I made the mistake of engaging Brandon of Urban Hardwood for the installation of my hardwood based upon the very strong recommendation provided by the owner of the established business that sold me the hardwood. This was my mistake and others should not make the same mistake. My recommendation is that if you do consider Brandon, you take extreme care. You need to challenge strongly any estimates that Brandon provides as my experience is that his statements about the time for installation were misleading and the cost estimates were all excessive.
Before giving details, I should emphasize that Brandon's workers (Chris and Luke) did a quite reasonable job. The problems relating to the job are Brandon's excessive cost figures (see below) and the poor quality of finishing the job, i.e. providing a professional quality product. The latter included poor installation of nosing, not staining the nosing and border/T-moulding to match the hardwood, not finishing properly the installation of the quarter round, replacing but not finishing a section of base board and not cleaning up the many marks on the walls of the rooms where the hardwood was installed. He insisted that it was my responsibility to do all the work that he did not do - not a sign of a professional approach.
After the job was finished (by Brandon's standards), it became very clear that Brandon made misleading statements relating to the job and gave cost estimates/quotes that were totally unrealistic as described below. Whether Brandon did this because I am old (85 years) or it is his standard operating procedure to make outlandish statements, I can't say.
The most obvious misleading statements and actions are as follows. Brandon made a point of stating that his work was first class and criticized the hardwood already installed in my home. It turned out that his installation was no better than the existing hardwood installation and in fact was inferior as to quality and completeness, e.g. installation and staining of nosing and cleaning up. Brandon said that the job would take 3 days, i.e. one would expect about 24 work hours. It turned out that the job was done in about 15-16 hours, 3-4 hours one afternoon, 7 hours the next day and 3-4 hours the following morning. For the two workers (not Brandon himself), his estimate implied 48 man hours in total but the actual work took only about 32 man hours in total. Brandon's estimate was 50% over the actual time required. Brandon included a significant charge for work that I told him that I was sure was not required, specifically, screwing down the sub-flooring. Brandon acknowledged this at time but did not make an adjustment to the amount charged when the job was done.
The workers, Chris and Luke, were around for 15-16 hours and their work was generally good. Brandon was around for only a few hours in total (1 hour the first day, none the second day and 2-3 hours the third day (part of which he sat out in his truck). The only work that Brandon was directly involved with was installing the nosing where the hardwood meets the top of the stairs. This work was done very poorly and was not up to the standard of a professional installation. There were gaps at the left and right ends of the nosing plus a noticeable gap between the nosing and the first piece of hardwood, which was patched with some sort of wood filler. Brandon did not take the trouble to stain the raw wood to match the hardwood (same is true for the border/T moulding installed), something that seems an obvious thing to do to complete the job to a professional standard. Also, after Brandon, Luke and Chris left, I noticed that there were quite a few marks on the walls of the rooms that had not been cleaned up. All in all, not suggestive of an excellent job.
Being retired, I was around for all the work that was done, so have a good idea how much time was spent on each activity. Based on my time estimates, material cost estimates from what is available at a major materials supplier used by many contractors, and an assumed hourly rate of $40 for each of Brandon's two workers, my estimate of costs were very significantly below those listed by Brandon. Here are just a few examples of the excessive costs that I identified after the job was supposedly complete. Brandon charged $750 to remove the carpeting and underlay, a job that was quite straightforward, required little skill and few tools and took the two workers about 6 or 7 man hours in total by my observation. This compared to $1,000 that he charged for installation of the hardwood (note that the cost of the hardwood is separate and was paid to the supplier), a job that requires quite reasonable skill and took significantly more time. Brandon charged $220 for wax paper to underlay the 400 sq ft of hardwood ($0.55 per sq ft - cost at a major materials provider is $0.14 per sq ft); this is roughly 10% of the cost of the hardwood! Brandon charged $560 for very basic lightly primed quarter round, i.e. about 20% of the cost of the hardwood. Brandon charged $450 for the nosing, i.e. close to 20% of the cost of the hardwood, for a job that was done poorly and incompletely. All the other costs were equally outrageous.
When I called Brandon to discuss details of the job completion and costs charged, he refused to explain, shouted at me when I suggested he paid his workers as much as $40 per hour (none of my business he said) and insisted that he made only about $200 on the job, a statement that is well under what I estimated.
Bottom line is to be very careful in dealing with Brandon, challenge his initial estimates and get the final estimate/quote clarified in writing, with provision for change if work is not done or is not done up to a reasonable standard. I should note that Brandon took less than half an hour to measure the area and provide me his initial estimates on a blank piece of 8.5 x 11 paper that had nothing on it to indicate that it was a quote not an estimate, was for Urban Hardwood, had no date, no signature, etc. The invoice that he gave was on a piece of paper that did say Urban Hardwood but did not provide details of the location of Urban Hardwood or any contact details for the business. Perhaps more importantly, there was no indication of an HST Registration, which seems essential given that he did include a significant charge for HST on the poorly prepared invoice, which is of course to be remitted to the appropriate government bodies.
