At first glance, the rug seemed just like any other but Mark McFarland of Windsor knew it wasn't quite right. "When you spend a lot of money for carpet, you want it to be done the way it was originally proposed to be done," he says. And it wasn't quite what Tri County Floors promised to do for Mark. He pointed out how the seam of the rug is visible right near the doorway.
In the contract, the company promised to put the seam near the back wall of the room. "You can see where it says 'Seam to be put on the south side of the bedroom,'" he says. Mark says he noticed the problem with the seam right away when the installation was done. "I said, 'It looks a little noticeable,' and he said, 'Yeah, that will flatten out over a period of time and then you won't even notice it,'" he recalled.
Tri County promised to return if the seam didn't flatten out. And, it did return. The company came back a month later to attempt a quick fix. It recut the seam and laid down white seam tape to hide it. Mark says, "As time passed on, then the carpet started peaking again. It started looking really noticeable." That was eight months after the quick-fix. Mark called Tri County out again but this time, the company decided nothing more could be done.
Disappointed, Mark decided he would call another installer to pull the rug out and put in a new rug but his son encouraged him to do otherwise. "He said, 'Dad, you should go to Channel 7. You don't want to spend all the money to pull the carpet out for something that wasn't even your fault,'" Mark recalls. So, he contacted 7 On Your Side and we contacted Tri County Floors.
Now, Tri County's owner, Brian Miller, got involved. He admitted the installer wasn't instructed to put the rug's seam along the back wall. He decided to replace the carpet. "At the end of the day, I just want to take care of customers. If it's our fault, we're going to take care of it," he said.
Tri County says a dye problem with the carpet made the seam stand out more than it should have.
