The Huddle - Episode 70 - Flooring Horror Stories
This week the guys get into the spooky spirit to discuss some seriously spooky stories of flooring failures.
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The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.
what's up Flor and family welcome to the Huddle we're here every Tuesday 3 pm
Central to discuss maintaining Ford progress in your flooring career with me as always Mr Daniel and
Jose Gonzalez the preferred flooring out of Grand Rapids Michigan today we got a um less serious
topic but very serious in practice uh depending on how you're
looking at it yeah and uh I'm sure all of us uh installers have some of these
but it's flooring failures and horror stories so you know let's honor the old
Halloween and and uh get scared by remembering some you know uh I've got a
few catastrophes to share so uh if you've been in this business for any
length of time you probably have some too so if you're watching us live on Facebook or uh one of the channels uh
chime in tell us some of your stories uh if you watch us on YouTube later you know share them in the comments uh
consider giving us a like And subscribe it's always appreciated and it helps us to continue doing what we do uh
we we do this for for the industry and uh you guys are our fuel when you
comment and let us know what you're thinking and give us some good feedback and Heck if if you don't like it give us
a thumbs down it all matters baby so we need that feedback too right gotta get
better all right well I was uh considering uh you know having a guest
today like another flooring contractor to share their horror stories but uh um
I don't know that they were so um willing or excited as I
am to share some of them so uh let's get right to it guys what what
first off when did you first started what year did you guys first start stalling floring 98 98 for me well I started
right after you did in that summer so I started 95 we're about the same era here so and how long before you had your
First Holy beep moment
98 it was because I started in January of 98 and I believe it was like right
you had plenty of time left in the year to yeah yeah I did and it was it was a
long long time but you started with that one I'll get started I thought we'd come
out the gate with your with our first all right so so we were we were doing um
it was like a multi-purpose room uh at a at a church I believe right and it was
all uh what I was told was sheet vinyl right all right so we started installing
it and I'm just you know I was just a helper at that point and we got everything done we got everything welded
it looked pretty good um and you know we knocked it out in about four or five days uh then a c couple days later got a
phone call saying that it was failing and couldn't figure out why um so they went there and took a look at it and I
went there with them and I remember them cutting it open at a seam and just being able to lift it right up off the floor
it was waves everywhere I was like you know what could be happening and you know and the
argument was we did it exactly like we do it every other time I'm just doing what I was as what I was told come to
find out it was lenium not sheet vinyl so we we did it exactly like we do
sheet vinyl every time and I tell you what everything about it was wrong The Notches the the uh open time flash time
um yeah didn't wet set it oh it um
lolium well go ahead and tell them the difference just for the tile guys or the carpet guys out there tell them the
difference between the two because there's a pretty significant difference here and and uh right so lenum is going
to have a Juke backing on it and it's kind of that juk needs something to grab
right so you got to wet set it with a vinyl you're letting the adhesive depending on what type of vinyl
right but you know if you're talking about homogeneous vinyl it's vinyl all the way through so if you wet set it
that adhesive is never going to set up depending on what's underneath it so it just depends on what you're
working with but typically you need larger trial size onium you go in wet uh go wet roll it
yeah I can imagine you use the a 33 second or something not trial on it yeah
yeah we used them everything about it was wrong and so what you do we ended up
having to cut it apart at every scene and we were actually able to roll it
back out of the adhesive in place scrape all the adhesive off start from scratch
roll it back into the adhesive the right way and I I do remember there being a
couple double welds on the scams I mean it definitely wasn't my proudest
moment right but I wasn't in control of that one either but that is what made me start reading everything is knowing that
my my name was associated with that knowing that how many yards or square foot yards were we talking here well
this was that because this was one of the Summers where I was actually working so I was there I wasn't I don't think I
was there for the first part but I think I was there for the second part yeah um
if you can imagine like a Elementary size gymnasium a multi purpose room
that's about the size it was I think it might have been one of the band rooms or something like that several hundred yards yeah it was it was not small it
was not small by any means I tell you what it pretty quick the second time you
had such poor bond that you were able to roll it back and scrape up the glue and
reinstall it and it looked good afterwards right aside of a few saddle seams here
and there yeah yeah you know I don't remember every step along the way I do
remember it wasn't it didn't look like a brand new install the second time around didn't
look like a brand new install the first time around um but lesson learn learn to
read the adhesive learn to read the instructions that come with the roles just save yourself the hassle oh
man I just uh I mean I have a lot a lot more than just that one but that was like the first one well I figured we'd
start with the first one I mean you know the the it's out of the gate and I think
it most of this is going to speak very well to what we preach on this channel which is get trained you know proper
proper education and with the proper amount of experience so that you can
actually absorb the stuff um so I started out in carpet in
95 about 6 months later uh I was put in charge of a job it
was a high school at the time it was the largest High School in
Kansas 11,000 yards of carpet U mainly in
classrooms and it was a J&J piece I remember and it was a double cut and I
met with the tech rep and they brought this little brand new cutter it was a
glass looking cutter we we have tons of them now but it was brand new back at
the time and it was a double cutter so I went through and learned how to use
that I was blowing through this job literally we were laying five six hundred yards a day me and two guys just
killing it I thought I'm an installer dude I got this all figured out I am an
installer and at the end of that thing the job turned out well other than it
had a little bit of a fading issue in the carpet that the school ended up accepting but at the end of the day I
really felt like I was a full I thought I was the the man I had installed all
that carpet I'd only been doing it six months I thought yeah so I get put on a
I will not mention the client because they are actually still they are a client of mine now uh as my own company
at Stuart and Associates but um I went to do a very large Gathering Room like a
big conference room at a manufacturer's
place I had I thought you double cut everything baby I thought that's that's
how this thought that's how carpet was installed and uh it was a almost a solid
black heavy big textured Loop and um
yeah so the the installer That was supposed to be with me there got sick and and my
boss was like you got it no no no direction again this is
these are horror stories for a reason so never anybody listening don't think you're an installer after five six
months of of learning how to double cut and that's your only experience so I go
in here and lay the entire job and it was probably 6 or 700 yard room and I
double cut every seam it looked fantastic I thought as soon as I was
done with it and I walk away you come back and everything like everything
mushroomed it was um it was the worst looking seams you
could imagine uh the the thickness the other part was the
the first carpet I had installed was a really tight Loop and um you know when
you double cut that it stayed together everything stayed tight seam sealed it it looked good this the seam I mean it
it mushroomed and there was seam seal everywhere it looked good until it dried
up I I don't I cannot tell you um how
terrible it was but at the end of the day I double cut every single one of them damn seams and it should have been
row row butt um and it mushrooms so bad that you could see the
backing on every seam and I thought I seem sealed enough I had no
idea and you just can't double cut a carpet like that so told my CFI guys out
there you know uh there's different ways of cutting seams and and uh you probably
learn that in R1 but uh because I was never trained I thought that's how you did every single thing I thought you
just overlapped cut it some of it I was cutting with my knife uh but that that glass cutter got
some work on that project as well there was there was a project that we were
doing nights and they we were doing a bunch of uh Jenny Craigs oh like when
they were a thing and we were doing some and there was another crew that was
doing some same company right and we we were doing ours and they
were like why is it taking you guys so much longer to do yours and they're knocking theirs out so one time we had
to go visit one of their job sites and what they're doing is that what you said they're just boom boom double cut and go
and it was a half inch pattern and it was not good carpet yeah oh man yeah so
yeah lesson learned there I ended up uh getting uh demoted to help her again uh
which I should have never been promoted but um and by the way my promotion did not
bring any extra money so nor did the demotion but they decided probably don't
let me go at my own accord because what it's a bad recipe to put a guy like me
that'll just go at things like he's killing snakes and thinks he knows something I'm gonna go after it and I
did completely uh had to replace every
square inch of that carpet and I glued it down like this was still solvent-based adhesive so uh it was a
nightmare to get up that well you've done a a tear up on new carpet I'm sure
uh at some point this is brand new and stuff the the we had to wait on another
I don't know two weeks to tear it up because they were going to have some events in there and they they were like
we got to have these events so you have to come back over the weekend we had six
guys in there glue was everywhere I'm not sure which was more of a nightmare actually the tear up or
the day after I installed it and I thought I had knocked it out of the park you know uh or a few days after it was
installed so that's my very very first and that
didn't take long I mean that was six months after I start after I
started started six eight months after I started flooring some trusted you after six months I tell you what yeah yeah
that's what happens without the proper training so and like you said I think we've all
been there where you go in and you're like looks great and then someone else
walks in there and it's like what did you do like yeah and I
I I thought when my boss said like it was totally up and then I messed up the
whole job I thought maybe it just needs tractored to
a Brian this guy that taught me I mean maybe it just needs some extra tractor and well it needed a heck of a lot more
than that I'll tell you that get a yarn stuck in the wheel in the it was
yeah so that's my very first uh carpet story but I I got one for sheet vinyl I
was doing a assisted living and this was kind of before moisture it
was right about the time all all the moisture problems really started coming up like I don't think as an industry we
really knew I was probably three four or five years in at this point and I don't
know that the industry really knew uh they certainly hadn't gotten the
chemistry down on the water-based adhesives yet um but also moisture
testing was not like done on every job it wasn't as big of a a a a requirement
I guess it just didn't seem like it was that big a deal now that could be because I was a still a newbie at five
years or whatever I was still pretty new in the industry uh but also our our company that I worked for at the time
they just didn't care about that kind of thing anyway come to find
out we we installed all this sheet vinyl and all the first floor sheet
vinyl the contractor calls me I had started my company by this point by the way so it was my client and um client
calls and says there's something really wrong there's all these lines and
like all this stuff it's like the adhesive is mushing or something
so we get out there I go look at it and it wasn't horrific quite
yet uh so I told him well you know it'll dry out I had no idea
obviously it didn't dry out by the time we went back H he calls and he says hey
it's kind of leveled out but it seems like it's just floating we get out there and you could
literally slap the V and kind of see the water move
underneath it we cut it open and it's just a flood of water coming through it
was the worst still today probably the worst moisture issue that we've that I've ever
experienced um back then you kind of got away with a lot we the owner ended up paying for it
or the GC did accept their responsibility for the the um you know
slab being wet it was a new construction project um but and they had some
irrigation issues that was adding water but come to find out it was kind of under the water table so there was a lot
of problems that you know kind of pointed it that way that was it was the
uh gc's uh responsibility but we never moisture tested it
and at the end of the day it every square inch of it had to be torn up we
didn't do mitigation at the time they there was just a few companies that was doing that at that point and there was
only a couple of products that you could use I mean we're talking early
2000s and uh so it come we tore all the vinyl up dry sucked all the water up and
when I tell you water it had completely emulsified the adhesive 100% it it was
like just colored water under there so we got it all up that vacuumed uh
vacuumed up all the water then they came in and blasted did
mitigation and uh leveled it and then we came back in and laid vinyl again but
lesson there is moisture test yeah one moisture test with that type of slab
would have been it would have been clear as day that uh there's a problem long
ahead of having to go through that so from
a from a uh expense standpoint that's probably
one of the highest I have some others um but that's probably one of the highest
and I have a more recent one that I'll share in a moment but I don't want to Ste all the fun I know I don't know
where Daniel it it's on you guys now it's uh the ping pong has been hit back to you I
got for you and it's similar you're reminding me of it actually is uh we were working out at a hospital out in
Carson City doing um a basement and uh it had a bunch of borders and patterns
that you know that that swooped and switched down the corridor dude it looked pristine it was it took you know
a lot of a lot of layout a lot lot of artistry a lot of hard work and concentration making templates so that
way I can duplicate patterns uh and then you know a week later get a phone call you know this is after we're
done get a phone call it's like there's some weird things that are on the vinyl we don't know how to get them off it
looks like looks like somebody was writing on the vinyl how do you get stains off so we go there take a look at
it and look down and sure enough it's uh we wrote the the drop lengths on the
back of the vinyl right so because of plants and Sizer migration everything
went through so was all backwards numbers and writing and and it was red and it was black um not only that is
there was no moisture test done this was a old slab old building so we had high moisture content hydrostatic pressure on
top of that so the first thing they noticed was our marker the second thing they noticed when we started pulling it
back was the high moisture um and then the the the pressure and then the GC actually took
accountability for that one as well we did not do a moisture test test we did not do this we did not do that they
never so when that job when it rained the vinyl would swell up that's Y and
then once the rain stopped and then it dried out it would lay back flat like nothing had ever happened and and that
was that was when when we came to the conclusion you know and as far as uh um having the knowledge
that I have now I didn't have it back then but I remember talking to the GC and just asking a series of questions
and that did come out and I was like and I go look outside and I'm like
yeah we're actually running downhill and so what I said man this I I know that we
wrote out it with Margaret but I don't think it's my fault that this is failing like that so uh that was quick note on
that for all your sheet vinyl guys that maybe not know you you probably do but
um marker or things like that you put it on the don't don't put it on the back your
vinyl for sure but don't also don't Mark your concrete with Sharpie uh make sure you're looking for
marker for any resilient is our new rule yeah we if we only thing in our pouches
and on our person is a pencil whatever we're doing resilient there's no if ants butts I don't even like to use the the
colored pencils Like Home Depot because I just don't want to risk it right like
yeah just don't want to risk it and uh another idea another thing that that
brings up is uh I remember a job that had uh this purple blotchiness
underneath the vinyl in every room we did a bunch of patient rooms and under
the under the cabinet the it was a ada8
cabinet so underneath there in every single room there was some level of like
this blotchy kind of stain and I was like I don't know what's going going on you
guys had to have dropped something on it what it ended up being is the
plumbers purple um primer had dripped down on
every one of them rooms where he was I guess he was just right there doing it
gets on the concrete I had no we had no idea that that would go through through
the patch through the top through the vinyl and just not it was like it was a
picture taken that's how clear it ended up being once that stain worked all the way
through yeah and we we're finding that a lot with uh cutback adhesive right
because they're like we'll just go in there and throw some patch on throw the
vinyl and in one of the hospitals that we've been doing work in it's all bleeding up and it just it's puddles
right where it's super thick and that'd be the first areas that come and then it it's like looks like pools everywhere
and on uh during coid we were doing a brand new hospital and they
were self- leveled everything and then they were going in and doing some
ceiling work setting stuff up for um like the MRI machines and stuff that were going
in and they did their layout on the ground in
marker and there we had rubber going in a white
rubber and I went the and I'm like come and look at this he was like I told them
not to use marker like this is one of the gc's that will will contact us and they know how
particular resilient is so they're like what needs to happen what can't we do and they base
their I think I don't I forget what they call it but like their handbook that they have for their employees and
contractors they'll come to us and say hey can you review this and let us know what what needs to be changed what can
we do what can't we do so that's one of their rules is on their job sites they tell people no marking on the floor with
markers yeah yeah somebody else did the self- level right yeah yeah so we didn't see it until it bled through um will
bleed I I I'm not sure how far that stuff will bleed but I bet our our skim
on those rooms now this is a different chemical obviously but that primer came
through a good three coat skim coat probably a 16th of an inch thick or maybe maybe
even closer to an eighth inch and it went all the way through that and all the way through the
vinyl you know what sucks too is like when when we were learning to encapsulate things like that like like
the cutback go if the patch wasn't approved we'd prime it and then and then prep over the primer it was still
finding a way through so now some some markers too now we just grind we got to grind all this and one of the biggest we
used to use um clear spray to spray our lines down and stuff I thought that was
the best idea and then we went through like the foro class and they're like that's a foreign material on your floor
now that's is it doing you any good it's a bond breaker like it's only as good as
what you just sprayed on there now and he's talking about we used hairspray forever that's yeah so that's expensive
too but we use the uh the inverted marking spray just to clear one is what I used saw somebody using it I was like
oh that's clear yeah so my marks don't disappear sweet go buy a case great
idea yeah it was for a minute we we did it all the time DCT I still try and come
in pretty soon I think he has some stories too and then uh Dave Garden was
wondering how long you were an installer on your last story on your sheet viny
story okay uh well was about five years in and I had been doing vinyl for
probably a year and I think that's the misconception too in our industry is
people are like oh you've been doing it for five years you should already know which in some cases yeah but in other
cases it's like you're working with a new material it's like if I go to a job and
I'm doing ceramic I'm not going to know 100% of everything just like I do on uh
like resilient but I would ask questions to someone that does know what they're
doing before I go and do something yeah I think that's probably the biggest thing that changed for me was uh I quit
being so damn egotistical and started asking questions when I two after a few
failures I started learning like I need to ask someone who actually knows if I don't and realize that I probably don't
know it wasn't until years in that I became what I would say pretty dog on
good sheet vinyl installer um carpet installer that kind of stuff
but that was after training and and plenty of experience and again I worked
for a company that it it was just like well he he did this
job once send him out there he'll do it all right he'll figure it out and
uh so needless to say we went through quite the
um quite the large amount of the hard lessons not not the lessons you learn
when you go to a good you know flooring installation course the kind that cost you money yeah right that that's how I
learned how to do flash cove myself was he ended up quitting and then we had an
entire new medical building with a bunch of Flash Cove and they were like oh you worked
with Jose so you're on this project now you must know how to do it since you guys are related you must you'll do fine
and and that's I mean I pretty much had to teach myself but it that's what I did I did this was what year was it at this
point 2005 yeah yeah I was probably 26 so you
were 20 so yeah I would say maybe 2006 2007 something like that and it's like
all right I did a bunch of reading there was no Facebook groups and stuff like we have now and
it's as far as I know it turned out fine but I definitely didn't do it right I can tell you
that well that's that's the uh that's another tricky thing is
like sometimes you can do it wrong and it as it looks good and somehow it works out yeah well and and then you do you do
it wrong and then that it's those times that it comes back to bite you you know
what I mean that's subjective too right like if you don't know you're doing it wrong then then it must be right it
looks right yeah dude I had no clue on either one of the two I mentioned
especially the carpet I had no clue that I didn't know how to run a row what are you talking about running a row
like to me you over I thought you cut off a little bit of Salvage measure over
make sure you got two inches run this magical cutter down this carpet and you
got a good seam you know that was just how I thought the the whole industry worked that's the need for for uh you
know proper training yeah education period you're right yeah so I got one more and this isn't
necessarily just a uh install error but maybe a little lesson on what not to do
on the back side of it so we did uh a multi-level uh apartment building
basically and it was on a it had a uh you know
sound sound barrier underlayment under the lvt and we installed both products and
it looked great and then they had a few floods uh the windows
leaked and um so obviously like most of the floor
just came up it just problem they filed you know whatever the
GC told us to find what's you know replace the bad stuff so we went in tore
up and I was not installing at the time uh by this time we had other installers
but they the manager on the job told our installers just take up what's what's uh
what's bad what's floating or what's not stuck and then pull it up and replace
it replace that and then few weeks later more of it
comes up few weeks later more of it comes up few weeks later more of it few
weeks later the stuff we replaced was coming up the lesson here
is the moisture had gotten into the building into nooks and crannies and I'm
talking a flood I'm talking real bad rain event that you know was Major water
event um stop make your GC identify the problem and direct you
on what to replace and make sure that's in writing that's been a ma that was a
major problem it's been nothing but a headache it took forever to get anywhere
on resolution and although that's not my
install error it and it wasn't really an install error except for an a error in
judgment and you know replacing just going in taking and we left the this is
probably a problem uh but left the underlayment that was that had gotten wet and installed right back over it so
there there was there was now that was by direction of the GC as well but my
point here is you have to stop and make make them tell you exact what to do and
then what to replace or what to what what needs fixed and then you uh can
follow that up with uh you know your your plan of action and writing better
yet tell them to do all the demo and you come back moisture test and provide
moisture testing results and then if ready install but that was probably the
most expensive uh problem that we've ever had
and it was an error in judgment like we should not have been we're not building envelope experts my manager at the time
was a ex tie salesman you know that I turned into a flooring guy like these
you can't expect even if he was a professional flooring installer he's not a building envelope expert he doesn't
know the the migration of water through an entire building uh we can understand
a little bit of it has it works through a slab but not a multi-level concrete
building right and I think that's the like what you're talking about when
you don't know compared to when it happens when you do know it's kind of different right because you're like hey
I'm gonna go over here and just do whatever I think needs to be done when you do know what's going on that's when
you there was another hos a hospital project the
main the main main uh pipe for the water
feed had a a solder that failed and it was we already installed some of it we
already installed the hallway and we were going into the rooms they had we had a bladder layer the concrete had
barrier one in it so it's not going to go into the concrete right but that blot
layer and it's like there was probably 50 people pushing brooms of
water to whatever drains we could find in the showers and stuff like that and
there was so much water in there the GC pretty much came up to me and he says what do we have to do from here I think
that's kind of the level that you're you're looking for right you're let me make some phone calls let me see what
this prep manufacturer says let me see what the flooring man manufacturer says and then we'll go from there and it's
like you know that's what I did I made the calls they said this is what you have to do I made them put a
dehumidifier in every single room and I think they had three in the hallway the hallway was probably only like 50 foot
long so I mean and it was running for a week before I Ste foot back in there and
then you have to start doing some destructive tests I'm like I got to start pulling up tiles and seeing what we're dealing with
underneath and Luckily everything that you know I told them to do they did and
and everything actually turned out really good water was everywhere it
survived it's right wow it it was Nora though it's a wet adhesive and when you
go through the class they'll basically tell you you install it right do
whatever you want with water it's going to be fine right and that's exactly it like I was struggling pulling up the
pieces that were flooded still so oh I think um or we have preferred flooring
Tik Tock video of water just pouring into one of the job sites yes and they told me it anywhere but it was already
up and people were liking it so I had to leave it up I did like any logos that were
anywhere are not visible yeah it was uh they said hey it flooded did you see
the video what video oh my good like that's for real like right now yeah
so did did did did you have to replace any of it or did it all most of it I
didn't have to replace any of it the entire blad layer dried out with the dehumidifiers and we
were good to go yeah this would be was that a one- story
situation yeah this luckily this happened on the main floor and not the
second floor because we we did the second floor and moved on to the main floor yeah so a lot of the uh on the previous
job I was just talking about the they couldn't believe that moisture would
stay in the concrete you know afterwards levels you know right several
floors above the I was like yeah you know moisture actually travel up columns and stuff guys I mean we've tested
concrete slabs elevated concrete slabs and at the column lines
you'll get you can get a spike in moisture we've seen it plenty of times so yeah anyway good old moisture stories
well that I think that's the misconception is people think that moisture is just water but they don't take into consideration that there's
Vapor coming out of the earth 100% of the time yeah all day every day yeah
well I was gonna pull up some some good old uh Facebook because I I see on
Facebook's uh you know the different room all these disaster stories but
um decided that wasn't probably the I I didn't want to like have anybody called
out but I seen a lot of like emulsified adhesives and things like that as I was
going through so moisture is like still one of those biggest items you got to pay attention to being more educated
today than I ever was uh when I installed about moisture um you know
understanding the adhesives um you know you almost have to be part chemist in
flooring anymore and understand what does what and how to prep correctly and which type of patch to use in this
situation with this adhesive and so study up know what you're installing uh
that's your first defense and make sure you're trained make sure you're you've got the
education uh that goes along with your experience it'll make you really good um
I sure wish I would have I would say don't be afraid to ask your reps your Tech Reps for um a little bit of Adesa
of some prep material so you can test it out yourself um you know because you might not like it you know you might
someone might send something that you're not familiar with and and you right away you don't like it because of the way it
you is calling for you to mix it or how to use it so you just dismiss it you
don't pay attention to the details after that you're like oh this is crappy anyway we had a tech right in here was in here last week M maybe it wasn't the
tech rep maybe it was the sales rep but he was like I'm going to leave these uh this is our our new skim Co I want you
guys to test it out and I was like oh yeah we got some carpet coming up and he just looks at us and he's like we always
test underneath carpet we do not test under resilient under resilient it's we're using what's what is good what we
know is going to um you know what's funny maybe think about this nightmare
on a project it was a multi-level building when you said that and we were doing electrical closets in rubber tile
and I remember we started on the the lower level and all of these uh electrical closets were were lined up
all the way up right because the conduit came up through the penetrations and I remember telling uh the gentleman that
that was with us to make sure that he used like expandable foam and taped everything off so when we self- leveled
it wasn't going down he said he did I mean he took a lot of time and I just remember that phone
call like all it takes is dude we have we have to get here and clean all this up and sure enough all that self-
leveler that was a low spot and everything went that way from like the third or fourth floor down all the
conduit that was finished painted on the electrical box in the boxes on the back of the box all the way down to the
basement and I'll just never I'll just never forget that I had the same exact
thing happen at a hospital we have uh we do a lot of work in and they now have a
rule no self- leveler none you can't drag
it do whatever else you have to do but you cannot use self leveler they had it
happen multiple other times but it takes the smallest a hole Yeah
and they they fire cocked everything thought they had everything we figured
fire coocking is supposed to stop everything fire and smoke and so it's surely going to stop water well you're
assuming that guy did did a perfect job and we started self-leveling this wasn't
that long ago maybe three four years ago and it went down sad to say into the
Peds pediatric ICU area luckily the main room that it got like really bad in was
a uh unoccupied room but it was um quite
the lesson like you might as well I'm scared I'm fearful after that one to
poor self-level are on elevated slabs you know what you just never know especially remodels where you know
there's an old hole they fill it with concrete well it just doesn't take anything that stuff is so
loose I mean you do I'm sure most people on here have done self- leveler as far
as like even the audience you know you know how self- leveler is yeah and it's so loose that it went it'll go down
floors on Floors if you're not careful like yours said he had go down An Elevator Shaft oh oh
godam that's you know um that's worthy of a Halloween story right there gez you
want to know what's the real nightmare is when you do a project for another flooring company and every no one did
moist your testing even though it says their contract says you need to do it this contract says we're not going to do
it it's on you and us the installer go in and your friend that you know comes and does the inspection on the failure
that's a nightmare State yeah and that was recent a couple years ago couple years ago yeah
and it's like we did what we were supposed to do and it's was like well I can't can't
really say anything bad about you but high moisture content Brothers
like actually I think that test came out um because they didn't have the HVAC on
like they said it oh was that what it was yeah yeah and you know what else on moisture testing make sure you're logging it if you're a if if you're
doing it and you're an installer doing it for a shop or whatever the scenario log it like take if you're doing RH take
pictures like timestamp that stuff one of the first questions you're going to get asked on a failure is did you
moisture test especially if it's sheet final and so we're doing a bunch of that would be a good A good episode right
there yeah because we're doing we have to go do moisture testing starting tomorrow and we're on a project with a
bunch of lvt and I contacted him a couple weeks ago said you guys need to get the moisture testing done because I
need to know the readings to make sure we're good he said don't need to it's brand new it's a brand new conrete you
don't need to I said no and I sent them the document right from the manufacturer it says moisture testing is required on
all resilient Floor Covering projects and then and Shaw is really
good about this too because right in the document it also States in there the installer is not responsible to moisture
test but we are responsible to get the results and he I sent him that and he still came
back with it's new concrete no Christ's on the the project I said hey ask them
tell them that we need the results they didn't get them and it's like okay I can we can test it right
we're certified so let's try and go that route and they agreed so we're going to start
tomorrow which just sucks because it pushes us back a couple days but I mean it's it's got to get get done well good
on you for making sure it happens because that there's nothing worse than getting asked for your results in a
moisture problem well that's where you don't have them or you you says that we
learn from our own mistakes and there's been a time or two where where sha right
in there where Shaw says we're not responsible for the test but we're responsible to get the results and you
learn from oh I didn't ask you for results and now it's failing so
my bad but that that's where you learn yeah well I I could keep going for
but I don't want to uh you know just talk about the bad stuff what I do want to talk about is the lessons of all this
is understanding that ask questions is the biggest lesson
I learned early on if you're installing we we've got a guy that's been in installing maybe for two to three years
and he's one of those Naturals that kind of picked it up really well uh in the ceramic tole world and he's wanting to
go out and be a sub he's only been doing it for like two or three years two
years so you just don't know what you don't know so I encourage every
younger in the industry kind of guy is or you know ask the questions understand
your limitations understand you haven't been taught everything at two years and you you have scenarios you're going to
run up against so if you're going to go out there you better um be willing to
you know swallow the ego and ask questions because that that was my problem and it cost me a lot of pain I
mean I I messed some stuff up when I first started installing so obviously we preach it all the time
on this channel about getting properly trained on the flooring products and
making sure that you're you have enough experience to even get trained there's plenty of times when uh you know an
advanced training is not appropriate because you just don't know what you don't know I I use schlutter you know um
their um two-day shower Workshop it's not hard have you guys been to that no
have you ever okay so it's it's not hard or anything but the the the thing is is if you haven't
learned Reg like installation of ceramic tile thin
set the ba the most basic if you if you have not learned that you have no right doing a shower anyway you know and so
that that training um in particular is is to me somebody who's been doing it a
while the key that I'm trying to or the point that I'm trying to make is ask questions make sure you're seeking out
training and you're seeking out the opportunities to get better um lean on people in the industry that
have learned the lessons maybe the hard way and listen and um that'll help a lot
as even like right now Kendall is asking uh what is the best self-leveling product that's that's a relative
question what do you guys what what is like what is your guys's
top our most common is mape ultra plan easy that's our most commonly used
product uh I would say one of the freaking most
awesome products from a uh result standpoint is uzin they got a we did a
big Home Depot that had to be uh mitigated and self- leveled and I tell
you what I took pictures when it was wet and it literally looked like a mirror
and then when it dried it was absolutely perfect we installed nor Rubber and
rubber tile over it and when it was done the job looked freaking fantastic and I
was really really impressed with Us's product so that you know if we have
plenty of time we'll use Nova plan but we've used Shero depending on the
scenario that you're in and that's why it's kind of relative it's like what is
what is the use case and which which one of them fit best to your use case but
our day in day out because typically you just don't have time to wait 24 48 hours
for it to dry uh is ultra plan easy okay and with us our our go-to is
uin our go-to is uin but like you said what what are what are you going over
what what's the use going to be because there's sometimes when I call our rep and I'm like hey this is the what's
going on and he's like yeah none of our products so then sherox has a lot of really cool use
use case products so to answer his question they they they've got we did a
big uh Ballroom where they wanted to expose concrete so we ended up putting
an acrylic sealer over AP and and it was
this was a multi- uh product substrate so some of it was
like a lightweight concrete some of it was just old 50-year concrete some of it
was just poured six months ago some of it was like it was a hodgepodge of a it
was like a quill of a of a substrate nobody else wanted to touch
it from a adherence standpoint even and not just that you know you may have
crack lines come through any of that you know that is a possibility no matter what product you use if there's movement
this was just like there was no other product to go over it and and Sher Knox there that AP was with I forget what
primer we used SHP maybe yeah and dude I
was in there not this done we did this probably four years ago I was in there few months back and it's still looks
like it still looks great Kevin's on what's up Kevin the uh it the the
product itself like I remember like Daniel saying you have the certain scenarios but whenever we we're like we
have a we don't what to what to use we do call sherocks hey this is the
scenario send me pictures send me information let's see what we can figure out um but I mean any any manufacturer
is GNA have a good system it's just following that system like we're we're ARX certified ARX makes great products I
mean you think about feather finish in general that's the name that comes to
mind right I mean was a Pioneer in the in the um under layman space as far as
I'm concerned everyone's trying to replicate what they had they were definitely the The Godfather of good
good floor you know I would say their feather finish
was the staple of the entire industry and probably still is for the most part
feather finish uh K15 and sdp I mean those were what I was introduced with
that's what I use a lot of and yeah so every product's going to have a a good every manufacturer has a
really you know good product line it's just not all of them are you just can't
use one and say I'm G use this for everything so yeah I hope that provided
between what you guys just said and all that provided some clarity there but and
speaking about like horror stories and stuff the best case the best thing you can do in any on
any project is document everything yeah take pictures of everything I had we
This was um Hospital project and someone else self-
leveled and like we were working upstairs someone was self-leveling downstairs but we were going to do the
install and I went down there and I'm looking at it and you can see it just going into
these joints right and I I thought they were cut joints and I go to the GC and
I'm like hey this ain't right oh yeah 100% they're only an inch and a half deep I said no those are not an inch and
a half deep I guarantee it so I'm taking pictures of everything I go back the
next day and everything is looks great except for at that joint and it's still
dark and you can imagine you know you put a napkin and you dip it in water and you can see the moisture you know Start
Spreading and that's what's happening it's up the joint and then it's going out like four or five inches it's like a
wick yeah and it's like all right I'm going to take more pictures and then the next day same thing and I I go to them
and I'm like uh this is going to fail and they're like no it's not they're an inch and a half deep I guarantee it so
fast forward we it had it took over a week to
fully cure all the way through to where I was comfortable right and it's like
all right we install everything and then fast forward I don't know like six eight months later something like that not not
almost a year it was almost a year and it was the first St from the
winners so we we go back and we get a because we get a phone call and they're
like there's bubbles in the flooring so I inspect I take it up and sure enough
moisture so it it kept on happening and I'm like guys I told you these were not
cut joints and so they overlaid their Co C pores from the different pores that
they did onto where things were happening and sure enough every failure was at a cold
joint and I'm like like I'm gonna fix it this time but I'm not going to fix it
anymore like things happen
documentation and I'm not just saying like from a project manager or company
standpoint like installers protect yourselves like take pictures log them
put them in a file uh if you if you're go career installer throw it in the chat
with your company whoever you're doing the work order for and show them that you have documented a lot of times
sharing that documentation and people knowing you're documenting that well will get them off of the off of their
their seat to to actually do something about it so and sometimes that's writing
down someone's name a meaningful conversation you have with someone who represents the company or the location
you're working at right down right so that way you can well who did you talk to uh that one that one talk to James at
252 on October 15th and and it's not always about if something's going to
fail it's about protecting yourself with getting paid too because I've had plenty of times where they're
like like why are you charging us so much for all this prep and then I send them back pictures this is the material
this is where we pre this is how we were primed and you know and stuff like that and on some of these projects they were
I go back and and I'm talking to them and they're like I'm like uh is the documentation good enough and they're
like I can't believe you have all this documented like it goes a long way the more they
know too the more that they they kind of listen so and something that just protected us recently was uh pictures of
the pro progress pictures that we required the cruise and they got pictures of uh stuff that was hanging
from the ceilings that was intact when we were done and walked out and I got a phone call after the project was done
saying that we broke a couple things all right well let's take a look I showed him the pictures like look it's still
hanging it's still intact in my picture This Is Us walking out oh must have been someone
else this topic needs a few shows agreed I mean we're at we're at
the end of the hour and we've shared a few uh you know I do want to make one quick comment that's pretty funny that
you know how we we floring guys say we're blamed for everything now you're blamed for ceiling stuff for stuff on
the ceiling this is not the first time the the other time was at a school and
there the there's a light fixture like 20 foot up and he's like you guys got patch on this light fixture up there so
he he mixed them really wet patch like going like this with the mixer and then
took the bucket and dropped it and it just went and I said said show me how show me like tell tell like and I was
doing it to be an a-hole I was doing it to be an a-hole I'm not even Ling I'm not joking like you're gonna blame me for that let's let's go through the
scenario and I did man I was and I was really messy with it maybe your guys got
got the uh got the mud got a mud wrestling match
going all right well you guys just froze up on me I don't know if you can hear me oh there you are oh there we go sweet
all right well we've come to the end of this episode guys appreciate you sharing some of the
stories uh it's always you know fitting here you know you talk about Halloween
and scary stories imploring we worry about this stuff um at least I do uh
when you're when you you just don't know what can go wrong we got a multi you
know we're dealing with concrete we're dealing with so many different uh aspects when you put flooring down so
again get trained talk to people get plugged into you know experts in the
industry and uh you know you'll you'll lower your risk like we make way less
failures today than I most of my stories are from the early days and there's a reason for that so as you get experience
and you get trained and uh you know invest in your your business your
company yourself uh you lower that risk so and document document document yeah
says no I need more of the Huddle I think I think one of the biggest things with this topic is being open to share
your failures because a lot of people are like I'm never going to tell anyone about this like I don't want anyone to
know but it's like man we were all brand new ones we all had to go through it like the more we share our failures with
everyone the less likely anyone else is to repeat them yep well that's the uh
that's the goal so all right gentlemen until next week we'll let you go and
good talking with you guys Happy Halloween everyone happy Halloween go get some candy we're not going out it's
too cold down here I don't know what it is up there but we're sub30 degrees I'm like 34 and snowing and the kids are I
said we're gonna hit five houses real quick and then I'll buy you candy good plan all right gentlemen
we'll chat with you guys later uh I need to have a tagline to exit our podcast
I'm always like all right we'll see you bye all right see you next week tagline
we'll get it we'll get it all right see you make your suggestions in our in the comment section we we may adopt
yours all right see you guys see you take it easy thanks
everyone