I've received a great quote from Brazilian Direct for 1000 sq. ft. of Cumaru and would greatly appreciate any feedback on this company! I'm a hesitant to make such a big purchase online but the quote is so good I need to at least investigate.

Thanks!

I would ask what the board lengths are. Many of these places will come with what seems to be a good price and then the boards are all short ones. I would also ask them to send you a few sample boards, or order one box of it to see.

Definitely order a box. I dealt with Dan quite a bit five, six years ago and sold the same product, and that was one thing that helped sell his product. Not sure how things are today but he still gets great reviews at the gardenweb.com

WARNING!!

Be very careful in dealing with this company. They screwed me big time. Please go here

http://www.dataweb-design.com/brazilian.html

for information and EVIDENCE.

Also, NOT all their reviews on gardenweb,com are good.

Also, 5 BBB complaints against them.

Beware.

It seems like the best policy is always to be sure to inspect the product you receive BEFORE you install it, including board widths and other elements of quality, and if there are problems, contact the company immediately.

I've run into that problem before. Luckily I noticed before installing. The consumer bought it (US manufacturer prefinished solid) online and it sat around for six months, no way to send it back.
I charged almost double to sort out the floor.

The issue was not really manufacturing but because it dried down to much.

All the pics look like like the boards were narrow didnt see any 51/8" wide. The wider the board the more variation in width you will see. You should have inspected it and sent it back immediately. This is where getting a deal on the internet isnt that great of a deal after all. Your installers by installing the floor have accepted the condition of the floor as usable and you may just be stuck with what you have.

I actually had Brazilian Direct call me to remove this post about a year or so ago, which I declined. I dealt with an exact same problem (but 5" Santos Mahogany) with BR111 back in 2006 and had some yahoo installer in Maryland told me it wasn't his problem, yet he installed some of it...

http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com/proble ... it-all.htm

Yea, Kevin. I did not really pay much attention to those pictures before, but it's obvious the blame goes on the installer regardless of the problem. The whole situation with me turned out positive after all the crap was sorted out. BR111 didn't even want to deal with getting it back so a buddy up in Baltimore got 1,800 SF free which he put in his own house. BR111 also gave me a complete refund on the order for my trouble. Of course that was back in the days they were raking in the cash.

I miss those online days...

Regarding my (Sam Burnell) above post, all matters with Brazilian Direct have been resolved to my complete satisfaction.