Prevent flooring disasters
By Don Procter
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you ….”
— Rudyard Kipling
When a floor fails in a new building, virtually every head in the project team turns to the flooring contractor for answers. Often blamed for problems that can cost 10 times as much to remedy as the original installation price, flooring contractors face bad raps for failures that aren’t always their fault, said John McGrath who led “Flooring Disaster: Prevention and Recovery,” a panel discussion at Toronto’s IIDEX Canada, held in December. Flooring contractors can’t be scapegoats, every time a floor fails, he said.
McGrath is director of the International Standards and Training Alliance (INSTALL). It’s the leading construction-industry-endorsed floorcovering installation and training certification program in North America. He told the seminar that due diligence has to start higher up the contractor chain.
The cause of flooring problems is often related to the condition of the substrate, said panelist Steve Zizek. He is a flooring instructor with the Resilient Floor Workers Training Trust Fund, Carpenters Local 27. Zizek said the substrate can be in poor shape long before the flooring contractor’s arrival on site.
General contractors and other subcontractors must understand that some of their activities can cause substrate problems for flooring installers, ranging from improperly leveled concrete floors to moisture intrusion in the slab. “It is the best insurance policy to protect everyone involved,” said McGrath.
Flooring contractors are one of the last trades on site — often facing a tight schedule and a substrate that is ill-prepared for flooring, said panel speaker Dave Furlano. He is owner of Centa Tile, a second-generation floorcovering company in business for more than 40 years. “Often we have issues of oil spillage on floors (typically oil from hydraulic lifts on site) and we’re told it is our problem,” Furlano said.
Oil stains are nearly impossible to clean and today’s flooring contains latex adhesives, which won’t adhere to petroleum products, Furlano said.
The solution? Sometimes the concrete slab has to be ground down and topped with a self-levelling concrete.
It can be “an added huge cost” that no flooring installer could see coming at the tendering stage, said Zizek.
Furlano said by getting involved early in the pre-construction process, flooring contractors can play an important role in mishap prevention. Hydraulic lifts, for example, can be equipped with oil-catching “diapers” to prevent spillage when operating on the slab.
Furlano advised flooring contractors to visit the site occasionally, even if they aren’t scheduled to start the job for months. They should review conditions, including floor level and finish.
While moisture in the substrate is a major problem, moisture measurement tests can be performed well in advance of the flooring installer’s arrival. Those tests should be the general contractor’s responsibility. Often, however, they are written into the flooring contractor’s specs, said Zizek.
According to Furlano, even when his firm performs moisture tests (for relative humidity and calcium chloride, for example), the installation can still be in danger if the vapour retarder is incorrectly used. Moisture can continue leaching up from beneath the slab — particularly on wet or swampy sites.
Zizek said while moisture remains a major culprit for flooring failures, today’s high-quality moisture mitigation products provide improved protection from moisture failure.
In Furlano’s contracting experience, one of the leading causes of flooring failure is maintenance crews that don’t familiarize themselves with the appropriate cleaning products and methods.
Maintenance comes under the product warranty and all leading manufacturers have detailed information on proper maintenance, said McGrath.
Don Procter is a media relations representative with Carpenters Local 27 in Toronto.