The Huddle - Episode 149 - Back to Basics: Revisiting Core Installation Skills

In this week’s episode of The Huddle, Paul, Daniel, and Jose go back to where it all began — the core skills that define great flooring installers. Whether you're just starting out or decades into your career, mastering the basics is what keeps quality high and jobs running smoothly. We’re talking about the overlooked fundamentals, how to retrain your crew, and why the most successful installers never stop sharpening their core skill set. This is an episode that reminds us why craftsmanship still matters — and how going back to basics can launch you forward.

💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: In this episode of The Huddle, we’re getting back to basics and revisiting the core installation skills that lay the foundation for every successful job. From proper floor prep and tool handling to understanding site conditions and the importance of reading instructions, this conversation is packed with essential tips, real-world stories, and insights every installer—new or experienced—can learn from.

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what is up welcome back to the huddle your weekly playbook helping you gain forward progress in your career simply

put we're here to help you guys win for all our new viewers welcome to the

team today's topic back to basics revisiting core installation

skills what's up fellas what's going on brother

it's going good kind of crazy here at the old uh Stewart and Associates flooring

company kind of uh crazy busy at the moment so that's a good thing though

both in the field and in the office or is one busier than the other it's both man we've put out so many dog on uh bids

this last oh three or four weeks um it's been

it's been pretty crazy in the office and then out in the field I guess you know

honestly it's not too bad but um it's also kind of a symptom of of our

of our crews kind of doing well and our jobs our our managers are doing a good

job so I think we ran a medium kind of payout last week close to 50K to subs

and then our standard installers so that's it's about medium busy from those

numbers our in-house guys are you know employees so but we get up closer to

100K a week in subs that's when we know we're busy and then that's that's the uh that that's

where you're about at right now you're you're building you're building there we're we're headed that direction

we're headed that direction this summer uh um this summer we'll probably get in the

upper echelon of that i think I don't know the largest we've ever paid out is about 270 in a week to a to subs that's

a week massive week of paying out so

yeah well uh letting everybody get on here i think this is a good topic you

know just get back to basics we talk a lot of uh advanced stuff sometimes

getting into business building all that kind of jazz we talk about training a lot um and how important it is and I

think that's kind of the foundation but uh getting back to basics on installation

um and having a conversation around that I think is uh I think that's a good topic what do you guys uh what do you

got what do you guys uh you don't mind it

good talking well look I miss I missed last week

right i had some technical difficulties go figure but um you know they we had

Last week was the Spanish episode wasn't it yeah I still like to log on and talk to my boys i couldn't even Yeah I got on

Jorge Jorge's uh birthday was like the day

before that or something wasn't it last week Monday he he's got the most Mexican birthday in the world cinco de Mayo yeah

he does that's funny it's probably his middle name

all right so back to uh the basics installation

uh the back back to basics I should say the revisiting core installation skills

so let's start there what what are some in your guys's like you get a brand new

guy comes in what's the first thing that that you guys run through what's a first

week or two of a guy a green uh guy

coming in sweeping yeah cleaning

um tape measure like easy stuff hand tools are you familiar with Well hold on sweeping is like I've told that story

a h 100 times where I got in trouble and kicked off a job because I didn't use uh anything i didn't do anything to keep

the floor clean so cleaning up the substrate um that seems like just the most basic

simple thing but I think it's something that we uh can overlook sometimes i've got a job

right now found a couple dimples under my LVT and I'm like

what what what's going on what's up with that and then luckily it's a 3 foot by 3 foot so it's only one piece that's got

to come out and get replaced but but um you know those are just the little things that uh these basics can make or

break your job that's the bottom line a lot of times we get so uh wrapped up in

the more advanced stuff that if we're not watching the guys that are doing this the the beginner things or

inspecting their work uh or making sure that the PM or the um the lead guy on

the job is inspecting the work um you know you can end up with couple dimples

under your LVT it doesn't teenager's back or nothing but you

know it's just That sounds disgusting that is disgusting pimples you know we

call them pimples under the thing so but yeah just that basic very first step i

think that you're right you have the tendency to overlook the stuff that is a no-brainer to you if you've been in it

for a while you forget that clean to you is different than clean to someone else

um and typically people don't get really meticulous on how well they're cleaning

the substrate until they're the one installing and finding the things that they don't like like oh nobody scraped

this wall right here you understand why everyone was getting angry at you for not being able to Why Why'd you miss

this wall man it's only one wall and then you until you're the one that's patching and you're

like gota dude the worst is behind the door yeah that's that's a actually any of it

especially leaving sheetrock mud down like sanding the floor and then not making sure you get all the sheetrock

mud and you're spreading a spreading for sheet vinyl or VC any vinyl and you're

like what in the world scraping it up and once you're gluing

that's not a good time to find that stuff like that's the worst time to find it that's when your tri becomes a

scraper yeah then you get the little boogers on the back and and that's just from a

dusty floor like the glue is not going to do that normally uh it's from a dusty

floor and a small small trial size that's going to happen if you have a dusty even just a little bit of dust

that's why we don't like to let the you know you either need to have full HVAC

on like that's why I hate doing temporary heat in there they'll get it to the

condition but nothing's there's no air movement in the area and you sweep

something even if you vacuum you're causing dust to go in the air and then it just kind of settles back down that's

why I hate the temporary situations and they're checking the box on the specs that the manufacturers are like between

this degree and that degree and they're like we're keeping it between that with temporary AC units or temporary heating

units but it's not moving the air the way that a regular system does

it's just forcing that that hot air out and it's like um there's no return right

so that air is just that same air is just getting blown up over and over again it's heating all the air but it's

not doing nothing to move it through a filtration system i'm probably ticking off the HVAC guys they're probably like

"That's why we don't turn them on is cuz you flooring guys get dust in our filters." Well that's why you should

figure construction filters one replacement final filters but I know

you're been a job if you're an HVAC guy out there don't get too mad at me yeah

well but those are what some of those things that people need to understand it's you got to have that circulation to

pull the dust out filter it somewhere otherwise it's going up coming back down you're recycling it cleaning it twice if

you're not vacuuming i mean yeah so then right after that you teach a guy

to what sweep and then tri adhesive those kinds of things even

that cause little bumps and you know dimples if you don't know

how to trial correctly what's he say you throw a broom to your apprentice

they'll figure it out and remember it's called a push broom not a pull broom john that sounds like

exactly what happened to me i'm going to go ahead and tell the story i was doing my very first day installing well helper

I didn't install squat these dudes and you know there's all this little there's

a little bit of hazing that goes on uh at least there was in my company where

they're sending you out for the tile stretcher that kind of crap you know

trying to because you have no idea so they're doing this stuff to mess with you well they give me a broom and say

"Go sweep the sanctuary in this church." And I just go in and I I mean there's

dust everywhere just got sanded i'm in there just just pushing the broom no one

showed me how to use the broom how to keep the dust down with it nothing just brooming away it's got all these big

wooden like uh arches and all this stuff up there

and that I had that room so dusty I went and asks for a dust mask well the

superintendent comes in there and just reams me throws me off the job

cuz I gotten dust all up on their their uh all that stuff and they they didn't

you know they're not going to clean it it's like s you know 30 feet in the air or something and I'm just going to town with this broom dude dust was everywhere

i had a more dust boogers than uh well let me say I I learned how to um I

learned the value of a dust mask when you're when you're sweeping after that so anyway you might want to show

your helper or your uh apprentice how to uh how to broom properly to keep the

dust down do you guys use uh floor sweep

yes and no never use these are basic things right never use the oil base

typically red oil base you can use the wax base typically green but you cannot

let any of them sit in a pile on your floor even the wax based especially if

it's kind of warmer in the facility and that wax starts melting into the kind of

oozing into the substrate i've seen uh adhesive failures with both so

well you don't want Yeah john give me tell us your story John

see if you got thrown off a job site and and uh you the first day of of your your

job i thought I was going to get fired i thought that was it dude and they're just over there

laughing their asses off at me we've had some pretty bad you know I will tell you a story so when I did first start I

didn't know anything about sweeping compound right but I've already been going through this hazing process like

everything you're new so everything you do and then then all of a sudden you're like "Haha." You're getting laughed at

and they were like "Hey dude go get the sweeping compound so we don't kick up dust." I'm like "What sweet sweeping compound?" They're like "You throw it on

the ground and it is to keep the dust down." I said "So you want me to throw more stuff on the floor to sweep up stop

messing." And at that point I was like "Stop messing with me." You were trying not to get hazed yeah i was just started

sweeping next thing you know man there's dust rolling out like you know it rolls backwards off the broom you throw it up

the bristles throw it up like dude I told you to get the sweeping compound and then I was getting yelled at i was

like "Oh that's that's a real thing." And yep sure enough right on the box sweeping compound i'm like I didn't

believe you guys i did not believe you guys so well I wish I would have found a bag of sweeping compound back then

better way to do it just vacuum with a HEPA vac and and that's the the right way to do it but back in the broad loom

days when you were sweeping for broad loom floors you didn't there was you didn't even have to sweep you just

started spreading glue remember I worked for somebody that yelled at you

for sweeping i wasn't there very long

well you couldn't find this you couldn't find the sweeping compound [Laughter] back in the day when uh I first started

when we ripped out broad loom and put new broad loom down we didn't do anything with the adhesive at all

that old adhesive just stayed down and we just went right over it

dude that's I mean we don't do enough broad loom for me to even say we still do that but I would say for the most

part and unless it's crystallized we ain't going to scrape up broad loom glue and go back unless it's

like three or if it's too thick of course you got to take it up but with regular carpet to carpet if it's not

crystallized we'll go over it all right john says "In 1989 my father at 300 lb

510 showed how to use a push broom and told me it that it's not a race i'm not

a race oh I'm not a race car driver so don't do it like this." As I continued

to use it like he said I cheated a little and did use it as a pull broom

along the same along the same same still shoes up my ass and dropped my knees

holy [ __ ] what happened he said "You want to be a race car driver or a

flooring installer my ass hurt for days." That's That's a good one i know and now he's the best sweeper known to

man um it only takes one set of steel toes i should have enlarged that or something i

could barely damage or put my reading glasses on who was that we worked with

wouldn't even use a push broom they would use the um fox hair broom yeah the foxtail

horseair whatever was it old school like a whole like Oh like Well that's how we

we always use a foxtail around the edges to get it from out from under the sheetrock and then you know broom it up

yeah we always used to use brooms for that too and then we realized that oh we can vacuum this and be way better vacuum

is way better learned that from a ceramic guy so back to six uh use a

vacuum and if you're doing sheet vinyl or you got some other stuff a little more uh uh

advanced in your form you know the the installer should know but you may even have to run a damp

mop damp microfiber they have those nice uh sweet

dust mops like the old school lunchroom ones on a smaller scale of course right

but you can uh get those and dampen those and take them back wash them um

yeah I was just saying damp is the key you get wet and you're going to have a

problem right i've used auto scrubbers too to release a little bit of water and then vacuum it right back up yeah auto

scrubber you guys got an auto scrubber I'll be right back yeah we've we've uh rented them for that we don't we don't

have one at least not one that runs and uh we have one in the back up in the racks but it's it's got something wrong

with it uh but um yeah we on big rooms we'll use an auto scrubber to go do that

final clean especially if it's a big sheet vinyl or LVT room or something

like that and a lot of things yeah this dude started when I started man foxtail and a

scraper at the edge and then broom it that's that is that is some that's one

thing that people don't think about either is like when we do sheet vinyl we're constantly cleaning the back of the vinyl too like

Yeah you don't see like a lot of these videos that you'll see on like Tik Tok and stuff that they're just like gluing

and throwing it in there and it's like I wish it was that easy oh yeah

well in our world in the commercial world especially if you're doing like a me a um

biopec or something like that that rips pretty easy dude it's you you're not

flopping you pull it back it's going to crack any little cur you know kink in it

it's No it's a nightmare i've done lenolium before where I pulled it back to glue it and just laying it

down it cracked on the bend like Oh really yep yeah the old stuff like old

Yeah you got to be careful got to be careful with that if it's got a lower vinyl content or And

you can always just take a little corner of it and bend it over and see how easy it is to snap and you'll

see oh yeah the good old silica laws oh

jeez yeah you know somebody I just saw um was it a Tik Tok or or I don't know

where I saw a video somebody just came out with another a newer backpack vacuum a little bit stronger um I don't

remember where I seen it i should have should have saved the video yeah so back to basics to me is like

these are the beginning things and I'm not sure that it gets you know there's

not a lot of teaching on that that's like learning out in the field there's not like a you don't you'll you'll skim

over a lot of the uh trainings I've been to skims over like okay clean the floor

and then do this but the cleaning the floor part is ultra important as well as

cleaning out your saw joints and and construction joints and properly addressing those um

so you know obviously um there's not like this there's

flooring 101 but in the commercial side it's a little bit different than residential and I feel like a lot of

those intro courses into flooring are addressing guys that

are at least their next step seems like it might be a residential uh

align but if you're in an area that's got a lot of slab on grade you still

need to stay on the floor and do all that stuff

what what do you guys find the best way to uh what what's next what's your best uh next uh tool tool recognition man

like learning what tools you're working with every day like your basic hand tools to your everyday tools like I

think that that was a that's a huge thing especially if you're coming from like no construction background right um

like that's one thing the trainings do teach you and I think even online trainings

can teach you is tool recognition um I mean it goes a long way just to tell a

guy if you're a tile guy back in the day they didn't have all the saw holes uh

they use nippers tile nippers they take a set of glass cut they cut the the the

shape out with the different ways with the ceramic cutter and then they just use tile nippers and you know tell them

hey go grab a go grab my tile nippers chad says let's start with the moisture

meter and I think that's one thing that we get wrong with the industry is you don't start learning all the this stuff

until you're pretty advanced yeah that's probably a good point you

don't teach um moisture meter or moisture

uh conditions in general or yeah site conditions in general i wouldn't I

didn't know if a site was good or bad until I was probably in it for a couple of years

before I started to even take notice of that stuff so yeah that's

that's something that even in the beginning you got to kind of I want to add they shouldn't be on a job by

themselves anyway right i want to add to that because because Daniel's right like the the order in which everyone learns

is a little like we learn to help right we don't really learn the science behind everything first and and I think like

one thing that we do different over here now now we do different is once we went for the uh substrate and prep

certification with NFCT like that is a should be a prerequisite

for everything else like you should understand that science before the rest of it and when when that got brought up

and that conversation was had it was like man that just makes so much sense right like I wonder how many people

would drop off before even getting into flooring if that was how we started or how many people would stay I should say

not drop off right how many people would stay had they started at the substrate and prep uh uh portion of the industry

first and then work their way to to the rest of it how many successes how many less failures well

it's a lot better i mean about the most basic thing that gets missed by DIY or

DIY and you know do-it-yours uh

like is the floor prep you know they've made product that looks like it's so

easy but floor prep and and substrate conditions I think is 101 to me that's

the most important part of the installation but you know when we talk about basics

it doesn't need to be beginner this is basics and when we're talking about basics floor prep to me is the number

one and that starts with getting a clean substrate uh I think you know Chad had a good

point moisture testing uh moisture meter or moisture testing uh either RH

conditions yep your sight conditions making sure they're good and then if everything's good with your pH your RH

or your if you're doing a moisture meter look that's exactly what John just said ph

and beginning yeah stop reading the comments stop reading the comments and acting like it's yours come on now yeah

that's why I'd be stealing so no matter what you're doing once you're once you get that then floor

prep is 101 like is the one of the um

worst things you can have is like a wavy floor it's not It seems smooth but you

don't take notice of the natural light coming in and you know that if you're

advanced or at least you think about these things you know that those waves are going to show through i had a job

that I just came back from this morning months ago i walked it and it was a new concrete floor but it had waves and it

had all this natural light like "Hey man this is smooth enough for LVT." Like it's not chattered and everything but

you have multiple waves through the here that are going to show and it's kind of a high It wasn't a high gloss LVT but it

wasn't like matte so I was like that's really going to show it doesn't even

matter you're going to see it with that natural sunlight yeah on matte surface it'll show as well but on a on a glossy

a little glossier it's not high gloss like you'd see in a residential house or anything but like it was a little on the

glossier side or on the sheen more sheen side and dude no doubt about it it was

going to show and that's how it is like at hospitals over here oh dude that's use a lot of no wax floors and then

everything looks great and then they go in there and throw a coat of wax on it and it's like yeah this is a it's not as

great as everyone thought some of the older hospitals too like uh one of the local ones they have areas

where they're over the concrete is over docked plank

or it's over sheet uh metal and they span their their columns where back when

they built it they were it was approved right they're further away so you can see the rolling going down right and

that's what we're going to call we're going to call it rolling but you can see that and uh it's like dude we're ne we're never going to get we're never

going to get rid of it unless you want to like reporter the whole thing but then then you're too heavy for the structure you can't like Okay I

understand so you got to back to the basics got to prep your client

yeah that's that may be even past basics but prepping the client that's seems

like an ongoing thing the the why couldn't you self-level

it add too much weight um well yeah then you have the weight right like say the valley is three inches difference on the

lowest on the the lowest part of the belly versus the the highest spot um

and that's just going to add a lot and I'm talking large wide open corridors that

are extend over three separate builds and additions and on the third floor

fourth floor yeah we we've run into a lot of different scenarios like that

yeah John's talking about the uh post has a comment here about magnetic

flooring in the future we will talk about that John and would love to have you uh uh DM us or uh reach out to one

of us and let us know what you'd like to talk about there you can email us at uh forwardprogressthehuddle.team

forwardprogressthehuddle team shoot us an email and uh let's go over what

you're wanting to talk about and we have an education series coming up that uh we

will be uh going over multiple topics and might be able to find a spot where

that fits in so yeah that's a whole new rabbit hole

cuz I remember when that stuff first came out so I remember talking about it and getting

uh some more information and over to uh one of the local hospitals and they actually liked the idea but

then it's I think there's a lot of concern with magnetics in hospitals just

the I know that what I was told is there's there you know it's not strong

enough to affect whatever equipment or whatever but it's just I don't know if

you're going to convince a hospital and maybe some people have but I would office space probably maybe away from

patients right until until there's been around long enough office space or I don't I think there's a couple

applications there where it's not going to interfere over there in in the same area

so he's he's curious about this the magnetic flooring

john making connections here on the huddle exchange numbers i I had a I thought I had a book here

with it but well keeping up with back to the basics you know another big thing to

me and that we talk about all the time is is just training so if you find

yourself as an installer uh you know getting some experience with your uncle or your dad or your your brother or

something uh don't throw away formal training that to me is a basic fundamental

uh requirement for an installer to become uh as good as they can become

this this whole idea about you know the way that um like apprenticeships are

built or any education system is built around you know learn apply learn apply

learn apply so like train applicate train applicate train applicate and

before you know it you'll be as good as Daniel maybe even better

maybe even better so John the the email is scrolling at the bottom right here it's a forward

progress at thehuddle.team yeah we'll uh we'll get that and respond

to you John and that reminds me anybody who's uh on right now don't forget give

us a thumbs up comment uh you know like our videos

like our uh shorts give us some love there that's what helps us uh keep keep

doing this um what episode are we on like episode 149 149 I believe

149 almost 150 that's going to be a big one chad said "First basic thing to

cover would be reading the installation instructions." We already looked by that one yeah good good point that That's a

good one yeah so

um yeah that's a great great you know thing to bring up Chad i mean a lot of

guys think they already know it and I'll tell you what with a lot of the LVTs these days that are coming out and they

want you to be semi wet setting it or wet setting it and guys who just

um go in and start installing LVT like they always have without reading the

instructions and frankly you know I mean project managers or or salesmen

whoever's in charge of the project should be sharing some of that information

um but if you uh if you're an installer at the end of the day and you install it

incorrectly it's on you so read the installation instructions if you've never used the product in fact it's just

best to like Google the product beforehand because you might go on a job site and see Shaw and think I've done

plenty of Shaw LVT but it's a PVC free you know semi wet set and you don't know

it you're going to have curling issues like you wouldn't believe and then at

the end of the day they're just going to point back to you you didn't follow the installation instructions so that's a

great reminder that starting with your install instructions and reading those

that's good for everybody that's good for like the most advanced a lot of times

the better you are the more the less you read those instructions actually uh yeah

you become complacent right become I've already done this a million

times but it doesn't hurt um what what was the

who were we talking to Dan they said usually when something changes they change a label right like a label changes or the is like on the pale of

adhesive it might look the same but maybe they rebrand it and have it have a

new picture or new format that's one of the reason the the easiest way and what most companies do is keep

their installation instructions up to date online and they do that because once

they've sent product out they can't recall this product to replace the pamphlet inside the install instructions

so your best bet and I'd love if every manufacturer put a QR code on their

product for installation just uh and just keep that as your updated everyday

install instructions a QR code and you just put install above it boom qr code

it on every box every package whatever it is that would be so helpful and it'd

be easy to maintain uh one of our jobs a long time ago we ran into problems on

actually uh but it was a it's a longtime job it

probably 14 or 15 when we did it so about a decade ago and it had an

underllayment and it there's obviously two sides to the to the sound barrier uh

underllayment so you glued that down the instructions on the package said one

side down but the installation instructions

online said that side's up and it was the film film up or film down

and the GC thought they had us because they were like "Yeah look you installed

incorrectly that's why we're having these issues." And I'm like "No we didn't you have old stuff we always

check online because without they can't recall 200,000 rolls of this stuff just

to change that piece of paper they're going to keep their online install instructions up to date and that's the

most important thing to read well I agree but you know if if

they had a uh with you Jorge to to like post them right on the box but if you

had a QR code with a little video on how to do it yeah with a QR code all right

all right yeah you can put it with a QR code that's just a domain they can go on

to it's a URL you can read the install instructions watch a short video that kind of helps you through it to me that

would be uh wonderful not only for a DIY product but I'm talking all products

because they could save they could save so much paper if they just put a QR code on there said installation instructions

didn't have to include anything in the box anymore cuz they they only included every what three or four boxes and then

you figure if you have every box has something on there you don't even need

to worry about looking for it it's boom scan it and go do you know there are

still pictures what's that i said there are still some

people out there that don't order their food unless they have pictures yeah true carneada tacos

you don't need a picture for that that's my point yeah so reading the installation

instructions and following them and you know this is maybe not uh basics but one

of the things I'm hoping to continue to drive home with our installers out in

the field is take pictures of the process um cuz the the manufacturers no

no you know no salt thrown on my manufacturers here but they're they

don't want a failure they they send out an inspector most of the time a high

percentage of the time it's an installation error or at least that's what they find

initially not all the time that they do say it's an installation error out of the gate is it an actual installation

error so protect yourself taking some pictures throughout the process clean

floor nicely you know cleaned out saw joints nice

prep glue you know installation process and then finished product it's not just the

manufacturers it's sometimes you know it's cheap insurance for the GCs as well cuz you have them and they're like "You

didn't do this you didn't do that." And it's like "Yes I did." and it's right here mhm like especially if you're

fighting them on site conditions that's a big red flag to be taking pictures of what you're doing if you're fighting

them on site conditions and they're like "Well can't you just do it?" Or they're pushing you to to do it and you're like

I mean we have an ironclad warranty release uh mainly it's

like you know not just hey you know that you're releasing warranty on we we can't

cover the installation war it is a document and it has to have the architect the owner and the GC sign it

and um if only one signs then they have another spot to sign to identify and

hold as harmless should a lawsuit happen so for example if the GC signs it well

what happens if the owner sues you right so you need to have them sign

a dimmnification this is more advanced probably but uh have them sign a dimnification clause that holds you

harmless and promise to defend you should your um the floor have a problem

because it's easy for them to sign the document a GC um

so floor cloud called uh it's not floor cloud anymore climate climate called

climate now used to be a sponsor of ours we hope they come back on sometime scott

give me a shout my man um but floor floor cloud rocks I mean that's that's

just uh a a really awesome new way to um

get that basic information we were talking about still using it still using it

all right so I had um I was at a career fair two weeks ago

yeah two weeks ago yeah one and um one of the guys

from what do they do i don't know something with CNC right so they're

talking about micro measurements and he came up to me and he was like "What do you guys do about people that don't know

how to read a tape measure?" He said "How do you teach them how to read a tape measure?" And I was like

"Man that is so hard." Because I know people that have been doing this for 20 years 25 years that still don't know how

to read a tape measure um you know what I I'll tell you you

know I took a a piece of styrofoam like a one foot by 4 foot piece of styrofoam

and I just basically drew a tape measure on there and I broke it so that way they visually can see it look I'm gonna go

grab the thing that I put on the door yeah and then Daniel made something to put on the the door as well

is the reason they don't know how to read it is because for one they haven't applied themselves to teach themselves

too is people are still too proud to say it but that is pretty basic right like Yeah

dude i mean in school if you don't know if you the the other thing about you

know newer it's something you have to teach now you kind of came out back in the day

out of shop class or out of this you know vote or something at school that

you learned how to read a tape measure i mean I built a whole light yeah

yeah um

well and that's that's pretty that's pretty basic that's bare bones going to

an elementary school tomorrow to do a career day i think I should probably uh I think you got a companion right there

that's a good idea dude yeah that's pretty basic but it's

definitely um something that I think has to be shown more today because people aren't coming out of like I said votech

or shop class or something where you use a tape measure right so a high school graduate

may not understand it and we didn't make our measuring

systems like the best in America you know

yeah there's a lot of things that are like extremely we made it have you guys ever seen that Nate Burg's um comedy on

SNL where he's talking about all the stuff that he's acting like George

Washington he's on a boat oh yeah dude and he's like he's like "Yes we'll have

our own food and we'll call it a hamburger." And he's like "Made of ham sir." And he's like "If it was only that

easy he's like "But don't worry man hot dogs

will not be made of dogs." What will they be made of sir we don't

nobody knows that one I I watched that one like like

three or four times oh dude it's so funny it was spot on and yeah it was uh How many liters are in a gallon sir he

said "Nobody knows." Dude that that one was so popular they

had to do it again basically right away yeah that was a good one but it does show that we have like our systems of

measures over here we're pretty much the only one in the world uh there may be a few others but you know we have our own

measuring and and and that can be a little bit confusing i mean

you go you just could keep chopping it down you know yours goes down to a 16th but you know you can get into 32s and

64ths and and probably not much past that in

construction it's not that precise we're not building a CNC machine uh or

building a tool for an airplane or something it has to be micrometered but

the you know you get down into those sizes and uh you got to start thinking

especially if it's a a really like net cut

situation but that's probably serves 95% of all the stuff that we deal with you

know what I mean but that's broad guys broadham guys don't even know how to

read that thing they just read to the nearest inch it's good to have the ones that have both on it

yeah rex so we've talked a little bit about

like the basics of that basic uh I'm going to just touch on a few basics from

the uh professionalism standpoint like a lot of people get into construction and

I think that we they have this rough neck thought about how to act on job sites

[Laughter] come on

but um if you got if you have a uh this

attitude like it's a rough neck kind of thing and you you have this uh bad attitude or or like foulmouth my my

advice to the young guys getting into construction if you can if you can have

realize that you're there love your job if you don't love it go do something

else you know I know that's um probably not something we want to be

saying in flooring because we need more guys but at the same time you want guys to represent your company well but you

also they each person needs to understand we're we're representing ourselves too you know and we want to

put the best foot forward uh because your your reputation my dad taught me

you know I was really proud of the stewards as I've grown up still am uh

and just our our history but also you know that's your name that's what you're

stuck with the rest of your life and you can't trade it out you can't get rid of it it's going to be your name and so the

reputation that's tied to that name is how you build your career so that's a really long way of saying

like that's one of the things one of the ways I get a lot of business now is because people know me as being a

flooring expert an actual expert and guiding them along the path of picking

the right floor for their project i get involved in jobs way earlier my career

has changed from you know went from an installer to being a subcontractor to

uh you know opening a flooring store a dealership a flooring dealer or flooring

contractor as I call it here and you know now we employ in employee installers as well as

subcontractors my job primarily as the president and a project manager the one

of the activities I do most right now is helping people pick the right flooring and it's not like picking what's pretty

not from a designer standpoint but from a performance and what they're going to

be happy with long-term standpoint and that's why I also have designers that

pick out pretty pretty product and say "Hey is this going to be good for here

for this location this is the scenario." And so I love doing that kind of thing it's one of the my favorite things to do

honestly in this business and you get that by starting early with caring about your reputation caring about your um

your your reputation but also caring about your training and and your knowledge so

well I think that's uh that goes back to like uh integrity right like when when

you're how do I put it without like trying to throw people under the bus here

when when you're not selling a product rather you're you're creating solutions

it's it's a different outlook and that's I I put my name behind a lot of things as

well as as as you do right and that's what we try to do is we try to try to protect um everyone's investment right

um yeah we say selling an experience I mean effectively there's plenty of guys

that can sell the same stuff that's on these walls behind me I mean it's not like Patcraft or Shaw or any of these

people like this is the only place that their books are you

know we have to sell more than just that piece of floor and that's an experience

that's taking them through getting the right product that's having a great attitude that's having installers that

care about their job and enjoy what they do and that whole experience that a client

goes through when you are redoing their floors especially on remodels because we're very disruptive remodel right you

can paint the walls by just moving a little bit of this or that you can't replace the floor without moving you

know I guess you could do like a lift system for carpet tile but if you're if

you're replacing floor most of the time you got everybody's got to be out of there the room's got to be clean you got

to move all the stuff out like furniture has to come out refrigerators got to get

unhooked at your house stoves are moved like it is just a a very disruptive

remodel the better that you can make that experience for that person the more

likely they are to either recommend you to a friend or call you back when they're ready to do the next step

and that we get a lot of repeat business by by creating those solutions and those experiences and not all of the

experiences start out good not all of them end good but when you're transparent and you do operate under

integrity you do get the phone calls back because they trust you now there's a

level of trust that was created through that

yeah when you go back to basics too you got to you got to start off knowing that you

don't know everything like you can be confident but don't be cocky about it right and always call someone when you

when I call people i call the reps even when I know what I I need to do but I'm like I don't know if anything's changed

like Jared will be like "Yeah you already you already know like do this." I said "That's what I was thinking i just had to make sure."

Yeah you already know why are you calling me oh you know first off I just want Well that should go that should go

a long way for people to understand that no matter how good you are from the

process or your hand skills it's that adhesive and application situation that

you're always not so sure of you know what I mean the adhesives are what always scare

me because they they change so often um and they're number one i went and looked

at a job for a guy uh hundreds and hundreds of thousands of square foot for

this owner was done with thin spread under LVT

bun a ton of apartment complexes i just went and looked at it and I'm like bro

they did not use a pressure sensitive adhesive they used thin spread

the same thing it's sticky when it dries you know it's different right and it is

curling it's got problems and it's in multiple facilities in multiple locations across the United States and

um you know not the tracers that are in the adhesive uh another beginner story uh the tracers

are important and I'm glad manufacturers use them it saved my butt a time or two

uh one time in particular I was doing a um an a like a dean's office at the

college super nice carpet tile Milicanin back in the day Milicanin had

a white their adhesive was white and it had glitter in it and they had this

really expensive wallpaper it was like a wall covering uh like a fabric and there

was something on it and it was it turned dark and they said it was adhesive because it was sticky and that it was

mine i was like "No I didn't." First off I didn't get glue three feet up the wall

secondly I picked it off and I was like "Look at that." And had them spread

it open and look at the chunks that were on the wall and then I pulled back a piece of

carpet towel and I'm like "Look at that that should have glitter if it's

mine that's also the same way because this tracer in this job that I was just looking at uh was red glitter and uh I'm

not going to mention the manufacturer or anybody but um at the end of the day

it's a massive problem it may be on the radar of somebody watching this actually

it's big enough problem hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of square foot of

LVT that looks like it was at least the projects I looked at was installed with

thin spread man so and that's one thing that people

don't realize either is that when someone when the inspectors are going to look at your projects they are looking

at all this stuff is it the right adhesive what traces are in it is it the right notch i mean I've been on on

inspections where you mind do you mind if I cut it open i'm like cut it open let's go

through this and it the the pictures that they can get are crazy just with a smartphone and the like the little

magnifiers that they have for the Mhm yeah they'll get down there they'll

they'll look at trial collapse you know ridge collapse for in particular in

vinyls did it get collapsed enough indicating whether you rolled it in time or enough all this stuff matters um

that's I you know this isn't back to basics but I wish that every person that gets in flooring uh if I was still

installing I'd go to an inspector class i'd want to really go to a really good inspector class to know what they look

for yeah I know i I know I could but I'm just saying let's team up let's go i

don't I don't install every day uh very rare anymore um

but I think that um you know the more I think about it the more I think it's important to to try to get the guys to

understand what they're looking for because if you understand how they look for it and like you're not going to get

away with nothing that's the the thing like you just said Daniel i mean they're

pulling magnifying glass thing that just goes right on their camera on their phone to look at not only tracers ridge

collapse for in vinyl anyway um if if it's like a sheet vinyl flooring uh if

it's you know even a certain amount of ridge collapse in pressure sensitive they want to see uh understanding that

it's not going to collapse all the way but they they'll they'll do a report and show it this picture looks like you know

the Hubble telescope took it and it's like no ridge collapse indicates not not

uh um proper rolling techniques were not applied or something like that and then they say it so nice over time

yeah the ridges got hard all that kind of stuff all right well we are up on 4

o'lock this was a um kind of a fun episode to go back and start thinking

you know I didn't do uh sometimes I prep for these uh podcasts sometimes I'm like

"Oh I I should know that topic pretty well." This one I didn't didn't nec I probably should have prepped a little

more to think through this but as we were going and you're like "Yeah that right there

install instructions of product reading your bucket on glue like those types of

things those are definitely back to basics and we should all do that anytime

you're installing a floor everybody has a system right everybody's got a system whether it's written down or it's the

mental system and I think that that's where uh the basics got to start out you got to start with a process somebody's

learning from from ground zero somebody's learning from uh you know five years of experience you got to know

where they're starting and and understand where their basics are are at before you try to push them to pass

their limits yeah but those things never go away you know what I mean like you should always read the instructions i

think uh like I said there's so many LVTs coming out now i mean I know you

guys know about those PVC free LVTs that got to be wet set you try to set that on

a on a pressure sensitive you're going to have problems we had a whole companywide huddle about it you know I

went to a fuse contract scared the [ __ ] out of me i came back and did a huddle my whole company knew about it

so system of it down good band it is too so before we take off here

today I do want to like if you don't know a lot of reps or anything and you're you're curious um All Tile CCS

Blakeley Wall Crow Cartrite whatever it's called near you they are having um

their annual sales this week so if you are near one of their locations

definitely stop by i'm going to share this so that way everyone can see it too

so the they have live demos going on started today so at least you can see

what's going on tomorrow Thursday and then Friday

okay even if you have everything you think you need to go there learn something meet some new people get some

contacts uh you never know you need somebody's phone number and you have a question that's going to help you out um

a lot of these uh people there will are more than willing to help out

so on Yeah get out and get you some some free uh Looks like you can win some free

stuff too yeah they got a a fire pit or pizza oven

cfi is doing demo that's cool so we will be over at um in Grand Rapids on

Thursday with CFI doing some demos of something

spreading the word a word sweet so come say hi to us yeah go say hi and and uh

learn a little bit more about CFI too while you're there

all right fellas an hour has passed believe it or not to our audience thank

you guys for all the comments thank you for all the um you know love you've given us over this last couple years

we're going to be building some things up as usual we're always trying to find a new way to you know deliver content to

you guys we've always gotten great comments about our style here that we're not super like regimented we're just

three guys that know a lot about flooring that get up here and rap and then we have uh some guests on every now

and again uh but we are coming up with a uh coming out with a more um regimented

um uh uh series called the education series it'll be a webinar so keep on the

lookout for that we're going to be doing some webinars we're going to bring in some experts everything from floor prep to moisture testing uh we got some great

sponsors coming on board to be announced in the very near uh near future um so

keep in touch with us uh let us know what uh comments or what um topics and

content you would like for us to cover get experts on uh any of that stuff so

uh big shout out to our fans and and audience out there we love you guys we thank you so much make sure to give us a

like a subscribe uh you know that always share us to everyone you know share us

to everyone you know that helps with the old algorithms and keeps us relevant and uh keeps our sponsors uh happy so we

appreciate everybody and until next week peace out see you thanks everyone