Poor construction practices and floor covering products don’t mix.

May 17th 2017

As a manufacturer of commercial flooring products, how do you ensure your product is properly installed and your precious brand is protected through the chaos of construction? How do you ensure your carefully written installation guidelines are read and followed? Do you employ tech reps to monitor the installation? Do you write your specs in bold and caps? Or do you just throw up your hands, hope for the best and include the cost of anticipated claims in your pricing?

Considering the time, energy, dollars and resources that are invested into producing flooring products, it seems strange that as an industry, we fall so often and so hard at the last fence… site preparation and product installation.

What’s the problem?

Because flooring is one of the last significant trades on site, it faces some unique challenges. By the time the floor contractor arrives on site, the budget is long spent, deadlines and penalty clauses are looming and to compound the scheduling issue, all other trades are booked off the job to accommodate the floor installation.

At this late stage, reasons for delaying are not what the general contractor wants to hear. Conversations about acclimation, moisture testing, heat and indoor environmental conditions either don’t take place or end in ‘just get the job done’.

What’s the solution?

The NFCA Quality Assurance Program (QAP) was created to address these issues so that if early installation of the floor coverings was chosen over ensuring a product warranty, the entire construction team would know about it and make the choice together. 

QAP ensures:

• An independent voice for product installation guidelines on site.
• A level bidding field and an experienced floor contracting firm is on the job.
• Trade and/or Product Qualified installers are on site.
• The construction team (and owner) will be alerted if site conditions don't meet manufacturers installation guidelines prior to installation.
• A reduction in claims because the product won’t be wrongly blamed for poor performance.

Without the Quality Assurance Program, nothing will change the General Contractor’s understandable motivation to install the flooring early to meet deadline.

An example of QAP making a difference

QAP was specified on the renovation of a commercial retail space, A 30 year old building, slab on grade sub-floor, requiring 20,000 square feet of new flooring.

Prior to the floor installation start date the owner’s representative phoned me to ask, “does NFCA really need my General Contractor to take twenty two moisture tests on a thirty year-old slab?”. My response… “do you want the manufacturers’ warranty?”. The owner replied ‘of course!’.

I said, “Then the manufacturers requires ASTM F-1869 testing be performed to prove the slab is dry prior to installation”.

The owner replied “Understood, we’ll get the tests done.”

That week the tests went ahead as per NFCA and manufacturers’ instructions. No corners cut because a third-party testing agency was hired by the General Contractor, per NFCA guide. Ten of the twenty two tests failed, proving the north side of the slab was wet from a groundwater source. To maintain the construction schedule the owner, trusting the situation, approved payment for a moisture barrier and the installation went ahead on time with warranty intact. This process potentially saved the owner thousands of dollars in future moisture related flooring issues.

There are numerous such examples of QAP preventing problems that otherwise would have led to floor failure of some kind: acclimation concerns, wrong adhesives, floor flatness issues, even rain pouring in through uninstalled windows onto a slab that was scheduled to receive sheet rubber flooring the next day.

Without a QA Inspector, the usual pressures influence the flooring contractors’ decision to install against better judgement. He/she wants to get paid, wants the project to go well, wants to build a good relationship with the general contractor and wants a shot at the next job. Delaying the project is not going get this wish list fulfilled.

There is no doubt that QAP works, all you have to do is talk to those who have used it and to other industries who have successfully operated their own QA Programs for years (such as paint and roofing). Meanwhile, NFCA is working to promote the message to the construction industry. This is how we will raise standards, effect change, reduce claims and leave clients with the flooring they expect.

www.nfca.ca

Testimonial - Fraser Health, Capital Projects, British Columbia reported that the Quality Assurance Program inspection service was ‘very beneficial’ during construction of the Hope Centre Hospital in North Vancouver and would recommend the service for future projects.