Contract Flooring Journal (CFJ) the latest news for flooring contractors

HomeHelp and adviceAll’s well that ends well

All’s well that ends well

Two inconveniently timed inspection call outs for Richard Renouf had a satisfactory outcome when the clients were grateful for his knowledge.

IN the past week I’ve had to make two calls at times which were less than convenient for me. The first was mid-morning on a Saturday (changeover day for a holiday let) and in a seaside location on the west coast of Wales, 257 miles from home.

The second was in the northeast three days later, and ‘only’ 205 miles from home, but at 8am. As I’d let this customer down on a previous appointment because my car broke down, I felt obliged to make this happen (and I also bought a jump-starter pack so the car wouldn’t let me down again!).
The property owner, retailer and installers met me at the holiday let. It was a converted farm outbuilding with a new subfloor including underfloor heating. I’d been sent no details about the complaint, but it was obvious when the front door was opened.

The SPC tiles were severely cupped, and the owner had put a rug in the kitchen area to stop the broken joints causing injury to her renters.

The home in the northeast was the same story. The owner and installer were there to meet me and the SPC flooring was cupping. I asked if the area was a new extension and this was confirmed, so we spent time finding out the dates of the construction work and the flooring installation.

It’s normal practice for an independent consultant to ‘reserve judgment’ – that means we make our excuses and don’t give anything away onsite but give all the information and our opinions in the formal report. Experience has taught me this is a good idea. It saves a lot of time and answering the same naïve questions time and again.

But experience has also taught me people don’t believe photographs. Especially not photographs of moisture readings. ‘That can’t be!’ ‘Your meter is faulty!’ ‘That’s only in that area, it doesn’t apply anywhere else!’ So, on both of these visits, and as the installers were present, I took the risk of showing them the moisture readings and taking the extra time to explain the consequences for the flooring.

SPC flooring is a vinyl flooring, but it has been stiffened by using mineral fillers in the backing. These fillers are porous and so they will absorb moisture from a subfloor that is not adequately dry, and this will cause the tiles to cup across the width and along the length.

All installation instructions set out the moisture levels required and specify the use of a DPM film or surface-applied moisture suppressant to prevent any problems. The information is there for the installer, but ‘experienced’ installers will assume they know how to install flooring and will get to work without even considering there may be some important information in the on-pack instructions.

Modern building regulations require more than one DPM in a new subfloor and this slows down the drying times. We used to say it took 1 day per mm thickness for a cementitious screed up to 50mm thick to dry, and additional time for deeper screeds and slabs.

Anhydrite was assumed to be the same, but one supplier states this is true up 40mm and above this it takes two days per mm. However, there is no guidance for anhydrite slabs over 50mm thick. In practice, these guide drying times are unreliable and there is no substitute for taking accurate moisture readings, and only after the building works are complete and there are no more wet trades (including decorators) to finish their work.

One of the floorlayers found it hard to believe what I showed him, and he asked, ‘Well, how long will this floor take to dry, then?’ I explained why I couldn’t answer his question but reassured him that three different moisture meters couldn’t be wrong, and the solution was to lift the flooring and start again, but this time with a suitable moisture barrier to protect the flooring.

I was also able to point out the problems were being made worse by the lack of expansion room, the use of silicone sealant and, in the kitchen cabinets being fitted on top of the floating floors.
To my surprise, once the inquisitions were over, the parties present in both cases said how grateful they were to know the cause of the problems and for me taking the time to go through it with them until it made sense.

That, at least, made the journeys home a bit more tolerable.
www.richard-renouf.com
Richard Renouf is an independent flooring consultant

Please click to view more articles about

Stay Connected

4,500FansLike
7,945FollowersFollow

Training

MOST READ

Popular articles