I was contacted last week by a main building contractor to go and look at a failing resin floor at a large commercial site that was laid early this year. The contractor made it obvious to me that the client was also a friend. On arrival to the site I was met by the client who showed me the areas of concern. Basically the floor was cracking every where and some remedial repairs had already been carried out. I tested the floor with a MMS and it was showing wet. The floor preparation was awful as the resin was undulating all over the place because the screed/smoothing compounds could have been applied better by my dog. I was unable to lift the resin as it was in a clean room environment and it would have cause contamination. Ok so you have got the gist that its a pretty poor installation in a nightmare environment. I told the client I would relay my findings to the contractor and he would be in touch with solutions. I contacted the main contractor and relayed my findings to him and basically told him the installers were at fault on several counts and had not followed procedure correctly. He immediately started to defend them and said its all they had to work with and all the client was prepared to pay for. With that I felt I was getting involved in something that was going to escalate and politely ended the call. How does this keep happening in our industry? I see it too often where we lose work to cheapest bidder and then when it goes wrong everyone makes do with a poor job and seems to accept it ??? Obviously I do not know the ins and outs of this contract and what disclaimers if any were in place as it did seem to be a job for the boys. The client has a major head ache that will end up costing them a lot more in the long run and a lengthy court case to reclaim cost. I some how expect at the end of all this the friendship will be no more also between the contractor and client.
does the installer have any certificates to back him up to show he knows what he is doing ? i would presume not. How do we fix the problem of cowboys? i dont know, unless contractors start asking for certificates of training and accreditaion certificates then we will always be stuck with cowboys. It anoys me that if you want a boiler fitting that we all know to get a 'gas safe' trained plumber and not a standard plumber. How do we get contractors to look for the right floor-layers?
Till it gets through to the general public, id imagine if carpet right adverts mentioned nvqs and in any adverts by karndean amtico quickstep etc they all mention use a nvq fitter then it might start to be asked for more, problem is latex blows dues to a poor fit under some karndean and its an inconvenience, if a dodgy plumber puts in a plumber and theres a carbon monosxide leak it could lead to a hospital visit or worse.
There's a few cowboys in our industry but thankfully not as many as others. Flooring is thankfully a trade that most multi trade types will leave to a pro( with the exception of carpet tile and laminate etc) a lot of fault lies with builders etc lost count of the number of jobs were your put off for a week or so because the jobs running behind and when you are let on there's still other trades in your area. More often than not you've still got to be done for the origanal completion date. So you have to work silly hours to get it done on time. Inevitably corners will get cut.
Something that european countries (not all) is have sign over papers. What they do is a contractor (a builder for example) will finish his part and then the next trade will arrive. The next trade will be given information on the job with specification etc of the concrete sub-floor including moisture test results as a example. The new trade has to sign over the plans and they then accept that they are happy with the results of the sub-floor moister test etc . The new trade is now accepting responability (this bit scares the cow boys off) . If the new trade is not happy with the results it gets referred to the first trade (builder) to rectify or for the next trade to rectify what ever issues there may be at a charge top the builder. There is no " i will stick it down but if it goes wrong its not my fault" All is documented. Once complete the home owner then signs off completion. What this does is document exactly what is going on and what is what through the process and who is responsable etc. . amazing what putting a signature to paper will do to make builders get things right the first time around.
Hi Matt You guessed it in one. What certificates ???? I remember John Roberts (NICF trainer) use to use that line about corgi plumbers. I agree but I also feel that many products have and are still sold through wholesale with little or no product knowledge what so ever. I remember the influx of solid wood 10+ years ago. The code of practice was in a shambles so it was a free for all basically to offload wood. Moisture meters where not considered like they are today, but I still see so many contractors and installers ignore the need for one. I have met many reps over the years and even boycotted wood reps if they did not carry a moisture meter/hygrometer. I did not get how someone could sell products with out knowing what the varying characteristics of moisture will do to a product and not being able to show me how the testing process worked. I take my hat off to companies who demonstrated the need for moisture test in the early years such as English Timbers as if it was not for them I would have been none the wiser until the 2001 code of practice for timber floors was developed, even so it was not really until 2006 that all the i's had been dotted properly that I found it effective across most contracts. Its ironic that the noise pollution BS was typically forefront back than in most tenders as architects where also on a new learning curve too, all of a sudden wood had become a science and not something you just bang a nail into. Thank fully with sustainable manufacturing companies these days knowledge is better distributed, but not always applied unfortunately. Hence we are going to still get these problems because there is always someone who likes a steal, cheap cheap wins etc. I have been put in awkward situations by main contractors because they have failed to do their homework, its not a nice place to be as its the difference to getting paid and walking off the job which takes guts but puts the responsibility right back where it should be if its all going to go Pete Tong.
