Darmaga Hardwood Flooring Ltd

We hired Darmaga to redo the hardwood flooring throughout the entire first floor of our new (resale) home. The job included removal of existing hardwood, screwing down the sub-floor and laying the new hardwood.

The experience was absolutely fantastic. From the sales process, the onsite estimation, and the actual job itself, everyone we worked with at Darmaga was fantastic.

Highly recommended. I wouldn't hesitate to go work with Darmaga again for future projects. My first choice!

Thanks for a great experience.

After getting ripped off by a "Discount " flooring store, I went to Darmaga looking for a solution. I had originally gone to Darmaga, but thought I could save money elsewhere....big mistake. Truth is, you get what you pay for.
I was immediately struck with the knowledge of their staff. Dennis and Paul have forgotten more than most people will ever know about flooring. They also understood my flooring needs, and did not try to upsell me. In the end, the cost was very reasonable, and their crew did a fantastic job with the installation.
After months of renos on my house, the one thing I have learned, is use the pro's. Avoid "big boxes" and discount stores in strip malls. Deal with people who make their living in a specific area. With this in mind, you would be hard pressed to find any retailer more qualified in hardwood flooring, than the staff at Darmaga.

Darmaga is great! !!
Sharron is no nonsense and forthright Everyone else there seems very professional.
It wasn't until I had a problem with product on a job that I realized how it was that Darmaga has done so well over the years.
Three years ago, we installed some hardwood in a house for a very high end client. I received an email from the client saying something was wrong with the floor
The Owner, Wally Darmaga jumped into action immediately and visited the site...Himself! He identified the problem, made reparations and even managed my client! i could not ask for any better treatment.
The product lines are top quality, the service is impeccable, and they stand behind it all!
I wouldn't consider another supplier for flooring.

David Weenen, WWW Construction Inc.

Darmaga is a bit of a drive to the showroom but their installation, advice and service was worth the trip. My floor is terrific, the price was great, the installers were artists and the service could not be better.

I renovated my entire 3-story Victorian, which included hardwood install throughout (approx 1300 sq ft). The estimator was professional and the staff very accommodating to our schedule. Even the installers were quite good (when it came to certain aspects of the install), and the Mirage product is beautiful. Still, the final result is a disaster. Miscommunication between the estimator and the installers, bad “big picture” planning by the installers, and a failure to stop when there was a problem (instead of forging ahead) would be the perfect storm that resulted in the mess I was left with.

On the 3rd floor: Though the installation was quite good, the installers did not “ramp up” the wood to meet the tile of the bathroom, as the estimator said they would, and as he wrote in marker at the threshold to the bathroom. I wasn’t told there would be a problem. In fact, I was represented that there wouldn’t be a problem. As I said, they told me they would use cardboard under the wood to simply ramp it up to meet the threshold. But they didn’t, and I do have a problem. There is a ¼ inch exposed ledge of tile where the two floorings meet. I’ve never received an explanation as to why they did not do as marked by the estimator. I still don’t have a decent remedy to the problem.

On the 2nd floor: The 2nd floor is on two levels. One room and landing is on one level. A single step up from the landing to the main hallway and all the other rooms off of it is the second level. You can see down the full length of the entire house across both levels. We were told by the estimator that the installers would run the hardwood down the full length of the house to create a line from which all the rest of the installation would run. Makes sense.

Instead, the installers treated each level as a separate job that they did on separate days. They didn’t seem to even consider that visually it is one large expanse. Because I have an old house that was initially renovated back in the 80’s, there is a mix of old and new. Some of the walls and the stairwells are not perfectly square or plumb. They picked one wall (that veers a bit to the south) as their start point for the first board on one level of the 2nd floor, and picked the stairwell (that veers fairly noticeably to the north) as their start point for the install on the other level of this single, visually continuous job. The result? The boards ran off in markedly different directions as you look down the length of the 2nd floor. Friends and neighbours were shocked how bad it looked and how poorly the 2nd floor job was planned. Why didn’t they find a “line” that would work for both levels, even if it meant “splitting the difference” between the two lines they chose? Why didn’t they find a single line down the middle; as the estimator said they would do?

In fairness, Wally the owner came by, and they agreed to take up the floor on one of the 2 levels and run it more in line with the other level. A big job, and I appreciated it. BUT, the 2 levels still do not run in the same direction (that’s how far they were off initially), so the 2nd floor is still a big disappointment.

On the 1st floor: This is the worst. The subfloor was in bad shape, so our contractor laid ply over it. It still wasn’t perfectly level, but it’s an old house and I don’t mind it everything isn’t perfectly level. As they say, it’s part of the “character.” What isn’t OK is a floor that is “bumpy” or “wavy,” like a wrinkled shirt, and that’s what I ended up with. The estimator examined the subfloor and generally seemed fine with it, although he did point out a couple of high spots that would need sanding and one low spot where the installers would use a bit of cardboard (he wrote the word “cardboard” with black marker directly on the subfloor in the one spot). He expressly said that cork would not be used because it had “hard edges” that might “telegraph,” especially with the thinner 11 ml product we were using. Well, the installers did use cork in more than one spot (and more than one layer in some spots), and they spent a lot of time sanding in other areas. I don’t know it they “over-engineered” their prep work, but according to my contractor who was on site while they were there, they seemed very frustrated with the job but forged ahead anyway. The result? When I got home I had an expanse of floor over my open concept living/dining/ kitchen that looks like a wrinkled shirt. It’s a mess. And a few boards sink when you step on them. I don’t even understand how that can happen with tongue and groove.

I just want to know why this happened? Was the subfloor not good enough? If not, why weren’t we told? We could have done some remediation. Was the 11 ml product not the right product for the 1st floor? If not, we could have gone with ¾” solid on that level (the Mirage product came in both). Why did the installers use cork instead of cardboard, as the estimator warned against? What else could we have done? We were willing to work with them to make it right.

I’ve never received answers to these questions. They are the professionals. They represented that they could do the job. They didn’t identify any major concerns. Yet the result is a mess. The installers apparently knew the result wasn’t going to be good (as reflected in their frustration), but they didn’t stop and call Darmaga to discuss how to proceed. Instead, they forged ahead knowing it was going to be a mess. I spoke to Wally, but no one ever came by to see the 1st floor install. Wally didn’t really have answers to my questions (How could he? He didn’t see the subfloor, and he didn’t see the install.)

On all three floors of my house (my beautiful, old Victorian – lovingly renoed throughout), I see hardwood that makes me upset and sad. At this point, I am looking at either having someone come in and redo the floors on all 3 levels, or move. I’m tired of being constantly reminded of the mess at every turn. It’s on every level. There’s no respite. Not only can I not recommend Darmaga, I’m finding it hard to forgive.

Total install area is 1350 SQ FT. Installers showed early on the start day. The job was done with very well with proper cut under doors casing. The job was done in 2 days as promised.
The floor was uneven but Darmaga took the care to level it enough for the floor to look nice. The job site was kept clean.
This is the second hardwood floor installation from Darmaga. They did the first job 8 years ago in our previous house. We went back to Darmaga on this new property. 3 people in our family hired Darmaga for the hardwood flooring, over 15 years time frame.
The quality workmanship is still there. The job is as promised.

I would highly recommend Darmaga Flooring, they did an excellent job, they were very professional. They were very clean, on time and very friendly.

I would use Darmaga flooring again in the future.

We hired Darmaga Flooring twice now to install hardwood floor in two separate bedrooms. They provide excellent quality from customer service to the final product. Their prices are very reasonable and their workers are very friendly, pay attention to details. They work to minimize the dust and the amount of interruptions. I would highly recommend Darmage. Hire them next time you want hardwood floor installed and you will not be sorry.

Ethel & ROb

I am really impressed with the installation of the Torlys cork flooring in my home in the entire Upper level. The installers were very good. The cork is click type flooring and the made it seamless through all the doorway transitions, you can't even see a break from room to room! I was really amazed with their attention to detail and it turned out so much better than I expected.

We hired Darmaga to install our new hardwood flooring in our bedroom. The guys who did it were very professional and kept the saw dust to the minimum. The end result was spectacular. Great job.