Conklin Bros

The Conklin Brothers van just left our house and I’m so pleased with our new carpet that I had to post right away. Rae did a fantastic job from the time he met us walking in the showroom door. He answered our questions and more! He’s a wealth of knowledge and very enthusiastic. He came by today to be sure everything was going as planned. The installer, Jose, and his assistant were courteous, very efficient, and experienced. I love the result and highly recommend this business!

When no one else would take on our flooring project, Conklin Bros stepped up and did a fantastic job. They worked with us on a reasonable estimate, started the project in a timely manner, and finished the job in half the estimated time. The hardwood floor installers were very courteous, professional, and meticulous (perfectionists). We worked directly with Nelson Said, who took us through the whole process in a smooth and effortless fashion. We’re very, very happy and recommend Conklin Bros for your flooring project.
AMV

3^rd purchase of floor covering from this company. Nelson was salesman. Did an excellent job helping us select materials. Their installation crew was excellent on a 3 jobs, each several years apart.
Excellent company!
RJW

We just had Vinyl Flooring installed in our new sunroom… The installer, Steve, did a great job. He worked very hard and the job is perfect. He was always on time and put in long days. We appreciate his hard work…

Just got new carpets from Conklin Bros and love it!
The only reason why I’m giving ⁴⁄₅ stars, is because the gentleman that came to our house told us not to worry about moving larger furniture. During the day of installation, the installers told us it would be an extra fee for moving these items… I’ll take some responsibility for not inquiring about any extra fees, however, the fee should have been brought up to us during the first visit.

We shopped everywhere for carpet and ended up at Conklin Bros. on Almaden Expy. On arriving we were given an orientation and directed to the sample areas we described as our interest. We were given plenty of space to browse and search. Nice.
Finally we saw some beautiful soft piled Karistan. Rae Hanson was very helpful. He gave us a brief history of CB, and their Satisfaction Guarantee and then ordered some samples of different shades to our home. Rae came out to measure and gave us some valuable information not only in filing in some void anomalies in our carpet area but also some valuable advise on a tile remodel we were doing in our dining area.
Rae is easy to work with and you can tell right away he has a superior depth of knowledge regarding all aspects of carpeting, flooring and installation. Also kudos to Jose for a great installation job. Its a pleasure to recommend Rae, Jose and Conklin Bros.

We visited Conklin Bros on Fri, July 17, 2015. We were immediately greeted in a warm and friendly manner by Gail. Gail provided us with helpful, professional service. Our needs were met at a MORE than fair price. We highly recommend this location to anyone with flooring needs.

I recently decided to have a new bathroom floor installed in my master bathroom. I went to Conklin Brothers and received great service from Daryl. I was fortunate to meet him last year when I installed a new kitchen floor in a remodel. Daryl was very patient and helpful in letting me take many samples home and helped me, after many weeks, to choose one to my liking. Conklin Brothers has a vast selection of luxury tile flooring that is well displayed and easier to visualize in one’s home than in other flooring stores that I had checked out. There is no heavy pressure to buy which I really like.
Daryl came out to my home to measure and promised the floor installation in less than two weeks, which did happen as promised. The installers were very professional, respectful, proficient and fast, and the result is a tile floor that I am extremely happy and satisfied with. I highly recommend Conklin Brothers and would not hesitate to use them in the future. Their price is very fair, the service and the installers work is first rate and they delivered to me as promised The showroom, sales people, installers and services they offer are impressive. Thank you Conklin Brothers!

We recently purchased both carpet and flooring from Conklin Bros, which did the installation as well.
We were impressed by the size of the showroom and the range of options.
The sales rep with whom we worked, Gail Irwin, was in many ways knowledgeable but we found her to be rather prickly and adversarial, unnecessarily so. It felt a lot like dealing with a combative used car salesperson. She made numerous mistakes in her calculations and also claimed after the fact that she had explained certain things which in fact she did not.
When Gail finally arrived to do her estimate, she complained in a protracted manner about difficulty finding the location, as if it this had been our fault, when in fact it was her responsibility. We arranged to have a new toilet installed over new bathroom flooring. When the installers showed up, they announced that they would not install the new toilet we had purchased in a box because it had not been completely assembled. They referred us back to our salesperson to receive a credit for this item. Gail claimed that she had explained that the toilet needed to be fully assembled, when in fact she did not. If she had done so, we would not have had this issue. She claimed that the charge applied regardless of whether the toilet was a new one or the old existing one. The problem with that argument was that the agreement we signed specifically describes installation of a NEW TOILET (yes, handwritten in capital letters). If the fact that the toilet was new was irrelevant, why was the word NEW written in capital letters on our agreement? Otherwise, the agreement should have said «(re)installation of toilet.» It was not a lot of money and we didn’t want to waste our time arguing about it so we did not but it was an unnecessary aggravation and an example of poor customer service at the very least, if not minor fraud.
The installers were hardworking young men who appeared to be doing the best job they could. Their work did require supervision, however. One example was conspicuous air bubbles that were left under vinyl flooring, which we fortunately caught soon enough to correct. Another example was a transition strip that was not laid down entirely parallel as it should have been. We shudder to think at the results had we not noticed these things before the glue had dried. So if you do engage Conklin to do your installation, as opposed to just buying the materials from them, you would be wise to be present and watchful during the process. Oh, and if you do simply buy the materials, you will have to pick them up from a distant location, rather than getting them delivered to you, we were told.
With improved training of its sales staff and installers, Conklin could have a truly first-​class operation. As the situation now stands, we would never refer anyone to them.

PROS: Huge showroom. Lots of options. I worked with Steve Boardman, one of the sales representatives. He was very knowledgeable and listened well to my concerns and questions. I walked out satisfied with the quote and products I ordered.
At the home inspection a few days later, Boardman came on time and measured the rooms. He also brought samples of the flooring I would be getting, so I can see how it would appear. I am glad he did, because the lighting is different at home compared to the lighting in the showroom.
The installers arrived on time (both times) and installed the flooring as requested. At my request, they left extra flooring of the old and new for any future needs.
CONS: Boardman said that the flooring would be installed in a couple of weeks. It actually took well into the following month. Thus, he promised something he could not keep. When I asked why it was taking so long and what form of compensation I could get in return, he chuckled at me and offered nothing.
On the day of installation, the installers did not have enough material to finish one bathroom. They had to order more and come back another day. It would have been nice if they planned better and installed it all on one day like originally promised.

I bought a townhouse and went to Conklin Bros. on Almaden Expwy to choose new carpeting. I’d break down my review like this, starting with a baseline of 3 stars:
+1 star for the finished installation, which was professional-​looking and involved carpet on a long staircase, which is a very physical installation process
+1 star for selection in the store, which is great
–1 star for long delays in responding or entirely unreturned messages, which after a while makes it seem like they’re doing you a huge favor by taking your business
–2 star for lack of communication between installation crew and the store. This drove me crazy all day during installation. I asked, over and over, to request the crew to keep their shoes off the new carpet. I might as well have asked them to do the installation while doing handstands from the looks they gave me. I didn’t expect them to take their shoes off given the nails and tacks involved in carpet installation, but I had shoe covers available. They said there would be too many trips back and forth to the van and that putting shoe covers off and on would slow them down to much. They ended up doing much of the cutting and such outside the garage, walking all over the white carpet with their boots, and when I stepped out to go through the conversation again, the head guy basically just ignored me and didn’t respond except for a dirty look or two. I called the shop to have them give directions and eventually, they did (sort of) put covers on for the last part of the installation, but by then there were bootprints and such.
The second star removed for lack of communication is because I gave the store a date certain by which I expected to be moving in, and I chose the carpeting about 3 weeks prior to that date. They ended up not getting me on the schedule until after the date, and I explained very clearly before signing the order that there was some bedroom furniture that would need to be moved if they installed after that date. I went over this about 5 times prior to the install date once it was set. Naturally, the crew said they expected no furniture and said they weren’t allowed to do any moving. I did most of it myself but managed to get a little help carrying a heavy dresser and mattress. I don’t care what the policy is– the store agreed to help with the furniture if they couldn’t meet the deadline date. The disconnect between store and crew wasn’t my problem.
By the end of the process, I was happy to have the carpet in place but pretty stressed out by the experience. Note to Conklin: if you’re going to work in Sunnyvale, you’re going to run into a lot of Asian/​South Asian customers who don’t like people walking all over their carpets with shoes. Reasonable or unreasonable, once you agree, you need to explain it to the crew and get their buy-​in.
I felt irked enough at the crew that I didn’t tip them, which I almost never do and here I was ambivalent given that they genuinely did work very hard. But I was the one who did 90% of the furniture moving, and given that I’m probably going to steam clean the (new) carpeting, which seems ridiculous, if anything I feel they should be tipping me after I spent 6k for 3 bedrooms and a staircase. There are some good things about the store, but will find another more responsive shop for the rest of the flooring needs in the unit.

We had them replace the carpet in our rental with hardwood floors. It went smoothly and the floors look great. Very happy with the service and the installation.

I contracted them to install a 3000sf hardwood floor for me. I can not be happier with the job they did. It went very smooth and they are very organized. I positively recommend them!

Update to my experience with Conklin Brothers — I received a message from the Marketing Dept, and he told me I was offered a $ 500 (bribe) by the owner of Conklin Brothers to take down my posting.
I just want everyone to know about their business practices and their hush-​money offer to quiet those that were burned by this organization.

We recently hired Conklin Brothers to install new flooring in our condo and we couldn’t be happier! Robert, one of their salespeople, came to our home and gave a detailed estimate of the costs. He was extremely knowledgeable of the types of flooring we were considering, and he was not pushy but very patient with our questions. We decided to install a Luxury Vinyl Plank by Armstrong and we are thrilled with the finished product! Jason, the installer, spent an entire week at our home and he was fantastic. Very professional and even came back on Saturday to finish off a spot that he didn’t think was perfect. A great experience from start to finish, highly recommend them!
Kathy and Brian
San Jose

Update. A couple weeks or so ago Conklin Brothers sent an independent inspector out to our house. He did a number of tests and then left telling my wife he’d give Conklin the results. He said he couldn’t share any results with us since Conklin paid for him. We’ve not heard any results yet.
Response to «Richard O» who I assume is the same person as «Rick Oderio» that I hear on the radio. Happy to have an apology from you but I’m not sure how that helps our situation. I’m hoping we will hear the results of the inspection soon and that there is some remediation action coming as a result. Being the owner, I’m assuming you have some sway.
We’ve used Conklin Brothers for a number of jobs in the past and were always very happy with them So, of course we decided to give them our business on a hardwood floor. I guess we should have read the Unilocal reviews before we shopped but we never thought to due to our previous good experiences. Gayle Irwin saw that we had dogs and never thought to tell us about how soft a lot of new «hard“wood floors are. We chose something that looked good and she said it would be fine. We went with an engineered product because it was supposed to be much sturdier than the solid wood. In the end, it’s pretty sad. We’ve had planks crack, and there are scratches from the most minor thing. You can’t drop a thing on them otherwise they chip. The workers installing the product were nice and did good work but the product itself is just awful. It’s only been 6 months and the floor already looks worse than the original oak did that I had refinished myself 21 years ago. One of the VP’s (Craig I believe) came out and said there was nothing he could do. Congrat’s Gayle and Craig, you’ve just turned a customer who used to recommend you completely around and we will NEVER, go back to them EVER! We’ve told all of our friends too. All we have to do is show them the floor and tell them that it’s 6 month old. It speaks volumes for itself.
If you want a good floor, or an honest sales person, find someplace else other than Conklin. We thought we could count on them like the ad says. Turns out we and the ad were wrong.

Susan was SUPER helpful when I called looking for a specific product. She said she’d check around and call me back in 15 minutes. She hadn’t found the answer in 15 minutes but she still called to say, «I’m still looking.» I really appreciate being kept in the loop and she did eventually find the product I was looking for.
I did the installation myself, so can’t comment on their installers, but Susan was top-​notch!

I would highly recommend Conklin Bros for having Rae Hanson employed there representing Conklin Bros. Rae is so personable and friendly how could anyone not trust his knowledge in the Carpet business and Conklin Bros reputation of the best quality Carpet and Installation service. When the installation started Rae would stop over after he was off work to checkin on how the quality of the installation was going and made sure everything was to the best quality and standard of Conklin Bros. Now the installers Jose and his partner were so good for example we had a difference in transition from our living room and enclosed patio room so Jose built up the surface so when the carpet was installed you couldn’t even tell the difference when walking from one room to the other. The carpet installation was done so professional i would refer Conklin Bros to others needing anytype of flooring. Jose also is the best in Baseboard installation everything looks so finished and great. At Conklin Bros we received the lowest price and received the best quality in Carpet. Rae and Jose would recommend them in Carpet Sales and Installation.
Thanks to you Rae and Jose and Conklin Bros
It’s as good as it gets and would recommend Conklin Bros
Mark & JoAnn Taku

My wife and I were very appreciative to have Nelson Said help answer our many questions. We are considering what type of vinyl flooring to get. Nelson was an ideal sales person in speech and actions. They have a large selection of products.

I was extremely shocked to see salesman Bob’s impolite attitude when he knew he would not get the job from us. I chose other company because their price was much lower for the exact same brand materials. Business must be fair and consequential.
A salesman should not behave like a child…