been installing over the last few weekends. We've done about 20 out of 65 boxes, and the wood is gorgeous and we are very happy with it. We have the random lengths, and if anything, we have too many long (8 foot) pieces. Some boxes have almost all 8 foot pieces, which makes it hard to randomize our installation pattern. We are working from three boxes at a time to mix grains and sizes. We'd ordered #1 common grade, and there are some pieces with filled knot holes as expected, and have found thus far the knots seem to be on the long, 8 foot pieces. I've used those mostly in the closets, so it hasn't been too big a deal yet. I'll place them so that there are only 2-4 knots visible in the whole room, but maybe 4-6 knots in the walk-in closet, for example. Good luck with your order!

I've never heard of unfinished engineered flooring MiaOKC but I'm intrigued. Are you gluing it and how will you finish it?

Hi Marti8a - I had never heard of it either before going to a to-the-trade flooring place! It is manufactured to go in places where solid floors can't/shouldn't go, like on concrete (as ours is), but where you want a site-finished/traditional look to the finish rather than pre-finished. The cost at the flooring place we looked at was quite a bit above our budget, but googling found me several other manufacturers to pursue and we found one that fit our budget.

We are using an adhesive underlayment called Elastilon because we were hesitant to use glue as DIYers. The downside to the glue was noxious smell, short working time and the learning curve, so we have been happy with our process using the Elastilon in all those regards. We're about a third done with our install, another weekend at the salt mine starts tomorrow! I'll link to my install thread below so you can see how it's going.

Right now, we are planning to use either Rubio Monocoat or Pallman's Magic Oil to finish the floor. No or low-odor, few coats (one or two), and quick cure. I'm still deciding on colors, but we want dark-ish.

Here is a link that might be useful: MiaOKCs install

I just experience exact same thing as tkripala, They have good wood but really bad cut, and build direct just refuse to return reset of the planks.

That is terrible Yui. Reflects extremely poor millwork, poor equipment, poor manufacturing quality, and/or poor quality control.

I store these planks in my garage for 2-3 weeks before moving them to living room. I was told that is the reason. They said the wood is damaged by bad moisture control and climate control. BD said they have exposed enough information about temperature/humidity requirement for storage. I agree I didn't read it because they are in a pdf named "installation instructions".

Yue, that is a bull**** excuse. My planks were picked up and delivered on the same day and stored in my house. No exposure to outside environment. I would question the warehouse where they store the planks. If I had bought it from a local source, they would have done the exact same thing. BD''s products sacrifice quality for price. Besides, I doubt that the factory (likely in China) that mills the planks for them adheres to the same humidity range they stick in their warranty. A few months after I had my floor installed, I had a friend who also installed Santos Mahogany flooring exactly like mine but bought from a local company and his total material cost per square foot was 15% more than what I paid. He has zero defects in the finished floor. The local company took back bad pieces without any questions and refunded extra unopened boxes and no shipping charges. Lesson I learned from this, buy flooring from a local dealer and be sure to check return policies.

Unfortunately, like me, you are stuck with the flooring.

Like orangele said, which I second, stay away from BD.

Even though a garage is a bad place for storage as you well know now, two to three weeks will not cause those issues, especially in what looks to be a dense exotic hardwood. It's obvious milling issues from my 25 years experience. I have seen the same thing with other mass produced hardwoods; particularly exotic. It's obvious to me the problem is fast production without care for quality.

Filler can handle those problems just like this Bellawood floor...seen near the end.

It's unfortunate you had to deal with this, but being told wrong reasons for the problem irritates me.

Ken Fisher, based on my direct observation, I believe your claim is incorrect. Bundles of wood flooring can certainly suck up moisture over the period of three weeks in an area with uncontrolled humidity, unless the bundles are sealed. It's certainly a more logical explanation for dimensional variances than the claim that a milling machine randomly milled some boards wider on one end than on the other. The ends and exposed edges will expand in response to the increase in moisture, causing the exact issue shown in the pictures above.

A board that's grown on one end can cause the floor to become crooked if the installer isn't paying attention. The pictures above show an obvious bow in the floor which could be from wider boards, from bad installation technique or a combination of the two. If that picture is representative of the installation quality I can see one glaring issue immediately.

That's a head scratcher JFC.

I've been in the thick of it with these issues. I've seen the exact same thing several times. One was a BR111 product seven years ago. No issues whatsoever with acclimation. BR111 admitted it came from a source they rarely used and determined it was poor milling. Who knows, maybe Build Direct is using the same crappy manufacturer.

Having some knowledge and first hand experience of manufacturing molders and how they should be handled, I think it’s a matter of boards being jammed in too hard, or pulled out when they shouldn't. That's why the bad milling is always on the ends of the boards. But then who knows what kind of molders these people have in some manufacturing plants outside the US.

The better ones will not allow for that kind of handling, as they’re completely enclosed and can't go off alignment like the one below.

I could see where one might get an inconsistency in material if it came from different machines but inconsistency in the length of an individual board is hard to imagine happening. In this case I'd favor the theory that the most likely cause for an issue is what caused the issue.
I had a problem with material from a high quality Canadian mill. We checked the width of boards and determined that boards on the ends and edges of stacks had grown during acclimation due to uneven humidity exposure. Boards in unopened sealed cartons were dimensionally consistent from one end to the other.
We did some minor shimming to make sure the floor stayed straight and changed the way we were stacking the wood.
My view is influenced by the fact that I have seen less than a handful of wood orders that had bad milling over a 30 year period. Offhand I can really only remember one. I had a batch of Anderson that had some crooked end cuts.

Could be possible.

It's hard to imagine a scenario where boards come out too wide due to the milling but I can see the potential to get something narrower, possibly due to sending marginal width boards through the molder. Kiln dried raw boards generally come in wide pieces, are ripped to a uniform width the sent to the molder. An unmilled board that's too narrow should be caught by decent quality assurance protocols. I think the expansion issue from acclimation is still more likely. If an installer doesn't stagger their end joints properly, it is easier to end up with a crooked floor and pie shaped gaps.

While remodeling, ran out of hardwood flooring. Purchased cheap untreated flooring & tried to match paint to no avail. Called Hosking to get pricing on hardwood I needed. Sales rep gave price quote & explained since I didn't purchase my previous flooring from them, might be slight color variation. I understood as I knew it wasn't from same "paint batch." She told me to check on invoice that hardwood brand, color, size is correct & then respond acknowledging there’s no returns. Got invoice emailed which stated description of my order, “LAUZON (brand) SOLID MAPLE (wood type) TRAVERTINE (color)” & confirmed. Two weeks later I opened box to see different size, wood type, & colored flooring. Enclosed shipping package shows these are not Lauzon. It looked the same as my initial failed attempt. Called Hosking about the MISTAKE but was told that since Lauzon is so EXPENSIVE, they use CHEAPER 3rd party lumber molding company that uses GENERIC hardwood & ATTEMPTS to paint match. I asked “Why wasn’t I told this BEFORE?” Rep responds “I don’t know what I may or may not have said…” I ASKED for Lauzon, PAID for Lauzon, I should be GETTING Lauzon. Why would I agree to pay for GENERIC, SUBSTITUTED product & be charged same price as the authentic? She was unapologetic & connects me to the owner. He doesn’t answer & unsurprisingly doesn’t return my voice message. I was willing to return INACCURATE order & have correct one sent. Now its been a month so had to resort to disputing charge & informing others about this UNSCRUPULOUS company & their blatant BAIT & SWITCH. I had to order again from QUALITY FLOORING 4 LESS, paid same price & got correct item. Would you buy a FAKE Rolex that is the same cost as the real one? If your answer is no, then AVOID ordering from Hosking!!!

The pics of the invoice of what I expected, the packing slip of what came, and image of Lauzon Solid Maple Travertine & the "generic":