Page 4 - 2019-01-CFR Volume 124 - Truth or Consequences - Words Don't Make It So - January 2019

heaters is that propane produces 4 cubic feet of
water vapor for every cubic foot of gas it burns.
Natural gas produces 2 cubic feet of water vapor
for every cubic foot of gas it burns—see the prob-
lem? Instead of drying out and heating the space,
the propane heater is actually adding water vapor
to the mix. This means that the building and con-
crete will take much longer to dry out and the floor-
ing will take longer to acclimate and adjust to am-
bient moisture conditions before it can be installed.
The propane heaters will also add moisture to the
substrate and there may also be a residue emitted
that will contaminate the substrate. It is near im-
possible to burn propane without some contami-
nant.

One of the biggest causes of problems in the floor-
ing industry is peer pressure among manufacturers
to meet competition by making marketing claims
with no basis in fact because so and so is doing it.
Did you ever wonder where the limits for moisture
vapor emission rates came from that flooring man-
ufacturers tout? They have no scientists who de-
termine this stuff and maybe two manufacturers in
the industry even have the wherewithal to do any
testing themselves. So, it’s just a follow the other
guy thing. Everybody wants answers, but you can’t
just make stuff up to comply. The risk is worth the
reward for them because they don’t want to lose
the sale. They’ll then deny the claim until you
push hard enough to get them to act. The
squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I’ll leave you with this statement from a very recent
situation we’re involved in where the manufactur-
er’s claims analyst wrote a letter to the end user
saying, “We’ll extend the warranty to cover labor
for a full 7 years” and then, in the last paragraph of
the same letter they wrote, “we are not warranting
the installation or repair services of the flooring
contractor.” So, whose labor are you warranting
since you’re the manufacturer and you didn’t install
the flooring? That was done by the flooring con-
tractor, so I guess you’re not warranting the instal-
lation. Do you see how ridiculous these things
get?

We deal with the truth in all flooring matters but
that comes with someone first having suffered the
consequences. If you want to stay out of trouble
and avoid flooring failures contact us and be as-
sured you’ll stay out of trouble. And if you have a
flooring problem or failure, we are definitely the
guys you want to contact. We can tell you what
went wrong and why, who’s at fault and what has
to be done to fix the failure.

4 Commercial Flooring Report January 2019