Lowe's: Smart Core Laminate Flooring, Install & Ongoing Complaints w/Updates!

We ordered our Smart Core Laminate Flooring through Lowe's.  We decided to leave the stairs and upstairs carpeted and we left the basement floor as it is with just the concrete for now so we had the first floor done with the new floors.  This floor includes the kitchen, dining room, 2 bathrooms, our bedroom and the living room.  We also had them do the install as well however we did all of the demo ourselves.  As is usually the case with Lowe's, they contracted out the install to a local flooring company.

The two install guys showed up the morning of the install and spent the first 45 minutes looking around and wanting to talk about their dogs.  Once they finally got started they did seem to make progress fairly quickly.  They worked pretty much throughout the day and said they planned to be done by the end of the second day.  They left at about 3-4pm or so and said they would be back the next morning.  The next day at around 11am one of them came to me and said that his wife's car had broken down and they needed to go get her and the kids and take them back home.  I said sure no problem and they assured me they would be back soon.  4 hours later, they came back...  Now don't get me wrong, I know things happen but 4 hours total for a broken down car like that seems a bit extreme to me.

Mind you while all this was happening, the dogs were stuck outside or in the basement and Jordyn and I were stuck upstairs in her room.  She was only about 8 months old at the time and the dust and noise they had to make when cutting the boards kept us stuck up there.  It was definitely frustrating to be stuck up there and not be able to get into the kitchen without climbing over 2 guys and a ton of equipment.

We had been assured that it should only take 2 days when we ordered the install.  They finally finished about 2pm on the third day and off they went.

We opted not to pay for them to deal with the baseboards so we were going to be re installing them ourselves.  Beau noticed pretty quickly that there were some spots where the bullnose piece would barely (and in some places didn't) cover the gap between the baseboard and the floorboards.  As we lived on it for a while, we started to notice some other issues.  So much to the point we stopped reinstalling the bullnose until we had Lowes come out and look at it.  Here are some examples...










It came with a 1 year install warranty with Lowes so we opted to wait to see how it weathered through the winter with the dry air.
We lived with it May to January and decided to go ahead and get the ball rolling on having someone inspect it.  We have noticed that on the display when we ordered the floor that the boards fit very closely together both on the ends and the sides of the boards.  Ours doesn't look like that at all.  A lot of the "joints" have a fairly large gap between them where the edges of the boards meet.  We also have a few spots where they boards don't meet properly along the sides of the boards.  The worst is in the doorway of our half bath and we have actually had people (including me) trip on it.  We also have a few spots where the boards aren't flat on the subfloor and make a pop noise when you step on it.  These seem to change a bit with the weather.

The last issue we have found is with the product itself.  We noticed that the top layer of a board is actually peeling up off the wood.  Not cool.

So while we were in the Lowe's on New Years Eve morning, we stopped and spoke to the flooring guy about the problems and he said he put a request for an inspection in the computer and we should get a call to schedule that soon.

Now usually when we get a call within a day or two when something needs to be scheduled so when I had not heard from them by Wednesday the following week, I called and got transferred to the install manager who had no idea who I was or what I was talking about.  She said the computer didn't have any instructions or notes on our account so she was lost.  I went over everything again with her and she said she would speak to her boss and get back to me ASAP.  That was early Wednesday morning and it is now Saturday and we haven't heard back from her either.  So Beau is going to stop by the store today for some other things and he is going to talk to the floor guy again and see if we can't get this moving.

This Lowes is store number 0437 in Lynchburg, VA.

**Update**

So Beau when to the store and found out that they AGAIN had no idea what we were talking about but he was able to speak with the install manager who submitted a request to the manufacturer to investigate.  Beau have him a lot of pictures of the issues and those were sent with the request.  Weeks went by without us hearing anything and after several more phone calls, some of which were a little more heated, Beau finally got a manager who not only seemed to know what was going on but was more motivated to try and help.  He got a call from this guy today saying that we should have heard back from the manufacturer on their issues by now so he escalated the complaint so that it was a managerial issue and said he would personally follow up on it.  Once we hear from the manufacturer about what they are willing to do on their end, then we can move forward with Lowes and the installation company on getting the other issues addressed.

**Update**

We got a call on Thursday Feb 4th from an inspector from the manufacturer who is going to come out and inspect all of the issues on Saturday.  He came out and said he was an independent inspector that was hired by the manufacturer.  He took a lot of pictures and measurements and said that he would submit his report (that he couldn't discuss with us) to the manufacturer and we would hear from them in a few days with the results.  We will update again once we hear back from them with the next step.

**Update March 3rd**
We got a call this week from our contact at Lowes that the manufacturer reviewed the inspection report and decided that none of the issues had anything to do with the actual product so they denied Lowe's (our) claim.  He said that the report would then be reviewed by a guy in the installations department at our local Lowe's to see if any of the issues were caused by the installation from the Lowe's contractor (which we believe they are but whatever).  If they are, then they will be covered by the 1 year installation warranty/guarantee that Lowe's offers and I suppose we will probably send someone out to fix the issues.  The guy Beau spoke to said the guy who would be handling this was out all week for a family matter and would be returning on Monday the 7th and we should hear from him shortly thereafter.

Until the next update!!

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