Richard Smith General Contractor

I just had laminate flooring put in my apartment by Richard Smith. Lumber Liquidators SF recommend Richard Smith and I had a smooth and easy installation. When they came and measured they answered all my questions and were willing to negotiate some line items on the proposal. It was simple to find a time for the installation and they were able to complete the project quickly in two days. Richard and Alexa answered all of my questions and made sure there was enough material for the project and even followed up to make sure I was happy with the end result. I would highly recommend Richard Smith.

This is a great company to work with! They’re helpful every step of the way; from providing an estimate to finalizing the work. I had the carpet gutted from my 700 square foot apartment and replaced with laminate; Richard’s staff was excellent to work with and Richard himself was on-​site to monitor progress and provide guidance to his staff. When we discovered some additional materials left behind, Richard was out the first thing the next morning (a Saturday) to collect the materials and make sure we were happy with the work.

We just had to cancel a scheduled installation of hardwood flooring with this contractor because we could not get our phone calls, emails, or text messages returned. Very frustrating, but probably dodged a bullet as we didn’t check out the Unilocal reviews before scheduling the install. Seems being impossible to reach is a common but far from the worst problem that others have experienced.

My wife and I recently had hardwood flooring installed in our condo by Richard Smith and Associates. We obtained 5 quotes for our relatively small amount of work. While Richard’s quote was not the lowest it was the lowest licensed contractor’s quote. We felt he could ably meet all of our HOAs requirements. His team performed a quality installation with which we were very happy. In addition, when our project ran short of the materials needed to complete our condo closet, Richard agreed to return later when we had obtained more materials to finish the job. He could have increased the cost for this work since we had underestimated the materials needed but he didn’t. We are very appreciative that Richard stuck by his word and returned to finish our flooring without a hint of charging us more even though he had to re-​mobilize his staff and their equipment. Thank you Richard!

Had soem flooring installed by Richard’s company:
He sent one guy out to do the evaluation of the job
He sent another 2 guys out to actually do the job
Richard himself never actually came out until it was too late
By too late, I mean the flooring was not properly installed and had to be replaced. This could have been avoided if proper evaluation was performed prior to the work being done, or if Richard would have bothered to come out himself and evaluate the situation.
Sorry Rich, your’e gonna need to start monitoring what your guys are doing under the name of your company, or I am assuming you will continue receiving bad reviews like the one’s here.
Oh, I also just remembered that I had cable TV wiring hidden beneath my baseboards. When the workers removed the baseboards to install the flooring, they left the cable TV wiring on the floor and did not put them back behind the baseboards. So now I have exposed cables that were previously hidden.

Richard Smith’s team has installed hardwood floor in my home one week ago. The price was very competitive, they were very efficient and finished all the work in 2 days with great quality. Before departure their crew spend lots of time cleaning everything. Highly recommend this company. Special thanks to George for his great work and for helping us to bring baseboards and transitions from the store without any additional charge

I recently had my floor installed by Richard Smith’s company although I was a little apprehensive after reading his reviews. I was assured by lumber liquidators that he did good work so I decided to give him a try. I’m really glad I did. I live in a large condo complex in San Francisco and we have an HOA that is very hard to deal with. Richard was able to overcome the HOA issues within a couple of days and went to work immediately after getting approval. The work was done in the time allotted and I couldn’t be happier with my floors. I would highly recommend Richard and his team for floor installation!

My name is Emily and Richard Smith was recommended to me by Lumber Liquidators via the Home Service Store installer network. This is to inform the general public that you should NOT hire Richard Smith given the documentation below.
Pre Install:
I was referred to Richard of ‘Richard Smith General Contractor’ (RSGC on Unilocal) by Lumber Liquidators through the Home Service Store. He didn’t show up for our first appointment which I took time off work for. When I called 15 minutes after he was supposed to show up, he said there was a miscommunication, was apologetic, and asked to reschedule for another day which I was willing to. He offered me a discount off his original estimate for a total of $ 4k (which still seemed liked a lot for only 900 SF) but I decided to go with him since Lumber Liquidators and the Home Service Store recommended him. I should have looked on Unilocal before agreeing to work with him. It would have saved me a lot of frustration and money. Another contractor who I have worked with and who does great work had offered to do the job for $ 2,500 but I had already said yes to Richard, thought he would do a good job since he specializes in hardwood installs, and I had already paid a small $ 400 deposit, and didn’t want to go back on my agreement with him. I wish I would have never worked with him given the experience that I have documented below.
During Install:
Richard didn’t show up for the first day of the install until 2 or 3pm. He sent 3 guys who work for him but he didn’t tell me they were coming instead of him. They started tearing everything out and cutting wood and soon there were plums of dust everywhere. To my disappointment, when I came home, I saw that nothing was covered in plastic. My leather couch, hardwood table, everything in my kitchen, my new light fixtures, and all my clothes were covered in a thin film of demo and wood dust.
Stains:
When I got home after their second day on the job, they had installed the wood in one of the bedrooms, the kitchen, and a guest room. Every couple of feet there were stains on the floor. It was was spilled soda or a sticky flooring glue material and it took me an hour just to clean the stains from one of the bedrooms. There were even stains under the bed which I wouldn’t have noticed if hadn’t moved the bed to check. See pictures below.
Property Damage and Uneven /​Broken Boards:
My base boards were in good shape so I wanted to reuse them instead of buying new ones. Richard took them off to put in the new flooring and put them back on. But in the process, he broke many of them and, instead of replacing them or telling me, he just nailed them back to the wall. See pictures below. In addition the broken base boards, he put a big hole in my closet, stained my walls and reinstalled uneven baseboard. He didn’t tell me about the hole in the closet, he just put the base board back on covering half the hole. See below.
Holes in Floor:
There are 10+ holes in the floor. It looks like they were made with the nail gun. Or maybe the holes were already in the wood, but if that’s the case, those planks of wood should not have been installed. Below are pictures of pencils sticking out of some of the holes.
Uneven Install of Wood:
In one of the closets, the wood was installed unevenly and the baseboard was reinstalled anyway which looks really bad.
Poor Timing:
Richard originally estimated 3 days for the 900 SF job. Once we saw there was a big bump in living room, he estimated an extra day. We started on Friday. He said he would work Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I texted him Sunday morning asking what time his guys were coming since it was already 9am and no one was here and he said they wouldn’t come until Monday.
Lack of Professional Skill:
When the carpet was pulled up, it was clear there was a big bump in the subfloor. Richard said I should just put wood over the bump. I asked if that would just highlight the big bump and he said yes but do it anyway. He also said I could do carpet instead of wood even though I already bought all the hardwood and even though that wouldn’t fix the big bump but just try to cover it up. Richard told me that in order to level the floor, I would have to tear out my front door and pay him $ 4,000−5,000 to make a customer door that would accommodate leveling the floor. He also said it would take an additional week or two.
I called another contractor who I’ve worked with and he came over the same day, took one look at the floor, and said he would level it in one day by replacing the subfloor (ply wood). Richard told him he wouldn’t be able to fix it, especially not in a day, but he did fix it in a day and it only cost $ 800.
No Regard for Security:
To get into the house, I told Richard’s guys where the lock box was and left them a key so they could lock up when they left. When I checked in midday, my key was hanging from the key hole on the outside lock at the front door.
Conclusion: Don’t hire him

Beyond annoyed with this flooring guy. He was highly recommended by Lumber Liquidators in Burlingame so decided to hire him to install my floor over a year ago.
Do not hire this guy. He had some guys install my floor over a year ago and a month after it was installed it got a big bubble in the floor because his guys didn’t leave room for expansion (flooring was butted up right against brick wall with no space left) and floor buckled. It too over a year for him to redo the floor and still has not finished the quarter round in my kitchen. I took a day off today and they were supposed to show up between 8:30 am & 9:30 am and didn’t show. I text him and he said he forgot. This guy does not inspect the work that his workers do after completion of job and therefore shoddy work is done with no inspection after they complete. The metal piece in my front door is coming up already and I trip over it daily. This guy will take forever to complete a job so DO NOT HIRE HIM! Ridiculous the amount of time I have to wait to get job completed.