Buying wood flooring from China - Advice

[dan79brooklyn]

Hello,

We're building a house over here in Japan.
I began several months ago ordering samples of wood flooring.

We got samples from companies in Japan, The States and China.
I contacted three Chinese wood flooring companies through alibaba.

By far the best samples came from a company in China, also very good price. The company contact has been super good at answering my questions and they seem to know flooring and shipping in great detail.

VIF International Co., Ltd. - engineered flooring, solid hardwood flooring, vinyl flooring

Now that we are getting close to placing an order I'm getting concerned about possible problems.
They're OK with the payment going through Escrow, but the way alibaba's escrow service works is that once the shipment leaves China they receive the funds.

I also don't have any way to check this companies references. I've never ordered anything from Alibaba but I did read stories of people getting ripped off.

Any advice...

Thanks.

[Drisump]

Don't want to be negative but that's a significant leap of faith. I build homes and so many things can go wrong as far as quality is concerned. Colour and grain, consistency of milling...etc. When you buy from a local supplier (even if it comes out of the same Chinese mill) at least you have someone to beat over the head if there are problems. Cheers

[MRM]

You could use a freight forwarder to handle the shipment and make sure you got your product. Or you could do a letter of credit. You do that by going through your bank. Basically you give them what amounts to a certified check that is good only upon verification that certain obligations have been complete, such as delivery.

But you're probably going to be OK. If they screw you they can say goodby to US customer business.

[JavaBrewer]

I would be very concerned about how the end material compares to the 'samples'. What is their return policy? Personally I would not buy tile/wood flooring without first walking on an installed example somewhere local. Surely someone in Japan has this product installed somewhere?

[JTO]

Are you planning on buying an engineered wood floor? If so there are a lot of things to consider:

What is the veneer thickness and how is it finished? The substrate is very significant. If it is manufactured with the proper adhesive then you will be OK (isocyanate or phenolic resins you should be good to go).

But, China has no formaldehyde emission standards so if it is manufactured with a formaldehyde-containing adhesive, you may have very high emissions and/or marginal properties. Buyer beware! Lots and lots of things to questions.

Troy

[crb07]

Oh come on you guys, what could go wrong with building supplies from China?
Chinese Drywall Problem
Now dog food, thats another story. That stuff will kill you fast.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

From my experience:

One supplier provided high quality samples. Do not know where they obtained them, probably from our then current supplier. Upper management forced the move to the supplier in China and the first several months of deliveries were barely useable and contained actual physical hazards to health.


One supplier provided high quality samples of printed material. In conversations with them the supplier informed me they would sell our printed material to anyone who wanted it, in other words anyone would have access to our printed materials and they would be the actual thing, no different from the ones we would use. Senior management forced us to go with the Chinese supplier. VERY high quality printed material, truly very high quality. Yep, they sold our printed material and the market started seeing counterfeits that were hard to distinguish.


Have you checked with Indonesia? I bought wood out of there for some time. Never had an issue, quality always matched samples. Of course, I used a middle-man buyer to minimize my risks. They also make wood flooring.


I would go local, you will have a short relationship with them, the costs might be higher, but you will have better control of the quality!

[dan79brooklyn]

Thanks for all of your thoughts and warnings.

I'm trying to be as cautious as possible.
We also want to buy the best product at a good price and so far what we have found happens to come from China.

The factory salesperson says the material in the engineered floor meets export requirements (low formaldehyde) and they have clients all over the world...can I ask for references?

Here are some details on the product.

We want a grey oak and white oak on the first and second floors and we are also building a large deck so we need decking as well.

Here are some pictures of the samples after several back and forths with the supplier.




This is the two types of stains on engineered oak floor and Ipe grooved decking.
Price for the oak is: $32.50 per square meter (10.7 square foot)

We would definitely prefer to buy local, but so far we haven't found anything available we want to use. Japanese tend to use solid hardwood or cheap looking laminate.

It's a big decision...thanks for your help.

[aigel]

I would buy American. There apparently is adhesive used in these floors (See David's post!). I would not buy something from China that is glued and that my family is exposed to 10+ hours a day. That would be my main concern over the business end. Sure, you will pay more $, but isn't the Yen up against the dollar (aside from a little recent dip)?

G

[look 171]

That brown one looks like Ipe. From tropical areas like Brazil. That one might be from Indonesia or countries from around the area. Machine maybe done in China. Hard as a rock.

I say buy local if you can because you can inspect stock. Many of upper end Chinese floors are actually very good.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by crb07

Oh come on you guys, what could go wrong with building supplies from China?
Chinese Drywall Problem
Now dog food, thats another story. That stuff will kill you fast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the screen you are looking at is giving off a huge dose of radiation right now. The cell phone you use everyday gives you cancer on the tip of your dick.

Don't forget that your simple vinyl floor or your plywood cabinets at were made in the 70s had a bunch of crap in there that are dangerous to your health. I have eaten so much lead base paint playing with our American made toys. Tell us something we don't know about made in China.

[gshase]

My company insulated a 4 million dollar house and a trim carpenter used black walnut plywood from China on walls and ceiling in several rooms and the off gassing of Formaldehyde made the homeowner sick as dogs. The court case is now in year #2. They were taking air samples of every ones products; MSDS specs and all the stuff that scares you. I would run from China products.

[masraum]

Wow, when I lived in Japan it seemed like whatever they did, was very well done. I can't imagine Chinese products coming close.

Personally, I don't even think I'd consider ordering the Chinese stuff.

[juan ruiz]

When I got to the "alibaba" part I had to write to you! I've been dealing with that site for a very long time. So far, all the companies that I had tried to deal with are crooks, I'm sure they are some legit companies, but I haven't found one. My last adventure was to have some stickers made 1.5x6 minimum amount of 5,000 price 0.46 plus $175.00 shipping, I can buy them here in USA for 0.35. Another thing that they are doing is they will send you a nice sample but when the actual order comes is something completely different and from there the nightmare begins.

Again, I'm not saying that ALL the companies are like that, just sharing my experience with "Alibaba" suppliers....... Good Luck.

[Drisump]

Since I'm in the construction business I often have the "opportunity" to use quite a lot of products from China, some are decent, but all that are decent have a local rep that has an interest in maintaining good relationships with end users. Occasionally clients themselves pick up stuff from a dubious supply chain and it often results in more labour to install and in general, a lower quality job. It's also a hoot to read the directions on those items, I'm sure the factory "translates" Mandarin into English with some kind of computer program....often complete gibberish...much amusement on the job though. There is a myriad of problems that can happen with flooring including tongues not meshing properly with grooves and non standard perfect widths. Try laying a pre-finished floor in which many pieces are a little wider or narrower than the norm. I'm just reading the book "Poorly made in China" and aside from it being quite amusing it's interesting to read about the business culture. The whole argument that the end user has any serious clout with a foreign manufacturer because you may bad mouth mouth them is absurd....the world is a very big place and China is busily supplying the world with all manner of bargain basement things. Good luck in whatever you decide.

[azasadny]

The "Chinese Oak" is not Oak at all, it's a form of grass, like bamboo.

[JTO]

And the decking is probably oil tempered bamboo. I've done a lot of testing on these materials since that's what I do. The solid wood stuff is fine. The composites are pretty crummy from China. If the substrate is Chinese manufacture I bet it does not meet US or JIS standards for emissions

Troy

[dan79brooklyn]

Update:

We did look for wood made in Japan and the States and nothing came close to the samples we received from the Chinese manufacturer.
So I took the risk and ordered the wood. It arrived in 6 weeks after placing the order and looks as good as the samples.

I know many people thought I was crazy to order flooring made in China (I was worried too) but I came to the conclusion that most of our products are made there now and the quality in many cases is very good.

Here are some pictures of the flooring.

This is the unfinished oak:



These are the two finishes we selected (grey and white).





This same wood is exported to Europe and it meets all of their environmental standards.

So to all the naysayers, you can believe and trust sometimes.

[johnsjmc]

I just bought 1100 SF of 3/4 solid cherry hardwood flooring in Toronto. It turned out it was from China but price and looks are fantastic.

[Bill Douglas]

Looks great Dan.