$12,000 in stair treads are scrap.
$12,000 in stair treads are scrap and they won't stand behind their work.
We bought stair treads from Brick Mill a little over a year ago for a set of floating stairs we made. Originally they looked good. We installed them in the customers house and in the process of finishing the house, the contractor ruined the finish on them. They were only installed and used for about 9 months.
We contacted Brick Mill twice via phone and email to have them refinished but they never got back to us. We had no choice but to have them refinished locally at another wood shop.
After they were refinished, it was apparent that the glue joints were failing. We contacted them a total of 11 times through phone and email over a 2 week timeframe but ultimately needed to load up the treads and drive 3 hours to get anyone to talk to us.
I spoke with Mitch and Matt, their production manager who admitted that it was a craftsmanship issue and they've had issues before with squeezing too much glue out of the joints. The guys who made them ADMITTED it was a craftsmanship issue.
The owner Mike Caseman and general manager Zac Caseman discussed it with me and gave me a handful of reasons they might have failed which ended up sounding like a bunch of excuses why their guys didn't do a good job. Ultimately Mike told me they were not standing behind because we had them refinished by someone else and it was 3 months past their warranty.
SERIOUSLY!?!?! Talk about a lack of integrity.
These treads only had 9 months of use but they hid behind their warranty in order to not have to replace them. Then they said it was the fault of the people who refinished them and they didn't know what they were doing. (The company who refinished them has 80 employees and a 40k sq ft shop that is climate controlled, they obviously know what they're doing.)
It's unfortunate they lack integrity because their stuff does look nice. If you like to gamble, this might be the place to go, but don't expect them to stand behind anything they do. If you want to support craftsmen who do good work and have integrity, go somewhere else.