I certainly don't want to bad mouth the company, as I don't know much about them, but unhappy consumers should "hold their feet to the fire" in cases such as this one. It may be difficult to sue, because you or your attorney would need to do so in the Canadian jurisdiction, but it is not impossible.

Everyone in the flooring business has at times found themselves unknowingly selling defective merchandise or products that do not meet marketability standards. However, that does not excuse the business from liability. Your expert would have to prove that the product is defective or not suitable to be marketed for the given purpose.

Hi,orangele

My name’s Rob Jones, and I work in the marketing department at BuildDirect. I've taken a close look at what happened with your purchase, and what happened afterward, too. First off, I like to say that I fully understand your disappointment and frustration with what happened. Investing in a floor is a significant commitment, and one that isn’t without effort and expense. That things went very wrong for your installation is regrettable, to say the least. When our customers aren’t happy, neither are we. This is certainly the case here.

However, the idea that the products themselves were at the heart of what happened isn’t what the third-party inspector’s report showed. When these types of problems arise, it’s a third-party inspection that we must rely upon to decide what actions to take. In this case, it took some time before the third party inspector responded to requests to perform the inspections, which was frustrating for everyone, including us.

But, what the inspection showed was a humidity level on installation site that was well outside of the prescribed range as outlined in the installation instructions we’ve made available online to those researching the products for projects like yours. The report showed that it was the dry conditions on your site that was found to be the cause of the damage to the installed floor boards, and to the unused boards as well. The report suggested that as the wood dried out due to lack of air moisture in your space, the boards cracked, and delaminated.

As such, we were not able to compensate the full replacement of your flooring under the conditions of the manufacturer’s warranty. An offer for new flooring at a discounted price was our best solution at the time to resolve the issue for you, our customer, and to protect our company from greater costs relating to damages over which we had no control.

Still, in saying all that, this has been an extremely unsatisfying result for you, and I greatly empathize. The situation isn’t closed so long as you’d like to constructively discuss possible alternative solutions and reasonable options in resolving this issue, beyond our offer of a discount for new flooring, and with the above site environmental issues in mind.

Thank you for considering this response, with sincere understanding and empathy on our part of the negative experience you’ve had in purchasing products from our company.

Here is a link that might be useful: BuildDirect

I can see how high humidity can cause issues but low humidty? I guess they do not install hw floors in the dessert! So its not possible the wood was stored at too low a humidity in a warehouse before delivery....makes me scared to get wood thats for sure.....what specifically did the homeowners report cite as the issue?

Hi andrelaplume2,

Well, it depends on the kind of wood. In this case, it was a tropical wood that thrives naturally in a high-moisture environment, and not in a very dry climate. But, no matter what kind of wood you invest in, hardwood floors need to be in areas that are environmentally controlled at all times for both temperature, and for moisture. They are suseptible to moisture levels because they are, in the end, natural products, not ones that are badly made. So, a balance needs to be struck when you're preparing the space, and maintaining it as long as the flooring is there.

I hope this helps.

To Mr. Jones from Build Direct: I would like to correct your account. Firstly, the third party inspector hired by your company made no conclusions whatsoever regarding the cause for cracking and delamination. The only conclusions made were by your category manager who, to the best of my knowledge is not a certified wood flooring inspector and cannot be considered an impartial judge. Secondly the third party insepector hired by your company made no measurements whatsoever of the subfloor moisture. So to make a conclusion regarding moisture gradients from the subfloor through the flooring and to the room humidity is impossible based on his measurements. Thirdly, the third party insepector measured the relative humidity of the home at 31% when the recommended humidity level is from 35-55%; hardly a large deviation from recommended levels and humidity levels are known to fluctuate throughout the day in a home. It is also important to point out that your inspector is not certified as a wood flooring inspector. I called the National Wood Flooring Association who certifies inspectors, and they confirmed the result which can also be found on their website that the inspector hired by your company is not certified to be doing wood floor inspections (The inspector is also not certified by the NOFMA as claimed by your category manager).

Lastly and most importantly, I hired a Certified wood flooring inspector,who is also certified to be an expert witness in Nevada courts, who did a thorough inspection involving 3 1/2 hours and multiple measurements of moisture levels at multiple locations, stated very clearly in his report that after his inspection, evaluation, and measurements, that delamination of my flooring IS a manufacturing issue. Secondly he stated that the initial cause of checking (cracking) is a manufacturing issue as well. His opinions are referenced and explained.

Therefore the ONLY opinion of a certified wood flooring inspector is that the delamination and checking occuring in my flooring purchased from Build Direct ARE manufacturing issues. The inspector hired by your company is neither certified, nor gave an opinion. I have sent your company the inspectors report; his conclusions are made despite any moisture gradients or humidity measurments which may or may not be in a given range.

Your company should really do what is right and pay for the demo, subfloor reprep and reinstallation of new flooring. It is highly instructive to note that your company offers to sell me different flooring. If your company does not believe there is not any issue with the flooring, why would you simply not offer me the same flooring at a discount, with instructions to correct any moisture or humidity issues in the house?

Please tell me if anything that I have stated is factually incorrect.

Hi Mr. Tom, and to others,

Just for context's sake, this discussion has been ongoing via FB and email since my last post. So, sorry about the delay in responding on this particular thread.

I'm not sure where the information is coming from that the inspector wasn't qualified to conduct the inspection. The company we work with vettes all of their inspectors rigourously. They have to. Otherwise, it would endanger their reputation to do what they do when issues arise. It would not make sense for them to send out an unqualified inspector. It would not make sense for our company to work with them. It wouldn't make sense for us to come to these conclusions without factual support just to gain what we think is a short-term advantage.

On the product front, we've been selling that particular selection of wood floor for about three years. I'm told that this is the first instance of the kind of damage we've seen in it. This is not very conclusive in and of itself. It's when the dry climate is factored in, and the extreme dryness of the wood as it was found on site as reported to us by the inspection that makes the difference. Again, this is a species that does not naturally thrive in a dry climate. Consistent environmental intervention, the details of which are provided in the installation instructions, is vital to its health. The report showed that the site was not within the specific environmental parameters, evident in the dryness of the wood. So, we believe our conclusions were drawn justifiably.

As to the offer of a new floor, that is legitimate. We're trying to come to some arrangement where we share the burden of what happened. But, since we believe that there is an environmental issue that affects that specific species (and other exotics like it), it wouldn't be prudent to repeat the process by sending you another batch of the same product. The selection of another species seems to be the best approach, with the issue of air moisture regulation being central to an installation strategy, whichever species is chosen.

This remains to be a terrible situation which we clearly wouldn't wish on anyone. Our offer of a collection of the old floor and a discounted price for a new one is the best we can do in this instance. I don't know how much further things can be taken on message boards like this one, or elsewhere on the Internet. But, I'll try to respond the best I can.

Mr. Jones: I think that it is nice that you have an opinion regarding the cause of the delamination and cracking in the flooring that I purchased from BuildDirect. However I think it will be instructive for you to actually answer a few very simple questions for readers to come to a conclusion about whether your opinion is valid.

1) So you are affirming that the inspector that conducted an inspection of my flooring for Build Direct, Mr. M. Hallewell IS a certified wood flooring inspector? If so which agency?

2) Was the opinion that you stated above as the cause of the delamination and cracking in my flooring purchased from BuildDirect explicitly stated in Mr. Hallewell's report or any inspector's report?

3) Why have you or any BuildDirect representative not explained why you have discounted the opinion of a certifed wood flooring inpector who conducted a 3 1/2 hour examination of my flooring who stated explicitly that the delamination and checking in my flooring is, and I quote a "manufacturing responsibility." This report was forwarded to your company earlier this month.

I will await your reply to these questions,
Thank you.

Mr. Jones: I also wanted to point out your explanation of why my flooring is having a problem is nonsensical.

You state, and I quote, "when the dry climate is factored in, and the extreme dryness of the wood as it was found on site as reported to us by the inspection that makes the difference"

In you own inspectors report he measures the surface moisture as 11 percent. This is VERY moist; indeed many manfacturers would not even find this level acceptable to ship out of the factory. The interior of the wood as measured by your inspector was 6%, also not dry at all. Thus your hypothesis that the wood delaminated because the wood was dry, is not supported by your inspectors own measurements.

Lastly you also suggest that the dryness of the environment contributed to delamination. If this were the case, that the dry conditions in the house dried out the wood, then this should have happened at the surface of the wood (which had 11% moisture readings) prior to happening in the interior of the wood where moisture was measured at 6%. Contrary to this supposition, the surface is much more moist than the interior of the wood; this runs contrary to your explanation. Let me state that I do not necessarily believe any of the measurements your inspector took are valid, but assuming you do, your explanations are nonsensical.

The American National Standard for Engineered Wood Flooring, ANSI/HPVA EF 2002

3.5 Bond Line: All adjacent surfaces of each ply shall be uniformly and securely
bonded. The flooring shall conform to the requirements of the bond test described in 4.2

3.7 Construction: The flooring pieces shall be of balanced construction, which means
that they are free from warp or twist to the extent that they do not interfere with the
installation or negatively affect the intended use of the product. The purpose of this
requirement is to provide a product which will perform satisfactorily over the typical
range of humidity and temperature in an indoor environment, when installed according to
the instructions of the manufacturer. Any construction with an even or odd number of
plies, and any combination of thicknesses and shrinkage characteristics that meets the
requirement for balanced construction is permitted. No two adjacent plies shall have
coinciding openings greater than 12.7 mm (1/2 inch)

4.2 Bond Line Test: Two test specimens, 50.8 mm (2 inches) wide by 127 mm (5
inches) along the grain, shall be cut from each flooring sample tested. The specimens
shall be cut from opposite sides of the flooring after all tongue and groove portions have
been removed. The specimens shall be submerged in water at 24 C+-3C (75 F +-5F) for 4
hours, and then dried at a temperature between 49 and 52 C (120 and 125 F) for 19 hours,
with sufficient air circulation to lower the moisture content (based on oven-dry weight) of
the specimens to a maximum of 8 percent. This cycle shall be repeated until all
specimens fail or until thr ee cycles have been completed, whichever occurs first. The
flooring shall be considered as failing when any single delamination between two plies of
either specimen is greater than 50.8 mm (2 inches) in continuous length, over 6.4 mm
(1/4 inch) in depth at any pint, and 0.08 mm (.003 inch) in width as determined by a
feeler gauge 0.08 mm (0.003 inches) thick and 12.7 mm (1/2 inch) wide. Specimens shall
be examined for delamination at the end of each cycle. Delamination due to tape at joints
or inner plies or defects allowed by the grade shall be disregarded. For performing the
bond line test, the flooring samples shall be selected in multiples of ten in order to
provide for a sufficient number of specimens (two specimens per sample) to which the
acceptance levels are applied. Ninety-five percent of test specimens shall pass the first
cycle, and eighty- five percent of test specimens shall pass the third cycle.

There is nothing in a residence that can come close to this spec. Short of three consecutive floods.

If it is sold as an engineered product in the USA it must meet this criteria and protocol.

Shear, as they call it is a direct cause from unbalanced construction of the plies, and the different species used in the construction of the boards. Different species have different shrink and swell ratios.

The old 3 ply stuff that was the same species in all three layers, rarely had any issues, like we see today with this cheap manufacturing from China.

I had a similar problem with their porcelain tile....they seem to be set up to sell really sub par products. Mine was with their Salerno brand which is incredibly poorly manufactured. BD offered a "nominal" $400 credit on what will cost me $15k to fix....they wouldn't even provide any credit for the unused boxes. I am just going to Home Depot from now on.

Flooring warranties are notoriously bad instruments and most are issued as marketing tools and are constructed to protect the manufacturer from claims. Ask any retailer and I bet most will agree with me.

They lost my business...thank god for this forum.

I was alarmed to see what kind of company this is that offers such great prices! So I went to their site and it would not pull up anything (Alarm 1). So I decided to check out customer reviews. This Thread (Alarm 2). Not USA Product (Alarm 3). Anything that sounds to good to be true usually is. Buy local, it may cost more up front but you will save in the long run. No matter what you say Build Direct guy \/

What a nightmare. My heart goes out to you, Orangele. This must have been not only expensive, but caused mental anguish and sleepless nights . A good lesson for me, to spend a little more and deal with local suppliers one-on-one, when buying costly items.

Thank you for writing: I now know to look at where the company is located (I should have known I'm an accountant) as well as return policy. You have saved me the heartache of problems with 2600 sq feet of product.

Oh, I should say I am writing this to the marketing employee at build direct. Without his/her response I very well may have been willing to make the purchase but when one cannot get any remedy "from the horse's mouth" so to speak then you are without any real help unless lawyers are retained.

Hi orangele, I am seeing some issues with the wood species on recently installed BD Mazma Hardwood - Smooth South American Collection. I noticed that this floor even with such a higher Janka rating 3500, I can easily scratched and dent it with moving furniture. I also noticed cracks on some wood species and contacted BD about that. Can you let me know what was done for your issue? I am thinking to dispute the credit card charges and stop the payment.

Thanks,

Mike

Mike:

Any hardwood floor will scratch if furniture is pushed over it. Grit, sand, whatever often get's hung up underneath legs. Dents? What from? High heels will show marks in Cumaru, so will dropped items. Surface cracks could be from low interior home humidity. Common with prolonged heating periods and no humidity control. Have any pictures of them?

Ken Fisher

Wow! Fascinating thread! I'm usually over at the Manufactured Homes forum, but popped over here because I had a flooring question that wasn't getting answered on the other forum. This thread caught my eye because it had so many comments. I just purchased an old fixer upper manufactured home and am going to spend the next two-three years renovating it top to bottom. I didn't buy a new or newer home because I am 55 and don't want a mortgage. I have no debt whatsoever and plan to keep it that way, doing the projects on my house as cash becomes available. This will be my retirement house. I don't have a lot of money to do the home improvement projects and I can't afford to do them more than once. If I put $10,000 into a floor like Orangele and it went wrong, I could not afford to do it again. I have to get everything right the first time.

New flooring throughout the home will be one of my most expensive projects. This is partly because I'm going to repair the subfloor in a couple of places, then put down insulation, 3/4" plywood, and a vapor barrier before laying down the new flooring. Nevertheless, the flooring itself will be a big expense.

I've looked at BD, but not any more. One thing I'm curious about, if Orangele is still around, is where in the U.S. do you live? I wonder, because a commenter asked about wood flooring in the desert. Since the wood the OP purchased was a highly specialised wood that requires a higher humidity, I would think if it was being shipped to an address in a low humidity area, BD would contact the customer before shipping and tell them the humidity had to be kept at a certain level at all times. In fact, since the inspector's report showed it wasn't that far outside the minimum level, if the wood is that sensitive, ALL buyers should be forewarned about the necessary humidity levels and should agree in writing to keep their homes within those specs before they purchase that product.

The BD rep made a fatal misstep in carrying out the argument on this forum, Facebook, and others. Had he never responded publicly to the OP, s/he may have been dismissed by many as a complainer, someone who laid down their floor incorrectly and now is just trying to bad mouth the company out of spite. We see it in these forums all the time. But by responding the way he did, it completely vindicated Orangele and showed BD to be a company who doesn't care about their customers. Their proposed remedy, to make an even bigger sale by giving them a 25% discount, was ridiculous, and a public relations nightmare.

The best thing they could have done public relations-wise, would have been to write a post and tell the OP they were going to tear out the old floor, fix the subfloor, and have their choice of flooring that could withstand the lower humidity professionally installed, all at their cost. OK, so maybe that would cost the company upwards of $30,000, but it would have gained that back ten times over in new sales. The second best thing they could have done would have been not to engage with the OP on social media. The very worst thing they could have done was what they did.

I, for one, will never buy anything from BD, and considering I'm doing a major renovation, that's a pretty big lost customer for them, and I'm just one person.

Oh, and by the way, Ken Fisher, "Uptown Floors" is right. You can't get any ole' wood or other flooring and expect to be able to drag furniture around over it, drop your tablet on it, have big dogs and small children and then expect your floor to withstand it all. I'm an older single gal, no pets, no toddlers or teenagers. I wear slippers in the house and I don't rearrange furniture more than once every five years or so. Pretty much any good floor will stand up to my lifestyle. But if you've got pets, kids, wear heels in the house, move your furniture around a lot, and spill and drop stuff on a regular basis, you need to get a floor that can stand up to that kind of punishment. When my three kids were growing up and we had dogs, I went with carpet throughout, except kitchen and bathrooms, which were linoleum.

Debbie B., I won't weigh in on the BD spat but can comment on the issue of dry climes. No wood floor, be it solid or engineered, is immune to the effect of very low humidity. Solid wood will shrink and crack. Engineered wood will check and delaminate. The prescription for wood floors in low humidity areas is a whole house humidifier to keep the humidity in a range that will avoid these issues. The end user and installer are responsible for determining the suitability of a product for a particular application.

Informative thread. We were considering their porcelain tile, which may be good quality, but we simply can't gamble. Unlike wood flooring, porcelain/ceramic tile is extremely expensive to replace...thin set, backer board and often even the subfloor must be replaced. It costs as much to remove as install. Cost of failure is too high. I LOVE to save money but it's cheap insurance to source from a reputable supplier.

Again I urge potential buyers of BuildDirect wood flooring to simply read through the thread and discussion between myself, the end-buyer, with 10K worth of flooring which delaminated and Mr Jones, a builddirect representative, and determine for yourself, if BuildDirect is a company you want to buy thousands of dollars of product from.

I am currently dealing with delaminating and cracking floors that I bought through Build Direct. The inspector that they sent to my house came to the conclusion that the product wasn't milled properly in top of delaminating. They aren't willing to pay for any labor costs but said I could purchase another floor from them at a discounted price. Why would I do that? I was actually going to sue them for the cost of a new floor but I'm finding out that becauae they are located in Canada that it isn't easily done.

Wonder how common the wood flooring failures with Build Direct are? I think many newer materials are of lesser quality but the fact that we have very little recourse with a Canadian company add insult to injury when there is a failure. I'm fairly certain most US based suppliers would stand behind the product. Welcome to the future(?).

They are selling a Salerno brand porcelain tile that is identical to a Daltile that I am interested in purchasing for half the price elsewhere. They said I could pick up the tile without shipping from their Cranbury NJ warehouse. Happens Daltile also has a warehouse in Cranbury NJ. I decided to buy my Daltile elsewhere. I wonder if BD is selling seconds.

Thanks very much for this thread. I was considering Builders Direct for hardwood or tile, I will make sure to skip them, and buy locally.

BuildDirect Files for Protection From its Creditors

@Chicagoland Flooring, Thanks for sharing. I can't believe what I hear though.

So that's why I saw so many products on their website last I looked. Hard to go from

"...6,000 products, or SKUs, to more than 150,000 very quickly..." without problems.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-last-day-builddirect-jeff-booth/

next victim here , I bought laminate flooring last year Shaw brand from BD , year later 60% of the floor edges start delaminating ,BD tells me that i have to go thru Shaw directly because they do not deal with them any more i contacted Shaw floors and they told me that i have to go back to Build Direct to submit the claim . BD Also sold me under lament for the floor i ordered telling me that i have to buy that and install for warranty ,according to Shaw floors that particular floor do not need under lament and that might be the reason for edges to delaminate neither one Shaw floors or Build Direct wants to help now .

I'm sorry to say, but BD is the retailer. The RETAILER is the one responsible for dealing with warranty claims and the manufacturer. If they sold it to you, they have to help you. Shaw will only deal with retailers - not homeowners. And just to be clear, BD is going through bankruptcy protection and is having cash-flow issues. They may not want to help because they can't afford to help.

Delamination of a laminate floor has nothing to do with underlayment. The surface of the floor won't touch the underside of the floor. As for 'not needed' this can happen if the laminate floor has an integrated underlayment (already attached to the bottom of the plank). And yes I've seen Big Box retailers (like BD) make the mistake of forcing a person to purchase underlayment when it isn't needed (I've seen Costco and HD do this ALL THE TIME). Flooring professionals know this...but Joe Home Improvement guy won't.

Delamination is an odd duck. It can happen if there is too much moisture used to clean the floors. If a steam cleaner has been used on laminate floors (absolute NO-NO!) = delamination. If chemicals are TOO HARSH are used to clean the floor (ammonia based cleaners) = delamination. There are so many reasons why laminate floor starts to delaminate in a short period of time.

It's not unheard of....it is just really weird to have 60% of a laminate floor having problems. We normally see 10% or so if there is a manufacturing problem. If there is more than 40% we start to look at cleaning regimes/products as well as climate the floor is being exposed to.

Example: A floor that is sitting in a HOT room with DIRECT SUNLIGHT sitting on the floor all day/everyday and that same floor is cleaned DAILY with a steam cleaner. And then every week a harsh cleaning product (like Simple Green) is then used for a 'deep clean' on that floor. In a situation like this, I would fully expect to see a laminate floor have problems (60% of the surface) in a very short amount of time.

Show photos if you have them. And a little bit more about how these floors are treated.

Count me in as another person NOT purchasing from Build Direct. Wow.

I bought over 1000 sqft of different product from BuildDirect.com and they sold me amazing flooring. It is absolutely gorgeous. NOT A SINGLE BOARD was damaged out of the 2 Pallets worth or 68 boxes x 8 or 564 boards in total, all perfect. I am buying another 900 sqft for my son's place now.

Was looking into BD because of the low prices and decided to research the company. I’m glad I did. I will be buying the flooring from Lowe’s I originally liked even if it is more! Sorry to hear about what happened.

@Bill Marshall, So, you went from the foxes to the wolves?(shaking head)

Why not try the local mom & pop shop, and keep your business local, and in your community? You will soon find out, the places you are looking at, lack service and some quality. Local mom & pop shops cannot stay in business, with constant problems.

I bought some fine quality engineered hardwood flooring from Build Direct. I was very satisfied with the quality and the price. But their customer service was horrible, in my opinion. They never responded to any of my emails with technical questions. In the end, I was okay because I resolved all of the technical issues myself. But they were of no help whatsoever. They never had the decency to respond to any of my questions.

We are in Canada, and looked at build direct. Their Floors come from different manufacturers, the Vanier line is from China. They do offer North American manufacturers as well. I simply do not trust or feel comfortable purchasing Asian products. In the end, we chose a local flooring company who sells made in North America products, price was the same.