At first we were very happy with our new laminate flooring, with both the quality of the wood and the install was quick and relatively painless. However, as time wore on, we started noticing the laminate loosening up in the middle of the room. After about a year, it started buckling, and over the last six months has buckled up over 4 inches off the floor to the point of breaking at the seams.
Repeated calls to Empire Today customer service has led no where. They've promised to come look at it, but never show up. Corporate always has to defer to the local office where we find a black hole. Calls to the local office always transfer to corporate. We finally got a general manager on the line to tell us it's not thier problem anymore because it's beyond the 1 year installation performance period. I said okay, but I still need it fixed even if I must pay for it! Manager promised a call-back, and guess what... I have not heard from Empire since.
I've now had multiple other flooring companies out, and they all claim it was a botched install because the Empire Today installers did not leave any expansion room. They cut the laminate all the way up to the baseboards, and now that it's expanding some, it's causing the buckling in the least point of resistance, which is in the middle of the room where there is no furniture.
Now I'm having to pay ~$3,000 for another installer to pull it all back up and relay the laminate, and it's not Empire Today since they will not stand by thier poor craftsmanship.
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