Page 1 - 2017-03-CFR Volume 102 A DISTURBING ISSUE - IT'S YOUR FAULT March 2017

Volume 102—March 2017

Having problems with flooring jobs is nothing new. There’s always some
challenge with every project that almost always get resolved or is handled
effectively by all parties involved. Even when you think you’ve done every-
thing right something can go wrong. It happens and it’s not unusual.
What’s disturbing, and an issue that seems to be getting more common, is
when the manufacturer or their representative tells you what to use and
how to use it and even sends a rep or field technician out to insure you’re
doing things right and the job still goes wrong. Most disturbing is the
same person that oversaw what you were doing and told you it was right,
according to the manufacturer and their guidelines, walks away from any culpability afterwards. Let’s
look at some disturbing examples.

A flooring contractor who installed a floating click system for Luxury vinyl
plank used an acoustical underlayment supplied by the flooring manufactur-
er at their direction. The flooring was installed in several two story facilities.
Shortly after installation the underlayment expanded and lifted the LVP.
This occurred over a heat run that was in the ceiling of the first level. The
heat from the run was warming the wooden substrate of the second floor.
The underlayment over this area is where the expansion or growing of the
underlayment took place and when it expanded it lifted the LVP from one
end of the building to the other right where the heat run ran beneath it.
When the flooring contractor notified the manufacturer of this event he was
told he’d have to replace the underlayment on his own and that they had no
liability, what happened wasn’t their fault. Really? Aren’t you the people
who supplied and sold me this material and told me to use it? And now
you want to walk away like you never heard of me? OK. The correction in
this case is an expense of about $5,000.00 to pull up the floor, replace the
underlayment and reinstall the same LVP. No one could have foreseen the
influence of a heat run under the floor causing a reaction with the underlayment and certainly not the
reaction that the underlayment expanded like a dry sponge suddenly soaked with water.

1 Commercial Flooring Report March 2017