c/flooring-installers

Had a weird tile layout that needed a 3 degree cut on every piece

This was on a kitchen backsplash in a 1920s house, nothing was square. The client wanted a herringbone pattern but the wall sloped. I was about to spend all day with a protractor and a pencil. My old boss, a guy named Frank, once told me to use a speed square and a piece of scrap wood as a jig. I clamped a 2x4 to my saw table, set the square against it at 3 degrees, and locked the fence. Cut every single piece in about 20 minutes, perfect fit. Who else has a weird angle trick that saved their butt?

Checked out the new city hall in Tacoma and the floor pattern is a real head scratcher

They just opened the place and I went in to see the work. The main lobby has this huge, complex herringbone pattern with three different wood tones. It looks cool, but the install is wild. The pattern changes direction at every single column, which means there must be a thousand tiny cuts. I counted at least five different guys working on it when I was there. How do you even bid a job like that without losing your shirt? Has anyone tackled a public job with a pattern that complex and how did you price the labor?

My Milwaukee cordless nailer just quit halfway through a 900 sq ft glue-down job in Phoenix last Tuesday.

Had to finish the last 300 feet by hand with a mallet and it added 4 hours to the day, so what's your go-to backup tool when the main one fails on site?

I swore by a 6 mil vapor barrier for years, but a wet slab in Tacoma changed my mind

Had a job there last fall, concrete felt dry but the meter read 85%. Old me would have rolled out the thin stuff and hoped. New me uses a 10 mil reinforced sheet with taped seams every time now. That Tacoma house would have been a callback nightmare. What's your go-to for a high reading on a slab?

Appreciation post: Heard a homeowner in Boise say they'd never pay for a moisture barrier again

They argued a good underlayment is enough, but I've seen too many cupped floors from slab moisture. What's your take on skipping the barrier to save a client a few hundred bucks?

Warning: I thought a cheap moisture meter would be fine for a quick check

It gave me a false dry reading on a slab in a basement job, and I ended up eating the cost of a full tear-out and reinstall six months later. Lost about $3,200 on that one. What's the most reliable meter you guys actually trust?

Am I the only one who thought those self-leveling underlayments were just a gimmick?

I tried one on a slab in Tacoma that had a 1/2 inch slope over 10 feet, and it actually saved me a full day of grinding and patching. What other 'miracle' products have you guys found that actually work?

Showerthought: Heard a guy at the supply house say 'a good floor hides the subfloor, a great floor fixes it'

I was grabbing adhesive in Tacoma yesterday and overheard two guys arguing about prep. One insisted you can float out any problem with enough leveler, and the other said if the subfloor's junk, you walk away. It got me thinking... I've spent whole days grinding concrete for a perfect plane. But is that always the right call, or are we sometimes overcorrecting for problems that a good underlayment could handle? Where do you draw the line on subfloor repair?

Had a client in Everett ask for a full glue-down on a concrete slab that was still sweating

It was a big commercial job last spring, and the moisture meter was reading 8 pounds. I told them we had to wait, but they pushed hard for us to start. We did a small test patch anyway, and within two days the adhesive failed and the planks bubbled. That cost us three days of labor to pull it all up and dry the slab properly. Now I show clients the meter reading and refuse to budge, no matter the pressure. How do you guys handle a pushy client when you know the prep isn't right?

Had a homeowner in Bellingham ask me to install her new vinyl plank over a floor with a 3/4 inch dip across 8 feet

I was in her kitchen, showing her the prep work needed. She just kept saying, 'Can't you just put it down? It will flatten out.' I had to explain, slowly, that the lock system would fail and the planks would crack. She got mad and said, 'The guy at the big box store said this stuff goes over anything.' I spent 45 minutes with a 4-foot level and a laser showing her the slope. She finally agreed to the extra cost for leveling, but acted like I was trying to scam her. It's so tiring when people think the product does all the work. What's the most ridiculous subfloor condition you've been asked to just 'go over'?

My brother-in-law (a plumber) said something about floor prep that stuck with me.

Talked to an old-timer at the supply house about using a heat gun on vinyl plank

He said 'son, you're just baking the adhesive out of it' and showed me his 20-year-old install that still looked perfect. Anyone have a better method for getting stubborn planks to click in cold weather?

Vent: A client in Seattle wanted her new vinyl plank to match the 'energy' of her pet parrot

She brought the bird, a bright blue macaw named Mango, into the room and kept pointing at its feathers while I was laying out samples. I ended up mixing planks from three different boxes to get a color flow she said 'vibrated correctly'. How do you even quote for a job like that?

Serious question, do you guys still use a manual tile cutter for big jobs or is a wet saw always better now?

Just finished a 400 sq ft bathroom in Denver where I used my DeWalt wet saw for everything, even the straight cuts. My old boss would have made me use the manual cutter for anything straight to save time on cleanup. But honestly, the wet saw was faster and the cuts were cleaner, even with the extra water mess. What's your go-to method for porcelain tile these days?

Everyone says you have to let that new glue cure for a full 48 hours. I did a job in Akron last week where I walked on it after 18 and it was totally fine.

I was wrong about that new click-lock vinyl from that big box store

Everyone in my crew said the stuff from FloorMax was junk and would fail in a year. I put it in my own kitchen six months ago to test it, and it's held up better than some of the pricier brands I've used. The locking system is solid, and it's taken spills from my kids without a single issue. Has anyone else actually given it a fair shot on a real job?

Just changed my mind about using a laser level for big tile jobs

I did a 400 square foot kitchen in a Portland remodel last month and used my old chalk line method, which took me about two hours just to get the grid set. The homeowner had a Dewalt laser level in his garage and told me to try it, so I did on the next bathroom floor. I had the whole layout done in maybe 20 minutes, and the lines were perfect. Anyone else make a switch like that and find it saves way more time than you thought?

Just realized my weirdest client request came from a guy in Boise who insisted I install his vinyl plank flooring with every third row upside down for 'visual texture'.

He was dead serious and offered an extra $500 if I could make the locking system work that way, which of course it can't, and I spent 20 minutes trying to explain basic flooring mechanics to him in a Home Depot parking lot last spring.

Saw a wild floor transition at a cafe in Asheville yesterday

I was grabbing coffee at this place called High Five Coffee on Rankin Avenue. They had this old wood floor meeting a new tile section, but instead of a metal strip, they used a thin line of colored epoxy to fill the gap. It was maybe an eighth of an inch wide and matched the tile grout color perfectly. The whole thing looked super clean and you could barely feel the step down. Has anyone else used epoxy for transitions instead of standard molding?

Showerthought: I swore by my old nailer for years, but a job in Bellingham last week changed my mind.

I was doing a big glue-down hardwood job on a concrete slab up there, and my trusty old pneumatic nailer just kept jamming on the first day. The humidity was high and it was a real pain. The homeowner, an older guy who used to be a carpenter, saw me fighting with it and said, 'Son, sometimes the tool you love is the one holding you back.' He let me try his cordless battery nailer. I was sure it wouldn't have the power, but I was wrong. It drove every nail flush, no compressor hose to drag around, and I finished the main room two hours faster than I planned. I bought one on the way home. Has anyone else made a switch like that and been totally surprised by how much better a new way of doing things can be?

Had a client ask me why I was pulling up the old quarter-round before putting down new LVP

I was in their kitchen in Springfield, and they pointed at the trim and said, 'Can't you just go over it?' I explained how it messes with the expansion gap and can cause buckling later. How do you guys usually explain that part of the job to homeowners?

My brother told me to never trust a 'flat' concrete slab without checking moisture first

He said that after a job in Tampa where a glue-down LVP failed in under a year. I ignored him on a 1200 sq ft basement install last month, thinking the slab felt dry. Glued it down, looked perfect. Woke up two days later to bubbles and lifting planks along the entire west wall. Had to tear out about 300 sq ft of material on my own dime. Who else has gotten burned by a slab that seemed fine?

A job in Phoenix this spring showed me why you never skip the moisture check

We were laying down a beautiful engineered wood floor in a big living room, and the homeowner was pushing us to finish fast. I pulled out my meter and got a reading of 18% in the slab, way over the 12% limit. We had to stop everything, set up fans, and wait two full days before we could even think about installing. That delay saved us from a massive callback and a floor that would have buckled in a month. Has anyone else had a client get really upset when you insisted on waiting for the numbers to drop?

A simple plank replacement turned into a two day puzzle

Had a job last month where a homeowner wanted a single damaged laminate plank swapped out in the middle of their living room. Should have been an hour, tops. The locking system was an older style I hadn't seen in years, and the new plank just would not click in without lifting the boards around it. Ended up having to carefully unclick and lift a whole section of the floor back to the wall, which took about 5 hours. The next day I had to go back and re-lay that entire quarter of the room. Ever run into a locking mechanism that just refuses to play nice with a single replacement?

Just realized I've cut over 10,000 square feet of LVP planks this month alone. My thumbs are numb.