Our contractor is using a certain flooring store (he refers clients there, and he gets a commission on any sales). This flooring store is written into our home improvement contract.

We selected floor tile from this store, but for choosing the carpet, well, on our first & second visits there, we asked them if they sell carpets by a certain manufacturer, and they gave a vague answer and then showed us unbranded carpets and Tigressa. I looked at their carpets and didn't find anything. They should have been up front with us that they do not sell the carpets that we had asked about.

When I told the store owner that we are only going to have them install the floor tile, the owner stated that he CANNOT do the ceramic tile job without knowing the carpet's pile height (for the tile-to-carpet transition), so we must order the carpet & the tile together. He also said that there's a price increase on carpet in mid-May, so we need to order carpet soon. I then confirmed with a flooring installer that it's not necessary to know a carpet's pile height before installing ceramic tile, that this owner was perhaps trying to use this excuse to force us to purchase tile & carpet from him.

When I spoke with that flooring store owner again, he provided the final quote for the tile flooring job and asked us if we've chosen a carpet from his store. I again told him nicely that we will not be purchasing carpet from his store. He replied that now he must charge us a higher price for the tile job, since we're not ordering carpet from him. Yet he never disclosed beforehand at any time that the pricing was dependent on ordering all of the flooring from him.

I spoke with another flooring store, and the sales person stated that they would NEVER charge more or less depending on the flooring job being purchased, that they charge by the square foot. Tile flooring will still cost the same whether or not you purchase other flooring from them.

What do you think of the way the flooring store owner is conducting business with us? Since that store is written into our home improvement contract, will we be forced to purchase all of our flooring there? We have not signed any contract with this store to complete an order. I do not want to do business with them at this point, yet our contractor wants us to use that flooring store.