complaint - Armstrong Flooring warranty ripoff

Please see my information provided below. Thank you

in advance.

Company: Armstrong

Address: 2500 Columbia Avenue

Lancaster Pennsylvania 17604

U.S.A.

Phone Number: 717-397-0611

Web site: http://www.armstrong.com

Customer Solution Center E-mail:

http://www.armstrong.com/resflram/na/home/en/us/contact_form.asp

Complaint background:

Armstrong Flooring will not honor manufacturer

warranty on a defective laminate flooring product.

Said product was actually discontinued due to known

defects.

A Local Carpet One franchise was hired to install an

Armstrong laminate hardwood floor in 2001. The floor

was designed to be installed by sliding planks into

place in a tongue-in-groove fashion and gluing

together (different from the current locking laminate

products).

After one week of product "acclimation" and then

installation, there were problems. In a small number

of places, some seams began to rise, creating small

ridges where the floor pieces joined. In other areas,

some adjacent to the peaks, the planks separated by up

to 1/8". In three places, Planks did not properly fit

at corners, resulting in sharp points.

Honoring product and installation warranties, within 6

months of the installation Carpet One sent an

installer to repair the floor three times. For every

correction made, however, a new issue presented

another area. The result was less than perfect, but

still for the better. I wrote the floor off as being a

little higher maintenance than planned.

This year, I hired the same Carpet One franchise to

install more flooring, including Armstrong vinyl. The

installer, who was a certified by Armstrong for

laminate installation, immediately recognized the

floor as a glue-together product that was defective.

The installer alerted a Carpet One sales rep, and the

company sent a sales representative to look at my

floor. The floor was defective and needed repair or

replacement, in his opinion as well.

A claim was filed with Armstrong via Carpet One in

October, and Armstrong sent one of their distributor

reps to my house to examine the problems. She

immediately decided that each of my problems "must" be

related to bad installation or uneven subfloor,

without thorough investigation other than a moisture

reading. Armstrong denied the claim per the rep's

claims of moisture and uneven subflooring.

1) Moisture: Armstrong determined the flooring

contained some excess moisture. This is a climate

controlled, humidity-controlled home built on a

crawlspace in which the ground is covered in plastic

and lime. The floor was found to contain some excess

moisture, but the areas she tested were not even the

defective areas, moisture causes expansion and not

separation, and she based her findings on current

product standards (the current products are moisture

resistant on all sides and not held together by liquid

glue -- of course they will retain less moisture).

Also, between my subfloor and laminate floor lies

Armstrong's own moisture barrier underlayment...so if

moisture is coming up from under the house, they

provided defective underlayment.

2) Uneven subflooring: My home has some uneven

subflooring, but actually not in the areas in which

the defects are occurring.

No mention in the claim denial was made of plank

separation...and neither moisture nor uneven

subflooring can possibly be accountable for that

issue.

Additionally, I continuously had to remind Armstrong's

distributor rep while inspecting my floor that my

floor was a glue-together installation, not

interlocking. Even at the end of her "assessment" she

claimed separation would be "due to bad installation

since the pieces are made to lock together"...she had

absolutely no idea the glue-together flooring was not

designed to interlock!

Armstrong and Carpet One have both acknowledged that

there have been problems with Armstrong glue-together

laminate flooring significant enough for them to

discontinue them shortly after my purchase, and the

interlocking products are designed so problems such as

mine do not occur.

It's not my fault I purchased a floor that had been

poorly engineered/designed at the time of purchase.

Factory warranty on the floor is 20 years. To date,

they refuse to even repair even a few of the most

apparent defects.

I have requested to have an independent inspector look

at the defective flooring. If Armstrong cannot comply

and at least repair the problems with my $4,000+

floor, futher (possibly legal) action will be pursued.

At the time of this submission, I am waiting for a

return call from an Armstrong consumer relations

representative.

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I want to hear what happens to you on this. I am preparing to file for a similar problem.