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Raising the ceiling on flooring standards

Alan elaborates on his main priorities as CFA president, as outlined in his first column,
and which include promoting best practice and championing the interests of flooring professionals, as well as encouraging them to take advantage of the benefits of CFA membership.

ALL my objectives as listed above come to the fore when addressing the issue of site conditions.
Every flooring contractor will have experience of arriving on-site to find that the installation environment is poorly ventilated, badly lit, too hot or too cold, or a combination of the above. With the depths of winter upon us, the latter will be felt all the more acutely. They might also find that the project is not at the stage where flooring installation can proceed as agreed, the site is messy and they are forced to work around other trades, at the same time as being pressured to complete work to unreasonable timescales. Often, pressure to commence work prematurely arises from a lack of understanding of how screeds dry and the condition that they need to be in to receive floorcoverings.

Not only is it detrimental to the well-being of flooring professionals, it can have a negative impact on the quality of finished results. It doesn’t matter how good a floorlayer is if he or she can’t see what they are doing, and unfavourable environmental conditions have an adverse effect on the performance of products.

Redressing these situations is the aim of the latest CFA site conditions campaign, called ‘Clear Our Workspace’.

It provides a toolkit with resources to help raise awareness of the site conditions required for a successful flooring installation and promote better collaboration with main contractors and other trades on-site. These include, as a bare minimum, projects starting on time, being given sufficient time to complete works, heating, adequate light, a clear workspace and good communication around other works taking place.

The resources include a site poster, which can be printed and displayed on notice boards ensuring that all trades are aware of the requirements for a successful flooring installation and an email footer designed to highlight the necessity of good site conditions – a QR code points to section two of the CFA’s Guide to Contract Flooring, which provides information on relevant British Standards and best practice to enable flooring contractors to perform their jobs efficiently and effectively.

In recent Contract Flooring Journal (CFJ) columns, Richard Catt has raised the link between site conditions and the findings of the Grenfell Inquiry, published in its recent report, which highlights the need for standards of competence across all trades and the need for collaboration between workforces to avoid another such tragedy.

While our sector may not deal directly with fire safety critical products, the issues raised regarding accountability, supervision, competence, compressed timescales and bullying tactics to meet deadlines that can also affect quality and result in costly failures.

Architects need to be accountable for the products that they specify, main contractors should be accountable for how they run sites, and manufacturers need to be accountable for the products that they make. If any one of these links in the chain breaks, you’re unlikely to get a good result, and it can affect people’s lives.

Ultimately, where site conditions are unsuitable, the CFA is encouraging flooring contractors to give a responsible ‘no’ to proceeding with an installation, instead pausing work until the right site conditions are in place for a successful installation.

Finally, I want to raise awareness of CFA membership benefits in light of the fallout from the collapse of ISG. As ever, when such large companies in the construction sector fail, it is smaller subcontractors that feel the main impact, including CFA members, and there is a knock-on effect through the supply chain.

We are here to assist, including discussing options that are open to members contracted by a company that fails and what support we might be able to provide. The CFA’s legal helpline can also help flooring contractors in identifying their rights and legal position in these situations.

As the number of builders, contractors and shopfitting companies entering administration continues to be a concern, members need to be ever more vigilant and check the financial stability of companies they are approached by or with whom they have contracts. The CFA credit checking facility, which is free to access for all members, provides one way of doing this.
0115 941 1126
info@cfa.org.uk
www.cfa.org.uk

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