Home Depot

[Floorist]

Katie Lee‎ to The Home Depot
February 6 at 9:04am ·



I recently had the free carpet installation with purchase of $699 or more. It was about $1900 worth of carpet and padding actually. I want to share my experience with you and I will be going to my local store to do so as well. My husband received a call Thursday night saying our carpet technician would arrive between 1pm and 5pm Friday. I thought arriving at 5 may be a bit late considering we have to young kids but anyways we sat around all day on Friday. My husband missed a whole day of work to wait for the carpet installers. At 7 pm we got a call from a man we could not understand at all saying he was on his way. We said absolutely not it was way to late. He was very rude and said he had 3 other jobs before us and its not his fault. He said he would be there Saturday morning and hung up without a time. We then received a call from Brian who said our Technician would arrive between 9:30 and 10 am. With no call ahead of time our technicians and I use the word lightly arrived at 11:08. Two of the 3 spoke no English at all and mumbled in Spanish the whole time. The third man who I perceived to be in charge spoke extremely broken English and I could not understand him at all. They left my front door open several dozen times while I had to close is so my toddlers did not get out and one of my cats got out. They trampled through my entire house with salty,sandy nasty boots on. Even over the almost $2000 worth of brand new carpet we had installed. If the fact they dirtied my brand new very expensive carpet was not enough, they rolled it out in the middle of my street to cut it. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? What could I say? No one spoke english and they rolled my beautiful Carpet out in the middle of the street that was wet and filled with Sand and Salt. I could absolutely cry. My brand new carpet that was supposed to be clean and fresh for my children is covered in god knows what on the underside and trampled over with filthy boots. My family deserves a lot more than an apology and I do have a picture of my carpet laid out in the street. I could never recommend your store or services to anybody after this experience. I had carpet installed at my old home by Lowes and the installer was courteous and professional. They both did beautiful jobs however the Lowes contractor did not wear filthy shoes on my fresh carpet nor did he roll it out in the street. There is absolutely no excuse for this. I don't even know what to say

 

[havasu]

Wow........... Then again, how could they resolve this? Lay it on a plastic sheet?

 

[Floorist]

It's a pain, but you can cut it in the back of a van.

 

[highup]

Wow........... Then again, how could they resolve this? Lay it on a plastic sheet?

That would work fine. Anything to keep the carpet clean. Customers notice when you take those extra steps...... they also notice when you unroll it on the street.
How acclimated do you think that carpet was by the time they started stretching?

It's a pain, but you can cut it in the back of a van.

You got one big van Rusty.

 

[Floorist]

That would work fine. Anything to keep the carpet clean. Customers notice when you take those extra steps...... they also notice when you unroll it on the street.
How acclimated do you think that carpet was by the time they started stretching?


You got one big van Rusty.

No you can roll it out 2-3 ft at a time. Been there, done that.

 

[DarisMulkin]

I've rolled it out in the clean white snow a few times, but not in the street in the winter. Or use plastic in the back of a parking lot.

Daris

 

[Nick]

I rolled out a 200' rolled a few times in my van .

 

[Roland]

Any body that installs carpet and tells me they never unrolled it outside, never installed. Now with that said. In the nice weather I always cleaned the area off. I swept it or used a leaf blower. In wet or snowy weather I would mark my cuts down and tell the customer I had to run and make the fine cuts. Some times it was just down the street to a big parking lot that was cleaned off. I have went to banks and ask to us their over hang in the drive thru. This way the customer does not have that view of you doing it in the bad weather.

 

[highup]

Living in a small area has it's bennies. Usually jobs aren't more than 10 miles away, and often less than that. Day one you bring out the pad and do removal and haul off the old stuff. Take measurements for the cuts before you leave, and either go down to the dealers warehouse to make cuts, or call the cuts in and they will be ready for pickup the following morning.
If the job is just few miles from town, I'll cut carpet at the warehouse at lunch time it that fits into the day's plan. I move slow and I'm not a getter done kinda guy that pumps out yardage, but at some point, I actually do get it done.
Often, I'll take a look at the job in advance, take measurements if needed, discuss with the customer details about how the job will progress, how many days it will take, find out if someone will be home, or if they have a key for me if they work full time. Maybe I'll see a transition issue and I can discuss the options with them. Meeting the customers in advance is a very beneficial part of the job for me. I do it whenever possible to eliminate surprises on my end.
I looked at a job this afternoon for those very reasons. I was working a mile away so it fit in perfectly with what I'm working on. I really hate walking blind into a job on day one only to find
I can hear you all laughing. Yes they hide keys for me outside or give me one..... pretty common actually. The VP of Boeing did that.... well his wife did. I'd tell ya where they key is, but then I'd have ta, well you know...
You can see I'd never fit in to a big city lifestyle.

 

[Floorist]

Any body that installs carpet and tells me they never unrolled it outside, never installed. Now with that said. In the nice weather I always cleaned the area off. I swept it or used a leaf blower. In wet or snowy weather I would mark my cuts down and tell the customer I had to run and make the fine cuts. Some times it was just down the street to a big parking lot that was cleaned off. I have went to banks and ask to us their over hang in the drive thru. This way the customer does not have that view of you doing it in the bad weather.

I have cut it in yards, borrowed neighbor's driveways etc. But would never get it wet. Luckily, for the last 15-20 years I have measured all my own jobs and cut them up before I loaded them.

 

[highup]

I have cut it in yards, borrowed neighbor's driveways etc. But would never get it wet. Luckily, for the last 15-20 years I have measured all my own jobs and cut them up before I loaded them.

I'm much in that same boat. I rarely do new or entire homes unless it's a request by a former customer. I work too slow and most people expect the job to be done as fast as those Empire Carpet ads.
I like to cut my own stuff so I can maximize the last piece for fills.
Been doing small jobs and fixing current carpet hack work on a regular basis for the past 10 years anyway. Less hours and the per hour rewards are better for me anyway. Less wear and tear on the old body is a good thing.

 

[Floorist]

What little work I do is either small apts. or houses for old customers.

 

[zannej]

I'll be honest, even if they stretched my carpet out on the grass (dry grass) and got a little dirt on the underside, I wouldn't care. But getting it cold and wet sounds like a very bad idea.

When I did my sheet vinyl, I actually laid it out unevenly on my bed and on top of some boxes in my room to get the general size and then moved it in to the bathroom and did more detailed cutting.

I can understand why the homeowner in this case was frustrated.