Oh, So you do that too...

The title of this blog may seem a little odd, but it serves a purpose. Sometimes there is a little bit of confusion to the services my company offers in the world of wood flooring in Portland. My portfolio on the website could possibly lead people to believe that our work is only high end and custom work. The truth is that 90% of the hardwood floor installations we undertake are adding new flooring to an existing wood floor and refinishing the whole floor. I will walk you through this with a couple of step by step photos. In the first photo is where the floor ended after a wall was taken out in a remodel by my friends at Envi Construction. In the next photo, you can see where we removed a selected number of boards so that we may integrate, in a random pattern, new flooring. The goal we seek to accomplish is making the new floor and the old floor look harmonious in every way. Afterwards, new matching flooring was installed and sanded and finished for a contiguous appearance. There are a couple of tricks to ensuring a proper appearance that involve grading and specifying the mill providing the material. Depending on the mill and the region of production some flooring (particularly red and white oak) can be quite variable in the tones. This difference doesn't become evident until sanding, so specifying product relies on a particular attention to detail and experience.

Hardwood finish and adhesion, the overlooked but critical factors

The tremendous range of hardwood floor finishes available these days has become almost exhausting to keep pace with any more. In the previous blogs we have discussed wood floor finish options and pro and cons. This blog has less to do with actual chemistry and understanding mechanisms of adhesion.

There are pretty much two ways by which hardwood floor finishes adhere to a floor, chemical or mechanical bonding. Chemically bonded finishes integrate into previous layers and essentially fuse into one layer of finish. Acid curing "Swedish" finishes will chemically bond to a wood floor and merge into one finish layer. The significant advantage of this type of bond is that it is virtually impossible for the finish to have adhesion problems to a wood floor regardless of the final burnishing steps or the species of the hardwood. Some species of hardwood contain a high content of oil and sometimes silica and this may create potential adhesion problems for a finish.

The second form of bonding of finish to a wood floor is a mechanical bond. A mechanical bond of a finish requires a roughed up surface so that finish can literally fall into the texture of that surface and "grab" the substrate. The layers of finish in a mechanically bonded system are much more sensitive to compatibility as they are applied in succession. For example, if you stain a wood floor with a penetrating stain, and then apply a weakly bonding quick dry oil sealer, followed by coats of waterborne urethane, there is a real chance for the finish layers to be torn off the floor following application of tape or some other sticky substrate. I have witnessed this firsthand and received many phone calls from distressed colleagues.

The final finishing grit of the sanding process can also affect adhesion. I know that there are sanding machines present that rotate with such significant speed that they may close down the grain of the hardwood floor at certain sandpaper grits so that a mechanically bonded finish will have problems sticking to the floor. In this case I recommend re-opening the grain by wetting or "water-popping" the floor.

A final and overlooked factor affecting finish adhesion occurs during abrasion of a finish coat layer in order to accept a new finish coat. The abrasives used to abrade the floor will typically become dull within a suggested square footage for usage. If a contractor continues to abrade the finish layer with a dull abrasive, the surface may again become too slick for the new finish layer to hold on. The result is that the finish will peel off the floor in big sheets.

Although this blog may not be particularly intriguing to all, it may serve as a reminder that there are sometimes questions to ask your contractor that go well beyond the price of the job.

White Lines Syndrome

The latest trend in wood flooring has definitely been for darker floors and wider boards. Exotic wood flooring has also seen growth in market share. One of the unspoken problems is that when seasonal movement occurs within the boards of the floor some finishes can actually become stretched out during this process and they leave a white line down the seam of the boards. This problem is particularly bad with waterbased finishes that have come to dominate the market with low VOC laws emerging in many states. Waterborne finishes lay across the floor and essentially act as a hardened sheet of plastic that resists traffic.

Using an acid curing conversion varnish or true "Swedish" finish is the best option to prevent this problem. This is because the acid curing finishes will truly break their bond at the edge of each board and stick to the edges of that board during seasonal movement.

If you are planning a flooring project that requires wider boards, dark stain, or both I recommend thoroughly discussing the project with your contractor to prevent this problem. In fact there is so little published information for this problem because the industry doesn't want you to know that there is a dark side to new technology. When white lines occur across your wood floor they almost always require a full refinish to remove and that is never a fun option for your time. If you would like more information please contact us for a PDF of the problem.

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.