Navid’s idea wasn’t bad: he wanted to install wood floors in his condo, and chose to hire installers from the store where he bought the flooring and supplies, Home Depot. This should be a simple transaction: he gives them money, they come over and put floors in his condo. It’s just that something that employees assured Navid wouldn’t be a problem suddenly became a problem. There’s a large dip and some cracks in his subfloor, and Home Depot’s original rough estimate for how much it would fix to cost the problem was much lower than it should have been. Navid agreed to pay that expense, and the contractors walked off the job anyway, saying that they wouldn’t be able to warranty the work. Now Navid is stuck with a lot of supplies and a ripped-up floor.

The Home Depot is currently putting me through one of the worst customer experience of my life.

I recently purchased a condo and decided that I wanted to replace the carpet with a wood floor. After ripping out my carpet, I was concerned because I found that my concrete subfloor had multiple cracks and dipped slightly towards the center of the room. I talked to 3 different Home Depot flooring reps at a store #[redacted] who all said that the installer might have to put down a self-leveling compound before installing the wood, but that would be a fairly simple and inexpensive process. They all recommended scheduling an appointment to have someone come out, measure my condo, and look at the floors.

I scheduled this appointment, and when the measurer came out, I asked him about the subfloors. He also told me they wouldn’t be a problem. He said I might have to spend “one or two hundred dollars” extra to get the cracks filled and the floor leveled, but it wasn’t a big deal. Based on this information, I decided to also rip out the laminate floor already in my kitchen and install the new wood there too so that my floors would be consistent throughout the condo.

Over the next week, I talked to 7 or 8 different phone reps in Home Depots quote department getting quotes on different wood, underlayment, and molding combinations. I asked most of these reps if the uneven floors would be a problem (I wanted to err on the side of caution so I kept asking to see if anyone had concerns), and they all said it wouldn’t be a problem and quoted prices similar to what the measuring guy quoted.

I decided to place my order, pick everything up from the store, and haul it into my 2nd floor condo (Quite a workout hauling 31 boxes weighing 40 lbs each upstairs). I then scheduled my install for the following week.

My installers (contractors from [redacted]) showed up on the installation day and measured my condo again. After, they told me that my uneven floors would cause problems with any wood or laminate and recommended installing carpet. I explained to them that every Home Depot rep, including the measuring guy who came out and looked at my subfloor, told me it wouldn’t be a problem. At this point, the installers tried to guilt me by telling me that the uneven subfloor would cause the wood to crack and break and the contractors would have to pay for it out of pocket since it would be under warranty.

I asked if we could level the subfloor before the install, and I was told “it would cost a fortune” to do so. When I pressed to get a dollar figure, they said it would be a minimum of $1,000-$1,500 (way higher than the $100-$200 that I was quoted by multiple Home Depot reps). Since I had already paid for the job, hauled supplies into my condo, and ripped out the laminate floor in my kitchen that I wouldn’t have ripped out otherwise, I agreed to pay to level the floor and get it over with. At this point, the installers started giving me the runaround saying that they weren’t even sure leveling was an option and they would have to talk to their manager. They went outside for about 30 minutes and when they came back, they said they can’t do the job because there’s no way they would be able to warranty it (all of the sudden, doing the installation became their choice and not mine). We had a brief conversation about other options then they left.

I went back to the Home Depot store and talked to a flooring manager and one of the original reps I talked to. They said that [redacted] is the only contractor they use in the [region], and if they won’t do the install, then there’s nothing they can do. They admitted that the Home Depot completely messed up, but they’re not willing to do anything to help me.

Throughout this process, I asked about 10 Home Depot reps about my uneven subfloor, including one who came to my condo and looked at my floors, and every one of them told me that my subfloor wouldn’t be a problem. Now I’m getting a different story on the install date and I’m left with supplies that I have to haul back to The Home Depot, no laminate in my kitchen, and concrete floors in my condo. I’m beyond frustrated at this point and The Home Depot isn’t doing anything to help.

Start by escalating to regional managers and other higher-ups who are higher than the store level. In the past, other customers have found success using the executive e-mail carpet bomb against Home Depot. Ask friends and colleagues if they know of a contractor who can help you out of your sad, floorless state.

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