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Lumber Liquidators Lisbon Cork Flooring is Garbage

Started by 21incher, March 24, 2016, 11:25:26 AM

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21incher

A couple of years ago I purchased 220 sq. ft. of cork flooring from Lumber Liquidators for my dining area. The last week has been spent removing old glue down parquet flooring which turned into a nightmare as it tore chunks out of the sub-floor plywood. I then had to use cement leveling compound to get the sub-floor smooth and then install new under layment and feathering compound to get a perfectly smooth surface to start with. Well today I opened the boxes of cork to do a dry layout and got a big surprise.


 
this is the flooring


 
This is what the stacks looked like


  

  

  

  

 

As you can see the tiles were not cut square, or the same size. When held against a straight edge there is up to 1/8" gap that tapers to nothing, and the width is up to 1/16" different on the tiles. All of the angles are different across boxes so there is no way to use them the way they were sold. I never expected to run into a problem like this and now I am trying to figure out how to re cut all the tiles to be the same width and square on both ends. I guess seeing the made in China on the box should have warned me. What started as a simple 3 day job has now stretched into a week with no end in sight. Some projects seem to go on forever. >:( 
Hudson HFE-21 on a custom trailer, Deere 4100, Kubota BX 2360, Echo CS590 & CS310, home built wood splitter, home built log arch, a logrite cant hook and a bread machine. And a Kubota Sidekick with a Defective Subaru motor.

54Dutchman

Another thing you may want to consider is that Lumber Liquidators has a court battle going on for to much  formaldehyde  in their flooring - it's causing breathing problems.  :o :o >:(

jueston

i was talking to a flooring estimator at a large flooring company in our area about ceramic tile and he said when they put in massive orders directly from the manufacturer they are given quality options and they choose the higher options, but the big box stores(and maybe lumber liquidators) choose the very lowest option and it leads to huge variation in tile size and finish quality.

i would call that defective and try to return it. if they say you can't return it because its open or something point out that the box says square, but those aren't squares.

if they still refuse a return lodge a complaint with the BBB, they have an A- rating, so they will most likely work to keep it.

Bruno of NH

i don't buy anything from them. They stink >:( >:(
A customer bought a hole house of hardwood from them and it ended up being all culls repackaged from some other job . They told them too bad for you. >:( >:(
Jim/Bruno
Lt 40 wide with 38hp gas and command controls , F350 4x4 dump and lot of contracting tools

21incher

I am already in the dog house over this job because I promised my wife it would be done by Easter, and now I know it won't. So today I spent 4 1/2 hours trimming and squaring all the tiles. Whatever they used to cut them with was way out of adjustment. To get  everything parallel and squared up I had to take 1/4" off the width and 1/2" off the length of each tile. Had to cut slow with a peice of plywood for a zero clearance insert and they came out nice. I lost about 5% of each tile and bought 10% extra so I am hoping to have enough to finish the job. I should have opened  everything up and looked at them when I purchased them. Some of the boxes had plastic around the tiles and in some it was missing. It looks like they may have been previously opened even though they were special ordered. This will be my last purchase from Lumber Liquidators. :)
Hudson HFE-21 on a custom trailer, Deere 4100, Kubota BX 2360, Echo CS590 & CS310, home built wood splitter, home built log arch, a logrite cant hook and a bread machine. And a Kubota Sidekick with a Defective Subaru motor.

Sparty

That company is in trouble for carcinogens and illegally harvested lumber...now they have you in trouble with your wife.

low_48

No tongue or groove? That would make me nervous. Hope they are flat! I doubt if being stored for a "couple of years" did it much good either. I don't know what the backer could have been, but likely the seasonal swings affected the stack of boxes differently.

21incher

Quote from: low_48 on March 25, 2016, 09:31:34 PM
No tongue or groove? That would make me nervous. Hope they are flat! I doubt if being stored for a "couple of years" did it much good either. I don't know what the backer could have been, but likely the seasonal swings affected the stack of boxes differently.
They are just flat sheets of cork that you glue down and finish. There is no backer and they have a sealer on the top face. It definitely was not seasonal swings and they are still flat. From the looks of it there was a problem with the machine that sheared them to size. No corners were sheared square and all the shears were straight, but skewed. It looks to me like there was no quality control at the plant that manufactured them.

Quote from: Sparty on March 25, 2016, 10:51:28 AM
That company is in trouble for carcinogens and illegally harvested lumber...now they have you in trouble with your wife.
I can't blame all of that on the tiles, I didn't plan on having the glue on the parquet flooring tear out chunks of the subfloor which set me back 2 days by having to get the leveling compound and wait for it to cure before placing the underlayment panels. I should have waited untill after Easter to start, and have to learn to leave time for unseen problems in my planing. At least the tiles will all be down tomorrow so I can move the table back in and worry about the polyurethane next week. :) 
Hudson HFE-21 on a custom trailer, Deere 4100, Kubota BX 2360, Echo CS590 & CS310, home built wood splitter, home built log arch, a logrite cant hook and a bread machine. And a Kubota Sidekick with a Defective Subaru motor.

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