The Huddle - Episode 173 - Construction Collaboration: Tips for Working with Other Trades

This week on The Huddle, Paul, Daniel, and Jose dive into one of the most important — and often overlooked — parts of the job: collaboration. Working side by side with electricians, plumbers, drywallers, painters, and other trades can be challenging, but mastering communication and coordination is key to running smooth, profitable projects.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How to build trust and respect with other trades on the job site

• Strategies for managing workflow overlaps and scheduling conflicts

• Common missteps that lead to tension (and how to avoid them)

• How teamwork across trades leads to better results and fewer callbacks

Whether you’re an installer managing multiple crews or a business owner coordinating large commercial jobs, this episode is packed with real-world advice to help you create stronger partnerships and better project outcomes.

Why This Episode Matters: At The Huddle Podcast, we believe that Forward Progress comes from connection — not competition. Building stronger relationships across trades makes the entire construction industry better, safer, and more efficient.

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At The Huddle, we’re all about driving Forward Progress—empowering seasoned installers, contractors, and flooring enthusiasts to grow, innovate, and lead in their craft. Whether you’re looking for real conversations, actionable insights, or inspiration to take your career to the next level, The Huddle is your home for real discussions that matter.

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Welcome back to the Huddle, your weekly playbook helping you guys gain forward progress in your career. Simply put,

we're here to help you win. For our new viewers, welcome to the team.

For my guys on the other side of this uh screen, welcome as always. Thank you for being

here every single week and and uh being the

the the the glue, screws, stamps, everything of the huddle. You guys are

uh awesome. Love love this time of the week where we get together and get to

talk about a few things. Today's topic, collaboration, working

with other trades for success. I added that last part myself, but um I think

that's a a key. And this can be in um we'll kind of maybe run through how

to work with homeowners if you're doing work direct with homeowners, but uh if you're dealing with builders in the

residential world or um general contractors on the commercial world,

this is a good topic for you. Today's sponsors, we would love to thank Divergent

Adhesives. Uh if you need great adhesives, I mean, who else to go to other than Sunny? The guy knows uh the

ins and outs of flooring like nobody I've ever met and uh has created a great

adhesive line uh for our industry. So, go check out Divergent uh adhesives and

uh buy some of his adhesives. And then you need training and you got

to be trained properly to do this business. And where better to go

specifically in the residential world or the uh resilient world than NFCT?

Speaking of great trainings in the NFCT, Daniel Gonzalez

went and had a training in Ohio and joined us from there uh a while back.

Was that last podcast we won before? Last week. Yeah, last week. Um, so sorry my we

it it was when you were out of town and you we no one could hear you and everyone was getting angry.

Yeah, I I got hate. I got hate because I could no one could hear me. Uh

rightfully so. Apologize for that last week, guys. But I do want to say that uh

you know, I did my best. I wanted to be here and I probably should have just bowed out early. Uh that being said, how

did that training go, Daniel? How did how did everything go and how did how were the students and everybody?

It went great. I mean, the students were very receptive of uh actually learning. We actually had a a couple guys from our

own hometown here. So, that was kind of um one of those things where you think

and you know, I I brought it up to them. I was like, I don't know how you view that, right? Because we're in the same

hometown. So, sometimes people look at you a certain way. And I said,

"I'm nothing I'm probably nothing like the way that some of these people try to make me out to be." And they were like,

"Yeah, we can actually see that." And I said, "I'm just here to teach, man. Like, it's just going to level the

playing field when uh when you guys go back and say, "Yeah, we there's not enough money into what you guys have

going on right now." Yeah. Well, I I've been in this training,

you know, advocacy role for, you know, quite a while. Uh going on a decade,

probably really heavy with what everybody knows as previously as Go Carrera, now Trade Tap, and and really

pushing for training and building a platform that uh recognizes that. One

thing I've come to, I think, realize is there's a lot of companies that actually

want to keep the working force dumb. Yes. I think they want to keep them dumb

because they don't want them to charge what and tell them, "Hey, man, you're too low. Uh that's not going to fly."

And the more people that we get on on the having a VTI and running that

way, the more all the companies can work. um

towards paying what a what a

particular flooring product requires. Um

I've said it a long time. It's really hard for a single company to just change the market on its own because we won't

get any work if you know we or very little work if we

uh as a if a flooring company uh by themselves you know does

you know try let's just use an example on tile. If my competitors are paying

out $4, well, they're not even paying that. Let's say 350 a foot and I'm paying out I want to pay the guys $5 a

square foot to install tile. Well, that's going to be real impossible

when it comes to um like

getting work if the if the um I'm turning down my phone. It

keeps going off on me over here. Um, but it's gonna be real impossible if all my competitors pay less. So, it's up to you

guys, the people watching this, um, primarily is pretty heavy in the installation industry. It's up to you

guys. Like, go get your VTI. We're going to be live right after the first of the year. You can go get a hammer rating

right now, but go get your VTI and then band together around the huddle and

around the VTI to command higher prices. That's the the vision. It is a collective too. You're right. That you

just when the power is in numbers. If everybody goes out and understands that

they offer or they understand the value that they offer, not as competitors,

like we're not competitors. We're all in it to win it, you know, and you got to look at it as a team effort. It's hard

to do that when you feel like you're against everyone, but if you band together, you can

get those rates to where you need to be. You want to compete. You want to compete at $3 a foot or at $5 a foot? I don't

care if you're gonna compete regardless. Where do you want to compete at though? I mean, like, compete

like at a at a rate that makes the job worth doing and, you know, profitable

for you and a good lifestyle. And there's too many guys out there. The the

plague for all of the guys who are are well trained are the guys who are not well trained going out saying they can

do the work and acting as though you know they can do it

and then frankly not have the talent or or

training to be able to actually do it the proper way. And if you're compete, if you continue to compete like that,

that's like a a full-on Ford dealership, you know,

um, you know, mechanic shop versus your shade tree mechanic that's got a right,

you know, a cherry picker hanging off of a tree in his backyard. I mean, that's

of course that guy's going to be cheaper, but the factory ch trained guy that

knows how to work on your brand new Ford is probably a better option. We know this in in in

with automobiles. I mean, like, you kind of know that you don't take your brand new truck anywhere but the dealership. I

doubt you take it to a Shade Tree mechanic. Well, it's the same thing. like quit hiring shade tree installers

uh is the goal, you know, hire high quality installers. Well, that means you have to know.

So, it's just a gamble, right? Like from the installation standpoint, as long as I

can find me some installers that don't want to learn uh too much and their installations last a year, I'll be good.

Yeah. I don't think most quality companies look at it like that, honestly. It's just Yeah, I'm giving their example. The whole reason it

happens in my opinion I think most people is everybody feels the same way as I previously stated which mean is I

can't pay higher rates because the company down the road doesn't pay higher rates

you know so if I pay higher rates I'm probably not going to win the job but as a you it has to be this

collective that raises the the the waters for everybody

body. Um, anyway, we got off on a tangent there. It's always tangents everywhere.

But, uh, so the training went well. Everybody feel like they, uh,

you know, got their money's worth for a good training. Well, yes and no, because we split it up

into a training and certification. So, you can do one part,

the other part, or both. And then there was a lot of there were some guys that their company sent them there for um the

entire thing for the certification. And I was like, "You guys could have just came for the training." And I showed him

the flyer. He was like, "Yeah, they threw us to the wolves there. It was just some maintenance guys from a VA hospital that they wanted to do repairs

and stuff." And it's like they've never probably not going to get certified.

But listen to that though. They sent them for training just so they can do repairs better. When we have guys who

are out here doing it for a living that don't want to go get training or the people they work for don't advocate for

training and they're doing it for a living. Yeah. It's a great a great example.

Yeah. Well, and it's like you tr maybe change you might you might if you're a handy mechanic change your own oil,

you know, but you'd have to be really handy to go doing the whole tuneup and

dialing your computer in and and everything on a on these newer vehicles anyway. We're not talking 1970s Camaro

or something like I used to have. I could work on every bit of that car. I can't I don't even want to open the

hood of my truck. But yeah, it's like that, you know, you might you just being able to do a little

bit that also could speak to just not not having they're they're wanting to um

take care of this some of the small stuff. Um, but you know, there are some companies who would love to like a ma a

maintenance guy to handle it because they can't get somebody to come out and take care of those smaller things or,

you know, um, it's I mean, with them, they said

that right now they're in the process of hiring all of their installations out,

but they're just going to focus on the repair aspect of things cuz right now they would to um like do oneoff rooms

and stuff like that. And he said they're going to hire that all out and then their main focus is going to be, you know, high impact wall protection

repairs, ceilings, drywall, and then flooring.

And uh yeah, they got a a really good lesson into just getting thrown into it.

it was well they sure might value uh a good side benefit I had is they might really

be able to uh like explain the value to their higherups

of hiring somebody for a a bigger area also I mean if you think about it

they're like hey can you do this repair and they're like that's more than a repair so going to a training like that

with you Daniel probably like open their eyes to understand what they're cap capable of and what they're not and

better be able but be better suited to communicate that with their employer of

like hey that that probably needs hired out. Yeah.

Or um I actually told him I said like all you got to do is tell them to get a hold of the NFCT and we'll do a

specialized like training for you guys. We'll come in bring all your guys in. Well, do an actual training where you

don't necessarily need to do the certification, but at least you'll know how to do something.

Yeah. A little more than Well, they can expand their capabilities in the

repairs. A lot of those guys, you know, they're they certainly as flooring

contractors, we don't want owners doing their own stuff. uh nor does manufacturers or or others, but um at

the least them understanding how to better perform like you said repairs or

doing small small stuff that needs to be done um and then hiring out the rest.

But I mean we didn't specifically go into

the collaboration but that's a sort of collaborations on its own. So, getting to the topic, collaborating with other

trades uh for success. I know we've talked about this a bunch on this

podcast because every week we uh tend to go towards well, we almost always talk

about training and what we can do there. And then one of the other common uh rabbit holes is is is how to work with

other people and getting our jobs done and being profitable uh on on doing that work. And a lot of

times, I don't know if it was last week or which podcast it was, but we started

talking about, you know, knowing the plumbers and knowing the people early on in the project, whether you're doing a,

you know, a big development of speck homes and you're working with a residential builder, you still want to

know where where the progression is and be able to call or talk to, you know,

the window guy or the HVAC guy, hey man, you're going to have this done by this date? I'm getting ready to move in there

and start my LVP. Um, we do the same thing in commercial. We want to know

like we talk to the painters, electricians, those the the HVAC guys,

those are the three most important things to us. Painters to just get out of our way most of the time. Uh, the

electricians because we need freaking lights and power to do our job. And also it's a good insight whether or not the

HVAC system or the building controls are going to be on and live when we get

there. And then of course the building control guys to make sure that everything gets turned on even if they

have power. I've plenty of times found out that, oh,

well, we're not going to have everything's hooked up, but we don't have permanent power because the power company hasn't turned on that, you know,

hasn't come out and activated the transformer or whatever work they do up there. You guys ran into that before.

Um, we don't have permanent power, so we can't turn on the units. Yeah, that's uh I mean, brother, we're

in Michigan, right? like, yeah, they're trying to get everything done before the snow hits. And sometimes it's

fall and they're like, "Yeah, we're just going to run this propane temporary heater in here and uh

the windows just got plastic on it. Can you guys install this? I need this done next week." Nope. I can't can't do it.

Why not? It's clean. We clean it for you. Well,

yeah. And and the propane heaters are even a bigger problem,

especially with tile. Throwing moisture in the air. Yeah. And the chemicals that are in that

moisture adversely affect the setting of your thin sets and grouts.

Yep. All the all the science stuff. Um you know, fortunately on commercial

projects, uh even small some smaller ones, a lot of large ones, you have a schedule to look at. So you could look

at the schedule to kind of see who you might be overlapping, right? And have those conversations early on. Hey, this

shows that you're going to be in here at the same time I am. But man, I think we're going to be each other's way. Is

this accurate? What can we do to work with you on it? And people are pretty cool as long as you're proactive. But

the last minute changes that uh happen are when somebody has to adjust their schedule after getting set up is when

you start getting the attitudes and well I need this area too and yeah we all need this area all at the

same time. Well and we've said it a hundred times on here that we're kind of the most

disruptive part of the finishes because we take up the entire room. you know,

we're not just occupying two square foot with a ladder to put in a light or

occupying, you know, around the room to paint or ceiling tiles not done where

the whole room has to be shut off. When we come into a space, the whole space

has to be shut off. And so, it's pretty disruptive. But hey, if there's any GC's

watching, put us last. Like, that's where we belong. That's where we want to be

anyway. That's where we want to be. We'd rather be there. Yeah. I don't want people dragging stuff

across the floor that I just did. Do you know how heartbreaking it is to do pattern on something and then come in

and you know you have arcs and inlays and you come in a day or two later and you seen that someone got a rock stuck

under a pallet wheel, a pallet jack wheel and they said, "Oh, you can see how many times they tried to get it out

of there." It's like all you had to do was stop. Like it stopped for you. All

you had to do was or just not be there. Or just not be there. Yeah. There's um I I remember we when we

used to do a lot of uh schools in BCT

and the ladders, you know, they they don't realize it. They put the ladders

on the edge and that pressure would scoot that VCT and cause gaps along the

the deal because, you know, your sheet rocks off the floor that far. It's not like you're cut tight to it. And even if

you if the sheetrock is all the way to the floor, you still need a little gap there. Well, they slide that VCT

and I can't. Back in the day, we don't do as near as much as VCT as we used to. Most of it's been replaced with LVP

or LVT. Um, but man, that used to

bug me to death. Like, give it some time. We just finished laying. You're

already throwing ladders on it and climbing up them. Well, that puts pressure and it spreads it out. You know, you didn't glue it right. You didn't

glue it right, man. It's coming. It's coming apart. You didn't glue it right. I've heard everything from you guys installed it with gaps. Oh, this random

gap along the cut. That's for expansion. It's for expansion, brother. Right along the wall. Yeah, that we we

did that. So what other um will you guys take up

some some space with uh tricks of the of

the trade um with you know collaboration I I just want to say that collaborating

with others is key. I don't care if you got a GC or not. It's one of those things that if you're not doing it, it's

going to be you're you're at the disposal of what is dictated as opposed

to you being part of that collaboration. So, right. And then the the great thing is when you walk in on job sites and they

look like this.

Yeah, I'm sure everyone has been here. Hey, that's a recent one.

Well, um, since we're sharing war stories on that,

well, this is for the other trades to see, right? Like that's ready.

This is I don't know I if this can be seen. I I'll take this off of here.

But half that room was done in

uh protect all and the other half we're starting this picture was taken yesterday

afternoon. Oh at 4:30 or so and we're supposed to start that area this morning

and I was like think we need to clean that out. you know, it had, if you can

see in that picture in the background, there's like three or four lifts, some scaffolding, uh, Perry scaffolds, and

then a big another lift and then just tons of,

you know, trade carts. And I'm like,

you know, Raleigh Ry, you're right, brother. That that is um

that was an experience doing doing the episodes where train every you had no choice to but

everyone was talking restaurant impossible is that what so we're out there doing that like you

have to learn how to do it while someone's on a ladder over you. So you have to go against every bone in

your body to say get out but but how are those projects to work on? I

mean, you want to talk about collaboration, we ought to have freaking Rollin on here talking about it, too. I

mean, that has to be like a major collabor I mean, that would be this the perfect topic for him to be

uh chiming in about. You want to talk about collaboration? Who's the G is there a GC on those jobs on the

restaurant possible work? So, yeah, it's uh the gentleman uh Tom that was on the like the construction

guy. His name was Tom. And I believe the uh construction company is an actual

real company that comes in and does all that as well. Uh D4, I want to say. I don't know if they changed their name or

not, but yeah, this all legit. Like that's what they do. It's really legit. And they they came in and they made a

game plan and a lot of it is on the fly. There might be a little bit of like pre- ideas, but some of it is sight

conditions. Let's find out what's here. Right. Nate's on um Instagram. He said that he's they're fun though cuz he's

done four of them. Yeah. I mean it's a challen D9. There you go. D9. And it's a challenge. Like

the first one he when R was like hold on what? And we were all the way in in uh

Mississippi uh Shreport I think. And uh there Okay, we'll just start demo. We'll

start prep. Hey, don't step here. Hey, don't step here. Hey. Hey. Did you like your barricade you carry with you while

you're patching? you you know what I mean like and these are a week long projects or

how how I think they're there for like two days. No, we were there for I I think it's

they have like three days, right? But in those three days they have to get different parts of the show like they

have to the questions to to the staff and all that. So, but like construction when that starts that doesn't stop until

it's done. That was a 24-hour ordeal. Um, and we ended up being on the

graveyard shift because no one else was there except for like maybe a painter or designer, whoever's doing the murals.

Oh, so you just they run the construction schedule for 24-hour periods like

Y round the clock. Yes, sir. And wherever you fall, you fall.

Um, you kind of got to We had to get in where we fit in. Like as soon as they

got some stuff out, we went and did the demo, clean up, pulled out, slapped some

patch down, and then they did some more stuff, some lighting or some ceiling work and some painting, some um uh wood

on the walls, and then as soon as they get past a certain area, we jump back in and like,

well, we're going to start installing there. They said that flooring is also done, usually done in the middle of the night.

Yeah, that's where we got pushed to, but we we came in in spurts on the first one. So, this is an hour by hour schedule,

not a day by day. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

Everybody knows the end goal and it's a matter communication is huge. Um the

second one that we did or third, I forget which one it was, but where Rand

got vetoed from the uh job site, he said, "Hey, uh guess what, Tom? Hey,

Jose's in charge. I can't be in here because of COVID and he's got it. And I'm like,

I got you, bro. But it went We got it done.

Got it done. We were tired. What What products were you guys using?

Uh the first one was LVT. Uh sec Oh, they're all LVT. Um Oh, no. Two LVT, one

was sheet vinyl. Pattern sheet vinyl. The second one was the really bad one where

we removed really sticky carpet over wood substrate and we ended up having to put underllayment in the whole

restaurant. Yeah, that was uh that ended up turning into a very long

Yeah, because you never know what you're getting into. No, I went in there and was like we had

to tear some up and Rollins like we need underllayment and I got out there early and I was like boom. Hey,

can you guys stay open so my guys can come and pick up a skid? Can you guys like

we need to make this happen? This is what it's for. I'm sorry. And they were able to get it and they got out there

and that was a true night shift.

Well, he could come in after the film crew left because George had it. George,

I don't know that I understand what he's saying there. Can you Oh, so him and George him and George

rode together. So you have to We had to test for COVID when we got to sight and checked in.

Oh. So they do this. They did the swab and George tested positive, but Rand did

not. But since they rode together, he could be carrying. So they said, "Sorry, too many people, too many problems." So

he just sat back and drank his coffee and kind of instructed from the way over there like, "How's it going?" Good.

Okay, that's funny. Well, it does speak of night work as part of collaboration. A

lot of times, you know, that's just easier for us on commercial work is sometimes getting started um 2 3:00 in

the afternoon or 4:00 when that everyone

else is leaving at the GC like, "Hey, we're going to come in tonight

and start installing." So, you got to make sure everybody's stuff's out of the way. Most times they do that. But uh

we've had a few times we show up and we're like well we're not movers too. You know, that's the other thing about

being in flooring is like so often we're it's like we're the cleanup crew, but

they want us to pick up if I I mean I we've had jobs where and again this is

more like con commercial construction, construction managers, architects,

everybody's like in the mix when they're using software like Procore to throw job

site pictures up all the time And so there's plenty of times we've we've um

and I got a job coming to mind right now where uh one of my guys are fighting

this where we go in and it's not ready. We shoot him pictures and then they they

we'll just clear out the room because we have no place else to go or that's the next place we have to go.

And then we we have a a pile of trash that we didn't take out the end of the day or but it's it's consolidated into

one section which you know obviously we always want our guys to take it out but it was a long shift. They didn't take it

out and we get a picture of this. Hey,

daily cleanup required. And we were like, what about this picture and 50

times worse that we walked into that we had to clean up just to do our job. So,

you know, there's that part of it is uh incredibly frustrating. Can can really

tick you off if you're if you're one of the installers in those scenarios. Yeah. Because what do you do? And uh

that's one of those instances where Daniel and and I came to the realization that we either say, "Hey, sorry, you're

not ready." and leave. Or we say, "All right, I'll help you move this stuff."

We help everybody move it because I'd rather help you move for a half hour with five guys than to have all my guys

lose work for a day and go home. Yeah. And and I I agree with it. I mean,

like, you just have to most time. That's collaboration at its finest. Although

I got to say that it it sometimes you just got to do it. It'd be nice if every time we went in it

would it was clean and ready, but you know, it's just not the reality.

The the whole collaboration thing is is being willing to give a little to get a

little. Yes. As well. And sometimes we get we get lucky where you got a good another good

sub and if you work in the same area a lot you get to know the people. I mean you mentioned that a few podcasts ago.

Um but knowing the people and coll helping work with them and helping them

out a little bit so that when it's it's time because this is certainly no this

ain't like friendship. Hey, I'll give you 50 bucks. Don't worry about it buddy. And you you forget about it. This

is like I'm doing something for you. I'm going to expect something back later on job sites. You know, you gota uh

just it was to the point on one job site where um it was just unloading material,

right? And we had like a whole bunch of BCT and it's like they're unloading every single

day and they're like you owe our guys beer, you owe them donuts. It's like

you're getting paid somehow. Yeah. Yeah. And we've been proactive after after learning some of those, like

because nobody explains that to you sometimes, right? But after learning some of that, you start showing up and saying, "Hey, what do you guys like for

lunch? I'm going to buy pizza. You guys want some? Your crew wants some? Who's the guy in charge of the sky track?

What's his name?" That's one of your drink. That's one of your most important guys right there is whoever is driving the

the lol or the the the tea handler uh on

site, you know. Yep. Because we don't we don't have them. I

mean, we've we've rented them a time or two on jobs, but for the most part, we don't have them out there. It's usually

the masons and the drywall guys will almost always have a teleahandler

out. And you got to get you got to know those guys. Even though you're not collaborating with them once you're in

the job site, like the masons, uh, for the most part, they're outside or out of

your way by the time we get there as flooring guys. But man, that guy has saved our rears on jobs. I can't count

how many times just unloading it. That's one of the things that I that I wrote down uh when when I read the title

like food and drinks. People are happy when their belly is full.

Yeah. If you know what they what everybody likes to eat or drink and you help out, they'll remember that.

Well, and you know, at the end of the day, you guys all we all have the same

goal to get done, get a project completed on time. So, if you can work

with the other trades, um, that job that I showed you the picture of, we let them paint one side

and then focus on that side because painters were supposed to be done and out of our way.

They had to do dryfall first and we couldn't be in there when they're doing dryfall at all.

Yeah. Uh, then we had to sweep all their dryfall up. Oh jeez. So for for those of you who don't know, you should not sand a floor

if it has dry fall on it. The heat re kind of re almost grinds it into the

surface of the concrete and you can have bonding issues. So just pro tip, don't

don't ever sand over dryfall. It's it's just like that dust. Uh

sometimes if they didn't do a good job, it can be heavier and that I make them

take it off. I'm like all this stuff needs to be out. But essentially, we take a big broom and just broom it up.

Not worrying too much about it being super clean. It's just about getting 99% of that dryfall off the floor before you

start sanding your floor. But once they got done with the dryfall, they did that one wall uh and got that

half of the room and that's about a 6,000 ft room of protect.

And nice. Yeah. And they got with some Teraflex

inserts, some four square Teraflex inserts. But um they got that whole side

done and we went over there, got all our major PL patch. And this hearkens back

to one of our previous episodes where we were talking about like sequencing your your work. We got in there and we clean

we told them just get everything off the saw joints and we started scraping saw

joints and cleaning them and getting our first coat on them. That's that installer mentality, brother. I tell you what, that's the

right. Yeah, we were on a project like that last year, too, where it was like it was so busy and they're like, "What do we

do?" I said, "Start start on the saw joints. I mean, start filling something."

Yeah. Clean clean and and fill saw joints up. We got all that done. And by that time they were they were finishing

up p uh their uh first coat on paint there. The next morning we went in did

our final prep on that area. They got move all the stuff moved out and they finished painting and then we got that

whole half of the room done. You know that's what I'm talking about in collaboration. Otherwise we'd have to

wait. And part of the problem is once we have guys scheduled on a job, and I

don't know if you guys are the same way, but like once I have guys scheduled, it's it's like if I was to open up my

schedule, they're not sitting next week, right? You know, they're on another project,

man. They're already scheduled for another project out for a month. And uh

that's a lot of times how we're scheduled. So if you can't work with if

we didn't work with those people because the painters didn't get done in time

then we are going to be like what going home for 3 days 4 days and then we're

not going to be able to finish the job before that crew has to go to another project. Then we have a manpower issue.

So that collaboration helps us keep on schedule as well. So it's beneficial all

around. Yes sir. How do you guys uh prep Nate

on Instagram says that um the collaboration thing is he thought was pointless at first was

uh construction meetings uh but it was one of the most beneficial things that could happen was getting

everyone in the same room talking about the schedule like what's going on what are you doing where are you going to be

at yeah I'd love to hear from some residential guys who do like builder

work on how that works I mean, I have an idea and we've done some big duplex

projects where it's like a whole lowincome housing area or something and we're going through, but that even has

like a developer and a GC. It's it still kind of ran a little bit more commercial feeling than, you know, a builder doing

speck homes. I wonder how that works in a whole development. Uh, do they like get together ever and talk about that

stuff? That's a good question. I I don't know. But in the commercial world, I mean, job meetings are almost like you kind of

it's like a lovehate relationship in there, you know, uh that sometimes

they're early on specifically, they can be almost worthless. Although,

if you throw in there like, "Hey, I see you have the painter here on this date.

Are we putting our base up and then them cutting to it or are they

going to be final coat? Like what's the, you know, you can kind of make uh your

impact in those meetings early on even. But sometimes they feel like a little

bit of waste of time until you're involved and then they're like

incredibly important. Yep. 100%. Well, it's about stacking those dominoes so they they fall right.

And that's what it is. you you have to wait until it's your turn. Sometimes it's not your turn for a

little bit, but when it is your turn, you have all the information you need to go ahead and and drop down your hammer,

drop down your piece, and say, "Hey, this is what's going to be more beneficial." And sometimes it's a learning process

for everyone else, too. Sometimes they just don't know that you can't hang base on freshly painted walls because

it's too soft. It fall reactivates the paint and falls up. They just don't know. Um

I didn't know that until we had to bring stuff up. So yeah, this Well, I had this same a similar deal.

We're doing a job and and um it's all carpet on the stairs, but the

stringers are steel that are painted. And they were like, "Well, we're painting these today. We want you here

in the morning." I was like, "Oil base paint?" Yeah. I was like, "Dude, I'm not coming

for three days. That stuff has to cure or else we're gonna scrape the tar out

of it and you're going to be repainting. Well, how about I just hold them off and we'll paint up to your carpet. I was

like, you want to see a bad paint job? Try to paint stringers up and and like

get back low enough under the the nap. I said, "Unless the guy's gonna put a

drywall knife, drywall knife on the side and do this number." But but then they go back and they stick

right to it anyway, then you have fuzzy. Yeah. So essentially at the end of the day,

you know, they painted and and we waited for uh a few days uh I think it was

three uh before we went in there or no, it was 4 days before we go in and start

um our our carpet on those stairs. But it's just stuff like that that they to

you know go to your point Jose is that sometimes they don't know and your job

is to inform them and it's just like having painter or drywaller in the same

room in like that room I showed you. I no I cannot go in while they're sanding

drywall. Sanding. Oh my god. That's the worst. There's no nothing I can do if they're sanding drywall. Now, if you're done, we

can we can talk. But if there's still going to be sand and drywall, that drywall dust is going to get in my my

adhesive. It's in the air. It's going to take a while for it to fall. It's going to fall

on my adhesive and cause bonding issues. So, nope, I cannot be here, you know? So

yeah, sometimes just educating them, but ultimately collaboration is about like,

okay, we'll come in here or being willing to work that that night shift when you need to.

No one likes it. Yeah, it's about creating partnerships.

Not not unless I don't know when I installed every day I a lot of times

tried to get it to the night shift and that was just me. Um it was just so much

easier there. Oh, I just get so much more done. I'd show up an hour before I was scheduled

to be there to make sure everything got moved out and then my crew would show up and then we could really get a lot of

work done. And most of the time you you you it's a double-edged sword. You blow away

the the customer. A lot of times we blow them away with how much we got done in a single shift when no one's in our way.

Uh and then the bad side of that sword is then they are like, "Well, you can do

that, you know, expecting that amount to be done all the time." And I'm like,

that was a scenario where you had everything moved out perfectly and there

was no trades in my way that we got that amount of work done. Now you got me jumping from this corner to that corner

to this corner to that corner. There's no way to get that amount of work done. So yeah, that collaborating together and

really working together as the subtrades is like paramount.

I tried to get an electrician on here. he's been on the podcast before to kind of speak his piece and like what's

easier for them and kind of what you know get a different perspective. Um

do do the do electricians uh despise us as much as sometimes we despise them?

If you work with me dude oh my god I cannot stand wire pieces and

stuff when they just they come in to do the smallest thing and they don't clean up after themselves. It's my biggest pet

peeve on a job. I like it is completely perfect room that you just

vacuumed everything. The the worst is the drywall finishers.

Uh yeah, like you say that electricians don't own a broom. Well, these guys don't own anything to clean up anything.

Well, I tell you what, there's pl the the painting and drywall together, like

that paint band they like to do. You know, we try to tell ahead of time like

if you don't want to be back scraping up paint or being charged for me to do it,

use piece of protection of some sort on the floor when you spray this because

otherwise that paint has to come off the concrete. I can't lay over it. Here's ASMF710

that tells you very clearly I can't lay over paint or you know dirt and grease

or any of that stuff. Yeah, there's one of the contractors we

work for. They do their own painting and stuff. So, anytime they're like spraying, they're actually like taping

around the doors and putting paper down and it's it's awesome. You don't get that

often, but when you do, we like to say it's because of us. We like to think that. Anyway,

well, Nate says that he had a finished carpenter leave the base up threequarters of an inch because the pad

and carpet were going to cover it and the carpet and tack strip were less than a half inch.

Oh, I see. Base mold or a quarter round or or a lot of work in that guy's

immediate future. He said he put something underneath the tack strip. Oh, he brought it up. He put on one side

of the room, the other side of the room, the middle of the room was was down this far. He was like, "We're good."

Yeah. So, a lot of this, you know, obviously runs

into some of the problems you have with different trades. And I I agree. Like drywall mud fall everywhere. And they

think they say, "Well, you're sanding the floor anyway." Yeah, I'm sanding the floor to get dirt off of it, dude. I'm

not sanding your clumps of drywall mud. You need to take a go around with scraper and scrape all that stuff up.

The worst actually is when it's textured walls and they spray texture and it is

Oh yeah. everywhere and they they walk it onto

the Oh man. And on on Gypret it's even worse because it doesn't just scrape off. It gets down into those rough

pores. You know what I'm saying? And then you got gypsum material which you can't lay flooring over ground into a

gypret floor. Well, anything you put over that freshly like they're supposed to seal it right when they're done, but then you grind

and you foot traffic and it grinds that sealer off and you got to redo it again. Anyway,

I do have a question about that. Do you guys uh do like hotels and stuff like

that where they they have J do they do you have the same problem

where they don't seal it? They want always want us to seal it and we're like no they make a sealer on the back side

of Jipe that is well so typically they do put a sealer on it but then it just wore off by the time we

it wears off wears off like 100% of the time just

anywhere there's heavy traffic. Yeah, we've had problems with it just not necessarily wearing off. I mean, if they

use like Max on overspray uh and do it correctly, I mean, it soaks in a good

quart to an inch. Yeah. Oh, does it really go that deep? Yeah. If you if it's done right, it'll

go deep. The problem is if it's still drying and this is what my the GCs will

always tell you uh is that it is um

it t they're not supposed to do it for seven days. By that time the Jip Creek guys are off and on another project.

They don't leave no one behind to spray everything. And so it hasn't dried out yet

because the moisture has to evaporate out of that giprete. And then you seal

it. If you seal it too early, it doesn't penetrate very deep and that's why

you're having that walk-off where it's coming off issues because there's too much moisture still in the jip creek.

They just need to add They just need to add a really distinguishable die to all of those that you know for the jibrete

that's going to get covered so that everybody knows when it wears off. Everybody knows when it's not sealed. You can just walk in and look at it.

Yeah. Or just, you know, mostly what happens is we charge them to do it.

I'm like, it has to be done. I can't. And I don't seal. I mean, this is part of their scope,

but that's where it gets mixed up. It's like, is it part of our scope or their scope?

We know it's Jip Creek floors when we bid bid the job and they'll have to be sealed.

And I'm like, too, right? Yeah. And it's usually not in our spec

to seal the floor. It's usually just a a spec saying how to install it, but it doesn't typically say, you know, seal

Jipe floors or seal, you know, the finished product. My point is my

Yeah. Well, my point Well, it says that they ha they have to be properly sealed.

My point to my GC's has always been okay, but they also know that this is

getting tile or whatever. And it's what's the what product did they put

down? He's like, well, it's a Maxon under uh you know, Jipe. And I'm like, and what's the sealer? Oh, it's Maxon

overspray. Gotcha. and how is that mine?

So, it's it's uh it's kind of funny, but at the same time, you know, and we do it pretty cheap to

be honest with you. It's not like a we try to make a bunch of we just want to keep our job going. Again, that

collaborating between and just keep the project moving forward. But many many square feet add up though.

Yeah. says right here on on here too, you know, about the sheetrock guys always have to charge extra for clean up and

scraping all the mess on one of the projects that I was just on. Um like we had our tools in the room and they're

just doing repairs and I go the next day and I think maybe

I was gone for a day or something. I go back and there is drywall mud all over all of our tools.

They have flicker. Dang. Some flingers.

That's I'm not going to lie. I grabbed a bunch of our mud from our cleaning bucket from our patch and I

dumped it all over their stuff and a bunch of dry uh dried like from buffing and stuff. And

we're going to have to start a show featuring Daniel called trade retaliation. Yeah.

Trade wars like storage wars. No. They were like, "Hey, the drywall gu

guys were really angry today because they they came into this and then sent pictures." And I was like, "Yeah, now

they know how it feels. Maybe they should take care of other people's stuff, too." Yeah. Well, unfortunately, you don't to

get a every worker on a job site together is tough, but man, the the certain trades uh well, we've already

named them, you know, painters and sheetrock guys and electricians more so.

I love you guys electricians if there's any out there watching us. But the the

if you are going back in and putting your uh you know cover plates on,

pick up the sheet the plastic like the clipping or or they're going in after we're

ready. We clean everything up. A lot of times we'll do our final skim coat right before the end of the day. Dries

overnight. We come in and sand the floor, sweep it. um they'll go in there

and think, "Oh, they still got to sand this floor." So, all these wire ends

will be fine. No, it's not fine. It gets stuck in the bottom of our sander and will create heat, which removes our p

our skim coat off of the floor. Yeah. And um Yeah. So, those are just my

little whiny moments of working with uh you know, we're floor guys and Brazilian floor

guys at that. So, we're even more whiny than anyone else. Oh, yeah. Well, and there's this thing called gravity that puts everything on our

floor. And so, we we uh we have to deal with that. You know, ceiling guys don't have

to worry about it. The the painters don't have to worry about stuff. I often say when when we have these discussions

and I've had it like where GC's are defending the the painters and like well that's how they're oh you have to expect

that and I'm like no do they expect on when we go in doing our patch and

patch flings on their wall or adhesive gets on their wall should they just expect that?

That was my argument. Yeah, dude. The other big thing uh

talking about all that back and forth stuff is glue removal on demo. We have fought that for so many years.

We we're I think I feel like for the core of our contractors, we're through it. But, you know, a lot of times

they'll they'll go in, they we give them a demo number, they we're higher than they are. They go in, they take up the

carpet and leave the adhesive. And they're like, "Well, that's part of

floor prep." But we literally just went on went through this on a major job, a

big job. And it's ran out of our Kansas City office.

And um so our manager up there happens to be my son. He's like, "What am I how

how do I approach this?" I'm like, "Well, demo is that's that's part of the

product. You can't have carpet without adhesive. So you the the product is not

just the stuff on top. It that that glue is the product of the system. Yeah.

And so if you're demoing then you got to demo the product. I mean you wouldn't demo drywall and then leave screws

everywhere and then tell the drywaller to come install it.

You know what I mean? Like that doesn't make any sense. And we we went through

that. The most rewarding thing is it took them three weeks to get the glue up. They because the GC was like, "Oh,

that's nothing. That's just you're because we gave them a price to remove it and it was pretty high price, but

some of it was pressure sensitive, which is a bear to get off the floor. Some of it was old broad loom. Some of it was on

top of old cutback. Like it was this mixture of stuff." And we're like, you know, you can't just use

one technique to get it all off. Like the scrape away head works pretty good on the broad loom glue, but it doesn't

work for crap on the on the pressure. And so, you know, you're kind of working

through this deal with them. They got they had like 10 guys with razor scrapers in there and it took them

almost three weeks to get the uh the glue off the floor.

You know, it was rewarding. Even though it pushed us off, it was rewarding because I was like, "See, that's why it cost so much

cuz you either got the time or the ex expertise to get it off." Yeah. And you

And when he says, "Well, you guys probably have easier methods or better methods." I'm like, "Yeah, that's what

you're paying me for is my methods." My means and methods. You're not just paying me because I work hard. You're

paying me for my means and methods. How do you got this done? We would have

gotten this done a lot faster than your guys did. But you're not paying me just

to have some laborers on here that don't know how to remove the adhesive effectively just drudging through with

4in razor scrapers trying to get the job. You know what's funny is you said that I

just turned in a labor only project for another flooring contractor and she called and said, "Hey, the owner said

that they're going to do their own demo. Can we remove that?" I was like, "Yep." She was like,

put a line item on there for an allowance because you know they're not going to remove the adhesive.

I said, "Got it. We're good." Yep. So,

yeah. Well, we finally got most of our guys where uh

most of our contractors uh where they understand like the demo is part of the

the the adhesive is part of the demo. So, either you let you give me the adhesive and if that's what you want me

to remove, that's fine. But don't expect me to do any of that stuff for free.

You know what? I'm looking at at Jeremy's comment on here. I don't I don't think Daniel put it up, but he's

talking about floor guys bring the brooms and the trash cans and all of a sudden everybody's using them, right? So

I I I know that that that this episode was about like working together and teamwork and all that, but I will say

well you can't do that without discovering why you have to do it, which is all this stuff.

So I will say that some of the best relationships that we have now started on a really rough patch and to use

Jeremy's comment here and Daniel's done this too is somebody's using your trash can. You go and tell them, "Hey, no,

this isn't for you. This is mine. I need this. We're working with it." and they fill it up again. And we're going to use

the electricians because the last time I dumped one out in front of them, it was electricians. I took my trash can,

dumped it out in front of all their pallets and said, "Go get your own trash can."

And that was a while ago, I'll be honest. Like some petty stuff like the way Danny was talking about the mud. I was mean,

but you know what? after the fact they used their own trash can and they respected our tools and we worked with

them on other jobs and they had all their own stuff and we laughed about it later on.

Well, you know, I like we didn't show this either, but Jorge agrees with

me that and then he he says they're always

leaving little wires everywhere. That is the thing that bugs me. Those

little wires. You don't like the knockouts. You don't like the knockouts. Oh, come on, man. Sweep up.

Look, so little little secret. I was an electrician. I did electrical for like 11 months, right?

I laughed every time I had left the wires and the knockouts. I was like, h just knock them out with my needle nose

and just left it there. And I look and I go, dang. But I go, haha.

So making somebody mad. Was that before you did flooring or after?

During. During. So you knew what you were doing. Yeah, 100%. They know what they're

doing, brother. We We should They know what they're doing. I was I was kind of giving them the

benefit of the doubt. At first, I did try to carry like a I

had a bucket I sat on and a little bucket that I threw my clippings and everything in. But then you have your

pouch, you have your whole harness. It gets like you're dragging a lot and you're trying to move quick.

Jeremy replying to Jorge. What's one of the things you'll never

hear on a job site? How well the electricians did cleaning up after themselves.

That's funny. Jeremy was in that class last week, too. Oh, was he?

Yeah. He was a classic Jeremy overthinking

stuff, trying to redo things 45 times. Classic Jeremy.

Well, I'm glad the training went well. Again, I want to give a shout out to our sponsors uh for this episode, Divergent

Adhesives and NFCT. If you need a great adhesive that's going to meet your job

site conditions, uh obviously uh they still need to be within reason, but uh you know those

demanding job sites, go check out the Virgin Adhesives and and uh give them some love. And then one more thing

before we go is definitely we're I want to pop this up every episode because this this is going for a couple more

weeks and we're going to end up um doing the giveaway live here on the 18th, I

believe. November 18th. Yeah, go check we

go check this out. Go QR this. Sorry. I was I was thinking like probably should have put this up right away and I I uh

I it slipped my mind, but get get this uh you know, all you got to do is QR it

and um follow the instructions for for uh bidding, I guess. I don't know if I

should say bid, but it's a raffle. Uh, as you guys know, this is to help Denise

um as she's dealing with the loss of of Dan Churchill and a friend of the

industry, a friend of ours. And uh so please support Denise and and u and and

help her out. Like Daniel said a episode or two ago, we don't know what the the cost impact is. We know there's a

massive cost impact to this for her and uh you know, every little bit helps. So

get on there and and uh let's help them out, guys. Yeah. Do what you can. I know times are

tough right now, but any little bit helps, and we we definitely appreciate you guys that have donated already.

Yeah. All right. Well, again, thanks to the

NFCT for sponsoring this episode as well. Uh Daniel as one of their trainers

uh had a great training down in or over in Ohio. So, uh, be on the lookout as we

roll out at Trade Tap. We're going to be rolling out the training hub and a lot of these opportunities are going to be

right at the right at your fingertips soon. So, uh, we will definitely do a big announcement when all that comes uh,

to pass and u help you guys get access. But, looks like a great group of guys

there that was at the training. uh get involved, get trained, and uh you know,

get what you're worth on a on your projects, and let's band together as a as a a team. Um, I was presenting last

week about the the VTI, about the verified trade index, and and uh a guy

that I was talking to, um, actually he was on the podcast here not long ago,

Jeremy, uh, but he had another tech company he had

built. He came from the trades uh as well, but he was like, "Yeah, this is kind of like how it puts you guys puts

the fittest trades on par with electricians and and uh plumbers from a licensing standpoint."

Was that James? I was like, that's a really good Yeah, James Hatfield. Sorry, I said Jeremy. My

bad. Let's get into the picture. But yeah, um so and that's true. That's

that's one of the ways we can band together right there and make sure that we I'm not saying we keep anybody out,

but let's make sure that when people are bidding projects uh or providing labor

services on jobs that you know, you know what you're getting and we know what we're getting as a as a owner and

everybody's very clear on what the expectations are. And again, please show

up for Denise and click the QR code and uh go go uh participate in that and and

show some love. So, and we hope you guys all win it at the same time, even though we know it's only

going to be one of you, but we're rooting for everyone. We are rooting for you all.

Uh quick quick reminder to, you know, give us some love on our social medias.

uh you know give a like and subscribe. Uh comments are always welcome and we

certainly appreciate all the live comments that come through. It helps us to uh connect with you guys and and

bring you good content. So uh keep keep up the good work and uh follow us on

Facebook and follow us on Instagram and our all of our sites. So

and Nay says happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween, Nate says. All right, everyone. We will see you

later. All right, see you guys next time.