Thanks for your kind words. There are many here who are much more knowledgeable than me though.
Sleepless nights and the stress of dealing with high dollar commercial claims will lead you to read and learn the oddest things.
That and having to be the "answer" guy walking into a room full of pissed off owners, architects, lawyers, general contractors, flooring contractors and having to explain and prove what happened. Being the proverbial "Barer of Bad News" is never fun, but after doing it several thousand times, you either go crazy or learn to explain things in an understandable way.
Never had to resort to crayons on napkins, but I felt like I was close a few times.
And for thorougness I'm also crazy, I have a doctor's note that proves it.
Honestly, being able to provide help here is a way for me to relieve stress and feel like I'm actually helping someone rather than having to tell someone they screwed up (usually "again") and still figure out a way to bail them out and keep them as a customer at the same time. Hopefully, here we can save them from having a problem rather than dealing with it after the fact.
(Sorry, I'm going to opine a little here in this next section, but it's been one of those weeks and it's only Wednesday...)
My only wish is that people in the industry, especially those who are supposed to know, would take the job more seriously and professionally. We have all these organizations now "certifying" people who are supposed to know what they are talking about that don't even bother to read installation instructions for a given product.
I recently had a situation where I was involved with three different claims for different products. Three different inspection reports were done by three different "certified" inspectors. In all 3 cases, statements were made in the inspection reports citing:
- "industry standards" that simply do not exist and do not comply with the manufacturers written instructions regarding concrete moisture testing.
- Measurements showing supposed floor flatness irregularities that were outside the manufacturers written tolerances where the inspector didn't do the math correctly converting a fraction and the measurements were actually within tolerance
- Equipment being used that has not been properly calibrated or is acceptable for the type of testing being done (i.e. using a non-invasive impedance meter to "measure moisture" (which isn't correct, and is a whole other topic of conversation) while having it set to the wrong settings for what is being tested. Then taking a picture of said test being conducted with the meter set to the wrong settings (setting for "wood" rather "masonry" and then citing the findings for proof that the flooring "had no manufacturing defect". How dumb can we be in one report?
These are people who are actually charging for their services and simply are not knowledgeable enough to do their job correctly or are too lazy to even bother to check that what they are using as evidence to deny a claim is even correct. AND they have been credentialled by an industry organization!
To make matters worse, these three inspections were all reviewed, and the reports written by a 3rd party who also did not check that the information was accurate before submitting it. THEN, the manufacturer's claims department didn't catch any of the errors and used the report to deny a claim. We were able to refute the claims and get them correctly replaced, but still, it's just ridiculous. The inspector got it wrong, the inspectors reporting company got it wrong, and then the claims department got it wrong.
And in all three cases these guys are still out there doing inspections every day.
It just makes me completely furious that our industry tolerates this nonsense.
I have friends who have retired and gone through some of these so called "inspection training schools" to get credentials and they've basically just become a "pay to play" gimmick. Not all of them mind you, but that's the problem. We, as an industry, need to have a single governing body that oversees and approves - without influence from any outside forces such as manufacturing - the standards by which we hold ourselves accountable. Although it sounds simple, it probably will never exist, because the primary source of funds for an organization such as this would have to come from within the industry and when you take money, people start to form agendas based on where that money is coming from to keep it flowing. (Sounds oddly familiar somehow, doesn't it? **cough** Washington D.C. *cough cough** **cough Political Action Committees cough*** ).
It's going to continue to get worse. At least that's my opinion. With the plethora of manufacturers and importers putting completely untested and unproven long-term, products in the market and then consistently reducing the quality of those products to meet pricing demands instead of selling quality, it's a recipe for utter disaster. I think we're starting to see the first part of the tsunami of claims right now. I have dealers telling me every day they are throwing out all floating floors because of the volume of claims and going back to 100% glue down product. Not sure that's the best answer either, but it shows you how serious the problem really is. I do believe floating floors have their place, but you truly have to understand their limitations and resist the urge to oversell them to solve site related installation problems.
It's not just inspectors though. The incompetencies lie at every level of the industry. From the retail salespeople all the way through to the top execs at many of the major manufacturers in the industry. I love the saying "All hat, no cattle". I think it pretty much sums it up.
Every day I look more and more forward to being able to retire and focus on photography.
Unfortunately, until this economy rights itself again that probably ain't happening any time soon.
Sorry for such a gloomy response, but the last 4 years' worth of changes to the industry have really demonstrated to me how dumb we can be as an industry and how too many people have used the Peter Principal to achieve their positions. People who should know better but don't even know what they don't know. It's honestly a bit of a S&^t Show right now and hard for me to watch it. The problems we have are fixable, but the problem is that the fix isn't profitable, so everyone is dragging their feet in implementing the fix. Fingers crossed that we learn to do better as a whole and that includes me!