All,

I have had an installer here in Austin tell me that ordering from hardwoodinstaller is a bad idea because the wood is of lower quality than what the installers can get from their distributers. Since they are likely biased, I wanted to hear some feedback from people who have ordered from this website.

Thank you,
Brian

If your comparing apples to apples, I would assume it is the same wood.
Sounds like a sales technique!!!

Ken would be the better person to answer this.

I asked Brian to post the question on the board, but we don't get many buyers that venture into this area--or maybe they lurk and don't post questions. Most come here for free advice, buy from somewhere else, get their project done and skidaddle.. The only one I've seen is a customer from Houston that recently bought some WFI Caribbean Rosewood.

Over the phone Brian mentioned the folks he's speaking of think we put shorter pieces in the boxes or maybe it was "junk wood" for lack of remembering. Whatever you see on the website it is first quality materials from the manufacturers shown. We don't sell cabin grade or seconds. Personally I know the frustration working with that stuff having installed for a living up until about eight months ago. My stance goes like this----

Why bother with it--it causes nothing but problems and disgruntled customers. There are plenty of other websites that offer lower quality unknown brands for cheap prices. Maybe they can sleep at night in doing so but I can't.

Wow, is Austin the only place on the planet thesedays? I'm really amaized how many folks I talk to from that area. Must really be a happening place

We are a diverse community, that has very open minds.

High tech hit Austin in the early 90's and never left!!!

From a hippy town to high tech, overnight.

Hi Brian,

I'm the customer from Houston. All I can tell you is my experience so far - Ken has been the ultimate professional and my order arrived yesterday, as promised (ordered last Thursday). It looks like my floor was shipped directly from the distributor, so I find it highly unlikely that it's "seconds" in any way. I've only opened one box, but the strips were of random sizes. So no, he doesn't ship only boxes with short pieces. To be honest, I can't really vouch for the quality yet (I'll let my installer do that), but it seems to be consistent with the samples WFI sent me (to my uneducated eye). My installer seemed very impressed with the sample, so I'm anxious to hear his opinion of the real thing. I was a little taken aback by the variation between the strips (in the one box), but Ken has no control over that. My husband loves it and I'm getting used to it.

I'm very happy with my experience with hardwoodinstaller.com.

Good luck,

Diane in Houston (2-1/2 hours from Austin)

Ken,
You can expect my order very soon.

Everyone who responded,
Thanks for your resonses. It is much appreciated. I think the guy was feeding me lines to try and get me to purchase floors from his company.

-Brian

I am a DIYer, and bought 1800 sf of Brazilian Cherry last summer. Beautiful wood, long straight boards, nice milling. Comparable product would have cost me 2-3 dollars more a square foot if I bought it locally. Very satisfied.