Archive for the ‘Hardwood floor Portland’ Category
Why I still love this career
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Some days in the world of a “floor guy” are exhausting and frustrating. Some days you are working in houses so dirty that they could be condemned and other days you end up getting stain all over your new shirt. The freedom that has accompanied starting this business years ago always makes it worth it. The hours are flexible and the appreciation of a job well done when you hear it from a customer makes the occasional long day all worth it.
The whole company (Destry, Andrew, and I) have been working for a couple of months on a large project for a church in our neighborhood. The chancel portion of the church received all brand new floors and also we installed two large radius african mahogany nosings around the flooring.
One of the characteristics of working with wood is that you never know what will happen next. The two radius nosings were built from a series of rough stock boards. The boards were planed and then cut into strips and glued together to form a curved piece. Afterwards, we still have to router, plane, and sand the product a lot in order to create the final product. In the case of this project the final sanding revealed that there were voids in some of the strips . They appeared as dark spots and were out of character relative to the grain of the wood. Simply using filler just wouldn’t work. We even used the recommendation of someone else of using dust and glue without any success.
The real thing that keeps us going in this field is when a project demands resourcefulness and creativity to solve a problem. In the end I suggested that we open the gap in the nosing and we custom created grain matched wood slivers. We glued them in and sanded them and the problem disappeared.
That’s the point of this blog. Every day we have to think with two sides of our brain in order to run an efficient high quality hardwood floor company. Whether we are working in a historic house in Portland with fir flooring or a church, we always have to think of solutions that make problems go away and look elegant. I never found that in my last career. I’m glad to be a “floor guy”.
african mahogany radius nosing
Tags: hardwood floor professional, hardwood refinishing, portland oregon hardwood contractor
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Who is working on your project?
Saturday, July 17th, 2010
Sometimes consumers will walk into a retail store such as Home Depot and order up a bunch of flooring and labor and assume everything is good to go. The biggest thing people are missing is that ALL of the labor that retailers use is entirely subcontracted from that point onward. This is where most communication breakdowns happen particularly regarding a site finished wood floor. Let’s look at why.
Most retailers have only ever sold flooring. I have rarely encountered a retailer where the sales staff has ever sanded a significant number of floors. They rely on the people to whom they are subcontracting the labor to maintain a high standard. Any problems that arise with the floor at that point are being handled by the subcontractor and not the retailer. It’s like passing the buck and it puts relations at a tricky point.
The best way to purchase a site-finished hardwood floor is to hire a reputable wood flooring professional. Go to the National Wood Flooring Association website and evaluate from there who fits your needs. All wood flooring contractors who specialize in site finished wood floors have access to wholesale distribution showrooms with equal or greater selection than most retailers. In fact, a lot of retailers purchase products from the same wholesale distributors as the contractor. The contractor can handle all materials and labor and reduce or eliminate any mis-communication liabilities if they are more closely involved in the process from the beginning.
Tags: hardwood choices for the wise consumer, hardwood floor contractor, portland oregon hardwood contractor
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Okay, time’s up. Let’s educate
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
The difference between me and you is that I am supposed to have a better eye for what I do in my profession because of formal training. I often see floors that just baffle me because people aren’t aware of what a garbage floor looks like. I’m not perfect and our company makes mistakes, but we fix them. I am going to link this blog with an ongoing series of video blogs to educate the consumer about hardwood flooring products, fit, finish in an order to educate people what to expect when determining quality. I don’t blog to hear myself, I blog in order to educate consumers anywhere in the nation or world about hardwood floors from a contractor’s perspective. We will begin this week, so look for the link to our YouTube channel.
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Finish technology, the great unknown
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
I was at my distributor today and overheard something amazing. A company owner who has been in business many years was asking for some product. Here’s how it goes,
Owner, “I want the lightest colored finish you can use on maple.”
Dist rep, “You need BonaSeal for the lightest look.”
Owner, “Can I put Glitsa Infinity on top?”
Dist rep, “Sure”
Owner, “I just want whatever is cheapest for this job.”
If these are the questions of a “veteran” and the operating principles, then it’s no wonder homeowners are lost when comparing estimates. Would this make you confident to know it was your floor?
Homeowners, here is the way to solve things. Look the contractor in the eye and say the following question, “If this were your house and you could use any product to make your floors most durable, then what finish would you use and why?”
I would love e-mails about any stories.
Tags: floor finish durability, Hardwood floor durability, hardwood refinishing, portland oregon hardwood contractor, waterborne finish
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Lowest price=Lowest Common Denominator
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
I had a thesis advisor who did a lot to help me avoid one of the common pitfalls that happens to people. He always referred to it as the “lowest common denominator” as a suggestion that people would rather be a minimalist in their ways than really try to achieve the most that they could in every endeavor.
The problem that consumers don’t realize is that all contractors pay roughly the same cost for materials, unless they are stealing material, which I doubt. Therefore, to have a lower cost the contractor must have a lower labor cost.
To have a lower labor cost either jobs must happen faster or employees must be paid less. HERE are the pitfalls of such a model.
1) Faster jobs-If you want attention to detail on your project, then forget it if the job is a production job that has to be done quickly.
2) Low paid employees- Underpaid employees really don’t want to do the best job, end of story.
Here is my challenge:
If you know the name of a licensed hardwood floor company in Portland, Oregon that is “cheap” and always a low bidder, and has legal employees covered by workers compensation then please give me their name. I want to know their model and secret if their work looks good. I will donate a free premium Glitsa tack mop and cleaning kit once I see the job and you can convince me that their work is really a quality product if I know what finish they used on the floor.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, hardwood floor professional, hardwood refinishing, Portland hardwood floor, portland oregon hardwood contractor
Posted in Hardwood floor Portland, floor refinishing portland oregon, portland hardwood professional | 1 Comment »
Older businesses can disappear
Sunday, May 9th, 2010
About a year ago following the fallout of the housing market I was reminded by a friend that a company in Vancouver, WA was bankrupt and shutting down. This was significant because this company had all the markings of a “big successful floor business” such as a showroom, tons of vans and crews, etc… In many people’s eyes this is what defines a company that is solid and “real”. Looking behind the curtain though, there is a lot of overhead to maintain this type of business and with just a few unfortunate circumstances this business was gone in no time.
During a recent estimate I was discussing with a customer the gaps she had in her floors in her newly built house. She said she contacted her builder and he had been unable to locate the contractor who installed the floors originally. After talking we both realized that the warranty claim will never be done because the company in Vancouver did the original installation and they are no longer in business. This was just one person I ran into by chance. How many hundreds of people have warranty claims that will never be resolved by this “pillar” of a company?
The point of my blog is to suggest simply that the best contractors don’t need a huge showroom and tons of vans running around to be successful. In fact choosing a smaller and more efficiently operated hardwood floor business may be your best option these days if you want someone to return your calls in six months.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, portland oregon hardwood contractor
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Customers are the best judge
Sunday, March 21st, 2010
We often get asked about dustless sanding by many customers. We are known for using this technology and use it on jobs as much as possible. The system really does work amazingly and I can “pitch” that all day. It is much better when the observation comes from someone other than me because third party objective review is the strongest voice. We have reviews on the web at sites like Yelp. What’s even better is when you have a client send a small note in an invoice without us asking for a review. Here is a scan of the small Post-It note that we got from our client Shawn in a payment recently. It makes our day to know we are doing our job and people really feel value to our service!
Tags: dustless refinishing, hardwood refinishing
Posted in Dustless Hardwood Refinishing, Hardwood floor Portland, Hardwood floor refinish, floor refinishing portland oregon, portland floor | No Comments »
Beware of the boutique
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Recently our shop was approached by a “boutique” wholesaler to subcontract installations and sanding. It sounded like an interesting way to grow our business possibly. I had my reservations based on conversations with other remodeling colleagues who previously used this group. Specifically I was concerned that they were unwilling to pay a fair market rate for top notch contracting because of the types of installers they typically use. A brief conversation with the outfit quickly verified that my intuition was correct. The rates that they were willing to pay to installers were about 60% of the going rate for the best full service hardwood flooring contractors in town.
Normally I don’t want to discuss price, but it is valid in this case. I know that quality service requires time and very careful effort. The mathematics of a service business require that to lower price you must lower service unless material costs are lowered.
What I urge consumers to do and always will is to specifically work with reputable small retailers with great experience. Flashy “high-end” boutique retailers pay considerable overhead in rent for facilities and staffing. To stay competitive they must create downward pricing pressure on subcontracted labor, which invariably results in mediocre work.
In these days of the internet research I advise consumers to really investigate service providing retailers before making an “impulse” buy with your hardwood floor. Stay informed with resources such as the NWFA.
Tags: hardwood choices for the wise consumer
Posted in hardwood floor choices, portland hardwood professional | 1 Comment »
Staying on top of technology
Friday, January 29th, 2010
I am pleased to announce that we will be adding a new piece of equipment to our lineup this week. It is the new Clarke SE7 Pro edger.
Given that most dust generated during sanding comes from the edger, we are pleased to switch to this new machine. The dust collection is state of the art and greatly superior to most edgers. Dust collection systems generally are unable to capture the dust from gear driven edgers like the Clarke Super 7. The new SE7 Pro edger is belt driven and extremely clean.
For more, click here
Tags: hardwood refinishing, New hardwood edger, wood floor sanding
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Restoring a botched sanding job
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
The other day we received a phone call from a distraught homeowner. She had unfortunately hired a “fly-by-night” contractor for a job. Originally when he was hired he was there to install tile, but assured the homeowners he could also refinish the wood floors. Because of the unethical nature of this person, I am willing to release that his company was called “A Touch of Class”, or at least that was the name under which he was operating. After checking his license I determined that was an inactive license with several judgments and orders to pay damage fees.
During this first portion we sanded the floor at a slight angle to remove the drum marks from the original sanding process. Here are the results after the first round of sanding.
Afterwards, we filled the floor to remove gaps and the process is shown here.
To illustrate the dust collection process we have a video clip of the process as seen here.
Final finish sanding is done using a Lagler Trio.
After all sanding was completed, we dampened the floor to prepare for staining. The floor was stained as a mixture of Coffee Brown and Golden Brown. Afterwards, two finish coats of a traditional Glitsa Swedish finish system.
Tags: dustless refinishing, hardwood refinishing, Swedish finish, wood floor sanding
Posted in Dustless Hardwood Refinishing, Hardwood floor Portland, Hardwood floor refinish, floor refinishing portland oregon, hardwood floor finish | 3 Comments »