Installation Preparing for the Unexpected – Part 2
The day has finally come to have your new flooring installed. After weeks or even months of planning, shopping, painting, and remodeling, you know that the flooring means it’s almost over. Hang a picture, arrange the furniture, and pop the cork. It’s time to enjoy the fruits of you labor! But wait…………………………….!
Lots of unexpected things can and do sometimes rear their ugly heads.
Our goal is to make you aware of them so you’ll be more in a position to roll with it rather than be shock by it. Below are some of the more common things we run into that will cause a delay.
- The material we ordered arrived with a defect; it’s short, or is the wrong color.
- Weather played a roll in the material not arriving to us on time or the installers couldn’t get to your home.
- Humidity is higher than expected and the adhesives and or finishing coats are taking longer to dry.
- The installers encountered unforeseen problems with the installation on the schedule prior to yours. I’m sure you wouldn’t want the installers to leave you job half done to go to the next scheduled appointment?
- We can’t finish on the day we had planned. See above.
- We ran short of material. We walk a fine line here. We order quantities we feel sufficient to complete the job correctly and leave you with a reasonable amount of material should a future repair be necessary. There is industry standards used to calculate waste along with some common sense. We also need to order hard surface items by the full carton. So sometimes there is an unusual amount of waste and we’re short, and sometimes it’s the opposite and you end up with more left over than you need and it can’t be returned. Let us know at the time of order whether it’s more important to you to have the project completed on time or not to spend 10 cents more than you have to on materials.
- We don’t have the correct doorway transitions and have to come back. Almost every home has existing flooring installed when we’re there to take measurements. It’s very difficult to determine the type of transition needed 100% of the time. We never want to start tearing up your existing flooring during the initial measure incase something arises and you end up leaving the current flooring. No manufacturer will take back trim pieces, so bear with us as we don’t want to order 1 of each just because.
- There’s a problem with the subfloor. Again, we can only see so much when the subfloor is covered with existing flooring. There may be rotted plywood, a significant hump or dip, or anything that would void the manufacturer’s warranty if it weren’t corrected. Dalene’s will not install a product in your home in anyway that would void the warranty. If we encounter such a situation, we will discuss with you the remedies, the cost for us to fix it, and the opportunity for you to make the repairs yourself.
May I suggest this to those that hate surprises, especially when the surprise can cost a lot of money, have the replacement flooring removed prior to installation. This way, if you plan on purchasing laminate flooring to replace the worn out carpet in the basement playroom, you’ll know ahead of time that it will cost X amount to get the concrete flat enough to accept the laminate. You may decide at that point to just re-carpet.
View Part 1 of Installation, Preparing for the Unexpected
