Happy Contractors make great projects

I was having a discussion recently with two colleagues I really like, Blair Edmiston and Kent Huffstutter. These two friends of mine have really great energy and enthusiasm for their respective professions and I believe it has a lot to do with their attitudes towards life, which Blair talks about here. One of the amazing virtues of a challenging economy for me has been that it flushes out the true optimistic John F Kennedy types. They're the people who say, "I am going to become this..." and start to work progressively towards that goal. They learn to open up to new techniques and tips that make their businesses and lives more efficient and consistently implement those things that work.

The great benefit I often observe of the contractors who refuse to participate in the negative hooplah is that serendipitously they actually end up raising their level of service because the extra positive boost that is needed to keep on track. The contractors who have an upbeat attitude are the guys who do the little extras after the job is done and send "Thank You" notes as appreciation. They are the guys who sweep AND vacuum the job because they want to leave a product and service with great value. They're the guys who show up on time and add back value to their customer's life by sharing a positive idea instead of grabbing the check and EXPECTING the next referral.

The emotional impact we all have on each other in the world of consumer/contractor has a lot more worth than just a bottom dollar in my opinion. Is it worth to harbor resentment over a final product just to save a few dollars? Sometimes the emotional bank account gets so drained for both parties that I consider it professional blasphemy when the lowest price becomes the number one point of value added service. So everyone cheer up, hire the contractors with a smile on their face and a deep list of happy clients for referrals. You'll be glad you did and you'll never look back.

Are you dealing with a jack of all trades or a specialist?

The other day I was in a discussion with a colleague about a new direction that a local wood flooring company is taking. They are a larger company and have a lot of employees that they need to keep working. Rather than let go of employees and focus on their specialty of wood floors, they are now doing remodels as well. This is interesting because it illustrates the phrase, "Jack of all trades, Master of None". They aren't a premium quality wood flooring company to begin with and with the added dimension of full service general contracting I really wonder how they will manage to maintain their quality in wood flooring.

As I understand it, a recession happens when the amount of available cash in circulation is reduced. It started to occur to me that during this time it is best to reduce your volume, increase your service, and specialize in a few specific facets of your trade. Passing more referrals in areas that are not your specialty allows more cash to circulate to other trades around you. This allows you to manage profitability much better in my opinion because you do what you do well and do that only. It improves your performance as a contractor and allows you to focus on service and quality.

The intent of this blog is to serve as an educational piece for those in any industry. If you are dealing with any professional who will always tell you they can do every part of your project, then I would really question their potential for quality. I have a favorite saying with which to end: "If you think you can enrich yourself by diluting others, you can only end by diluting yourself".

Product expectations and sustainability

I was out for a run this morning and I saw a jobsite/retaining wall that looked like a hurricane had come through. In fact, it appeared that maybe the retaining wall was started and maybe the contractor was asked to leave possibly. It made me really think about how many projects, products, or services are partially or fully completed and then torn out for one of many possible reasons. Was the job oversold and under-delivered? Was the contractor's experience not up to par with the requirements of the homeowner? I know few fellow contractors who would ante up for this one. Was there a good match of product performance with customer expectations?

Everyday I hear the words green and sustainable tossed around in an attempt to create customer buzz and sell a job. If the project was loaded with green and sustainable products, but had to be torn out and redone, this is in no way a sustainable process. I would urge readers of this blog who are contractors or retailers to consider that quality is a willingness to provide the best product and service ONE time for a price that provides a good living without compromising project fulfillment and product performance. In my eyes this is a vastly overlooked component of being a sustainable home services provider.

Experience, wisdom, and the whole nine yards

I began to think about what defines a quality contractor the other day and it led me to start thinking about how you define quality. I would say that quality is obtained when you determine exactly what the client wants in a product or service and afterwards you deliver the equivalent amount of service.

This is where wisdom and experience come in because without a combination of these two you really wouldn't be able to deliver quality. I often hear a lot of "experienced" "floor guys" talk about how long they have been in the business. You'll hear companies talk about how between the two or three owners they have over 40 years of experience. That's nice but if you never educate yourself as a contractor then you really only have one year of experience repeated 40 times.

True professionals are judged on multiple facets in my opinion. A professional is someone who is constantly seeking to improve their service by continuing education, adopting newer and more efficient tools and methods, and shares their knowledge with others for the good of the industry. Additionally I would suggest that a true professional wakes up everyday with a passion to do their job and has an empathy towards the vision of the homeowner and their expectation of service.

Well, well, well this leads us to a rarely mentioned word in the blue collar world called wisdom. Everytime you hear the word wise you probably think about some old man in a rocking chair with a head of grey hair talking about his experiences in life. I would say experience is a component of wisdom but not the whole enchilada. An acuity for the details of a process as related to your past experiences would somewhat make you wise in my book. The only caveat is that the person engaged in this process must be guided in a way so that their observation for detail is governed by honesty and genuine empathy for the customer.

I know this blog may seem somewhat esoteric, but when I look forward to every new day in becoming a more wise hardwood flooring professional I have to think about what rules I adhere to in aiming for continued success. If you find yourself a reader of this blog, then I would like for you to know more about the person behind the company than what I do for a living.

What's the value of hiring a professional?

For about a week or so around my home I had a broken faucet in the sink. The sprayer head had simply broken off and it was a little tricky to use but worked. Despite how busy I am I decided to do the task myself and save some money. Well, I must say that the end result was that the sink was fixed, but I almost messed the faucet up by doing the work because I am not a plumber, I am a hardwood professional.

It seems like a fine point, but not really. You see, for a period of time I kept stalling and managing to deal with a less than ideal faucet until I could make the time to fix it. The day that I did manage to fix the sink was quite an adventure. I came home in a rush and tried to install the sink. I sort of glazed over the directions and managed to put the sink in and it took two tries to do improperly. I rushed out the door for a networking event and returned at 8:30pm and tried one final time to fix the sink and was successful this time. Thank you to my wife for being the brains the third time around. During the removal of the faucet the second time I almost stripped the brass threads that connect the faucet to the sink. Through some frustrating moments I managed to get the sink installed after a third attempt. I love the sink.

You may ask why a hardwood floor guy is talking about plumbing and a sink. If I had actually realized what I REALLY should do and call my plumber friend and pay his company to install the new faucet I would have saved time and frustration. In addition I almost destroyed a $120 faucet due to my less than par plumbing knowledge. Sometimes there is a reason to call a qualified professional because they have the tools and knowledge to do things right the first time. I learned on this one and won't make the mistake again.

To salvage or not to salvage that is the question!

One of the latest rages in hardwood flooring materials is to use salvaged flooring materials. As you know we are all fans of the motto "reduce, reuse, recycle". The word reuse is in play with salvaged materials and there are some things to consider when you reuse material that was already an existing floor.

Most hardwood floors have approximately 6-10 sandings available depending on the type of material and the aggressiveness of the sanding. Less dense hardwood floors such as old growth fir may be closer to six available sandings whereas a more dense material such as Brazilian cherry may be able to be sanded up to 10 times.

Keep in mind that every wood floor is connected to a subfloor, which is connected to the foundation of a home. While homes settle and shift over the years the hardwood floor follows suit. After a few sandings and a number of years your wood floors may be sanded to a thinner dimension in a hallway than in a bedroom, etc...

The salvaging process that we speak of is the removal and reassembly of an existing wood floor into a new area or home. When you remove and reassemble a floor that has been sanded multiple times, the true variances that are exascerbated by the settling process will be even greater. In reality when you reassemble a salvaged wood floor, there is an extreme amount of what we refer to as "over/under wood". This greater amount of variance requires a greater amount of sanding in order to achieve a flat wood floor.

So what does all of this mean? If you install a salvaged wood floor in your home the consequences are good for the environment and possibly bad because you will need to pay more for the floor to be sanded because there is more effort to remove the necessary material to achieve a flat floor. A second consequence of the additional sanding efforts is that your floor will be closer to the end of its lifespan. This is especially important because with all of the interest in people requesting salvaged wood floors these days, after sanding I am seeing floors that literally have no more sandings available because there is virtually a paper thin wear layer remaining.

It is most important for me as an ethical wood flooring professional to advise you that salvaged wood floors have a lesser value for the life cycle of your project because of the greater reduction in wear layer. If you choose to use salvaged flooring, then I have two suggestions. The first suggestion is to either remill the flooring material or have flooring milled from dimensional lumber. The other suggestion is that if you choose to reuse salvaged flooring material without doing a remilling that you adhere to a very strict maintenance schedule of recoating the finish on your floor. This will greatly prolong the life of the wear layer of your floor and add more value to your efforts.

Why can't you sand that old fir floor?

All the time I meet different people for an estimate who assume that their old Fir floors cannot be refinished, so they think that they will install new flooring over the floors. Usually the floors have been covered in paint, carpet, or linoleum forever and as time has gone on people have realized the best looking of their options is a wood floor. One important thing to understand about the floor sanding process is that usually only 1/32" to 1/16" of flooring actually is removed during sanding. If you consider that a wear layer on a floor is typically 5/16" and a quality refinish will endure 10-20 years of wear with proper maintenance, then you can see that most floors ,even those that are 100 years old or greater, have some remaining life. I have seen some of the worst hardwood floors be revived in 5 days to a state of beauty that few would expect. My answer is almost always, "Yes, you can sand that old Fir floor!". It's more cost effective and has less impact on the environment because you reuse an existing resource.