Empire Floors or HOme Depot? archived

I got estimates from both, although it was carpet. Empire was much more expensive and a much harder sales pitch, they wanted you to commit on the spot. We did it for carpet, but going to the HD was pretty painless - I had a bigger selection of carpet, the salespeople could have cared less if I chose HD or someplace else - which is a plus in my book, and they were able to schedule the work within a week. The installation was fine and quick. I don't know if I would select HD to renovate my kitchen, but for basic stuff like laying flooring or carpet, they have always worked out well for us.

EMPIRE preferred over HD. They are reliable and warrantied the whole job. Better customer service and the Empire guys are flooring pros. HD just hires guys and trains them to their specs. I would rather a guy who really knows his craft.

Empire quoted us $8000 for floors and rugs. I said it was way too much, so they lowered it to $4000. I asked them to leave.

Bmalibashksa-
For reference...approx. How many square ft. did they quote u and how much of it was floors (hardwood, tile, laminate, etc) v. rug? Our attic is abt. 1200 sqft and I was thinking it would come in around $8k for hardwood including materials and labor.

Ballparking it I think we wanted 600sqft of hardwood (Laminate) and 800-900 of carpet (higher end). One of our issues was that our room was 12 ft 1 inch, so we would need more labor because a roll of carpet is 12 feet even.

I just wasn’t happy the way they cut the price in half after the first quote, seems like they were cheating me on the first one.


We ended up using a local guy and paid about $4500

We're going to need to replace both our kitchen and bathroom floors in the near future and both will need some sub-flooring repair/replacement. Who do you like locally for this kind of work? (Fast, reliable, reasonably priced and cleans up after themselves?) The top layer for each will likely be resilient flooring but we know there are problems below that need attention.

I have done both. Empire is much quicker and had the same experieince as bmalibashksa. They gave us a huge quote, I told them it was too much. They said name your price, I did, and they installed it. If we didn't need it done in a hurry I wouldn't have purchased from them. They did however do an excellent job.

We used Home Depot for our basement and they were really affordable and installed quickly.

I've done both. Same experience with Empire--price was a serious moving target. They did do a great job though--fast and neat. HD was also good, though it took longer between measuring and getting it installed.

If you need the subfloor done, I might have someone local get that taken care of, THEN look into carpet--I don't know that I'd want the HD contractors doing anything but the carpet. Maybe Honeydo (who posts here) does that work? I've had subfloor repaired, but only in the context of replacing hardwoods by Jacob...not for carpet.

Or what about Junior? (there are posts here with his info if you do a search). He did a room renovation at our house and did a nice job. Not sure if he'd do subfloors though...

wait, now I just read again--are you looking to do hardwoods?

I think your estimate of 8k for 1200 square feet is accurate. about 550 sf, but needing major repair underneath, came in around 4k at our house. We chose finish in place floors though, which is more $$.

When the carpet or floor guys come to do the work - do they move ALL the furniture? I need to re-do my flooded basement and I have many many pieces of heavy furniture there.

Oh and thank you Dobler88 (missed your kind referral in the post).

Thanks everyone. I think we'll get 2 quotes one from HD and someone local...and probably stay away from Empire...i dont do well with salesy wheel and deal people.

Had a great experience, twice, with HD on flooring (once wood, once carpet). The people who did the work were pros, and home depot was FAST -- they also called a week after the work was done to make sure everything was perfect. Extremely happy with them.

As for Empire: Unbelievably shameless sales pitch. The guy said he was in danger of losing his job if he didn't get a sale, and pressed us to let them do the job. As others have mentioned, the price started at one place, and by the time he was out the door has been dropped by more than 50%. Very scammy vibe.

@honeydo - No, they DO NOT move any furniture! They have to have the whole place clear to start work.

We have used both Empire (3rd fl) and HD (basement) for carpet and been happy with both. I agree that the selection is MUCH better at HD - we got a very nice loop Martha Stewart for 1.50ish per square foot. They had good suggestions for us as far as wrapping the lolly poles, etc. Empire had a competitive price when we did the 3rd floor, and they did an excellent install, with complicated steps and multiple rooms up there.

Empire is a rip off imho and the sales staff is questionable. HD not so much, imho.

http://wolskiremodeling.wordpress.com/about/

mplwdlvr - HD moves furniture... you just pay extra for it.