Any questions?

[Butcher]

Local guy here was doing WalMart remodels for a coupla years. They weere required by contract to pull existing, prep, and install 4500 feet minimum per night. They did very well throughout the country til the burned out. I think it was .40 per foot all incl;usive.

PS...anyone with any time in the trade knows better than to say it's impossible.

 

[Incognito]

Local guy here was doing WalMart remodels for a coupla years. They weere required by contract to pull existing, prep, and install 4500 feet minimum per night. They did very well throughout the country til the burned out. I think it was .40 per foot all incl;usive.

PS...anyone with any time in the trade knows better than to say it's impossible.

******************
$.40 a foot including demo and prep? And they TRAVELED the country to earn those fabulous WalBuck? So they had to pay gas, hotel and restaurant bills from that massive $.40 a foot rate.

Wow!

I'd rather take $.18 a foot for new work like the dudes from Hemet. At least they slept in their own beds and only had to pony up gas money and spend 3 hours a day on the freeway.

I'd about guarantee and bet 20 to one odds there's something illegal, aliens, tax cheats or something fishy going on to produce 4500' a night for $1800.

IMPOSSIBLE to do that legit.

(I know you're right Butcher, nothings impossible. Jut venting.......and trying to understand this crooked racket we're in)

 

[Butcher]

******************
$.40 a foot including demo and prep? And they TRAVELED the country to earn those fabulous WalBuck? So they had to pay gas, hotel and restaurant bills from that massive $.40 a foot rate.

Wow!

I'd rather take $.18 a foot for new work like the dudes from Hemet. At least they slept in their own beds and only had to pony up gas money and spend 3 hours a day on the freeway.

I'd about guarantee and bet 20 to one odds there's something illegal, aliens, tax cheats or something fishy going on to produce 4500' a night for $1800.

IMPOSSIBLE to do that legit.

(I know you're right Butcher, nothings impossible. Jut venting.......and trying to understand this crooked racket we're in)

I co8uld be (probably am) wrong about the price. He was talking and talking and I know he was not bragging but complaining and giving reasons why he let it go. It could have and probbly was more the what I said. Sorry. But the amounts required to be installed including pull and prep under contracdt were or are accurate.

 

[Ernesto]

Take it up, put'er down with no time for mositure testing. I like it, makes me money. Thems pictures tell it all about that kinda work. If you throw down a piece of Litmus Paper on some jacked up adhesive residue and see it change that color do you know what that means? And on top of that see little bubbles form on top of the Litmus Paper??? OMG your in trouble. Just do not go there.

I inspected one just like that recently myself in a nation wide drugstore chain. Now these guys are going to have to pay for the loss of revenue, moving all the goods in the store in and out, storage, security, moisture abatement and new tile, new adhesive and labor.

 

[TNT]

*********************
I have to admit this has been eating at me.

There's no way Larry and Curly would be competitive in a major metropolitan area with two guys cutting in together like a couple of..........

Do you have any idea who does the Walmart VCT on a new construction and what their rates are? It was a few years back but prices have NOT gone up. Anyway on the very block where I live there's a Walmart. When it was going in I was very curious about the flooring and poked my nose in there a few times. Finally I caught the dudes red handed. It was a 4-man crew from Hemet which is about 80 miles from here which is 20 miles east of Los Angeles. Anyway they were two brothers middle age and their two sons. They were scabbing this job in at $0.18 a foot.

I asked them how they could make any money at that kind of price. They said their deal with the GC was that they did ZERO sanding or scraping. Anything that caused a bump, pimple or failure to bond of the adhesive was 100% the responsibility of the customer. So the GC had two laborers on floor sander out a couple days ahead of this crew. They didn't do anything to the sawcuts except swipe a broad knife with patch overtop----one pass. Small holes and cracks I could see they did patch. But there was no attempt to scrape the crap out of the joints, shopvac it clean and them fill it correctly with a couple passes.

Anyway, one of the sons could easily handle a quick sweep and quicker run through with a 6-inch broad knife leaving a three man crew with nothing but glue to smear, boxes to bust open and field to lay. So this crew didn't have any trouble doing 250-300 boxes a day from what I saw as I stopped in a few days later. I asked them about their production and that's precisely what they told me. There wasn't any disputing the THOUSANDS of boxes that had been laid and I'm sure they didn't sneak in a dozen extra men on the days I wasn't there to check.

That's $600 a day per man per day---average down to $450-500 after cutting, clean up and whatever.

Buys a lot of rice and beans in Hemet.

Those dudes knew how to lay VCT.

Oh, know to get back to the original story. If Larry was cutting the tile and handing it off to Curly to slap in what in tarnations was Moe doing?

Kiss my patootie, dude!. You do what you want, how you want, and go on and disrespect the quality people, who make the big bucks because they are the quality people, just trying to express the fallacy of your concepts.

It's okay, you're still on my list, but relax a bit on thinking you're the man, ya know?

Tia

 

[highup]

Local guy here was doing WalMart remodels for a coupla years. They weere required by contract to pull existing, prep, and install 4500 feet minimum per night. They did very well throughout the country til the burned out. I think it was .40 per foot all incl;usive.

PS...anyone with any time in the trade knows better than to say it's impossible.

Aimed at anyone and everyone when "how much can you lay" becomes part of a topic.
(meaning this isn't aimed at any one person)

I see words here that could be a bit confusing to almost anyone reading them. It seems the wording is meant to be a wee bit deceptive.
When speaking of production capabilities, one can't use the words:
"Local guy here "
and "they", for a second time in the same reference.
Was it a local guy, .........or a local crew?

If a "local guy" did 4500sq ft per night including pullup, prep and install.......... he'd put superman to shame.
How many men are "a local guy"?
.........and how long is "per night?" 8 hours, 14 hours?

I think when people do the bragging thing, there needs to be full enclosure of the details to avoid the obvious confusion that's goin on here.
I'm quite guilty of bragging too, so not playin favorites or trying to put anyone down........ just need to put all the cards on the table. My own bragging is how slow I am.

I don't think many here do Wal Marts on a regular basis, so it's hard for many of us to comprehend that kind of volume.

I think if one is going to do chest beating on volume work, one also needs to tell the entire story.

If "A" man (reference meaning singular) is installing VCT, it should include the actual time it takes to lay a given amount.
If you did a 16 by 28 foot utility room in a hospital with 4 metal door casings and with 2 round posts in the room, ...that's a lot different than doing a wide open center section of a Wal Mart with a handful of helpers, and not including the spread time and cutting in the trim pieces in your installation time.

Now that said, a box per minute is still quite impressive to me in a wide open installation with glue spread and ready to go..... so don't take my comments wrong.

How fast without a helper?
how fast if adhesive spreading was included?
How fast if trim cuts were included too?

I once installed almost, .....but not quite, ......13 square yards of woven carpet once........and it took well over two days. ...working alone.
The cotton thread in over 40 feet of hand sewn seams in the bunks on that tug boat were 100% invisible.

 

[havasu]

^ Nicely said. Since I am retired, speed no longer counts. If I am satisfied with the end result, this is true success.

 

[Butcher]

Aimed at anyone and everyone when "how much can you lay" becomes part of a topic.
(meaning this isn't aimed at any one person)

I see words here that could be a bit confusing to almost anyone reading them. It seems the wording is meant to be a wee bit deceptive.
When speaking of production capabilities, one can't use the words:
"Local guy here "
and "they", for a second time in the same reference.
Was it a local guy, .........or a local crew?

If a "local guy" did 4500sq ft per night including pullup, prep and install.......... he'd put superman to shame.
How many men are "a local guy"?
.........and how long is "per night?" 8 hours, 14 hours?

I think when people do the bragging thing, there needs to be full enclosure of the details to avoid the obvious confusion that's goin on here.
I'm quite guilty of bragging too, so not playin favorites or trying to put anyone down........ just need to put all the cards on the table. My own bragging is how slow I am.

I don't think many here do Wal Marts on a regular basis, so it's hard for many of us to comprehend that kind of volume.

I think if one is going to do chest beating on volume work, one also needs to tell the entire story.

If "A" man (reference meaning singular) is installing VCT, it should include the actual time it takes to lay a given amount.
If you did a 16 by 28 foot utility room in a hospital with 4 metal door casings and with 2 round posts in the room, ...that's a lot different than doing a wide open center section of a Wal Mart with a handful of helpers, and not including the spread time and cutting in the trim pieces in your installation time.

Now that said, a box per minute is still quite impressive to me in a wide open installation with glue spread and ready to go..... so don't take my comments wrong.

How fast without a helper?
how fast if adhesive spreading was included?
How fast if trim cuts were included too?

I once installed almost, .....but not quite, ......13 square yards of woven carpet once........and it took well over two days. ...working alone.
The cotton thread in over 40 feet of hand sewn seams in the bunks on that tug boat were 100% invisible.

Local guy has several crews, at one time working in different areas of the country. He was not bragging to me, he was griping and esplaining why he was letting the WMs go.

Now he does mostly cpt.

 

[Incognito]

Aimed at anyone and everyone when "how much can you lay" becomes part of a topic.
(meaning this isn't aimed at any one person)

I see words here that could be a bit confusing to almost anyone reading them. It seems the wording is meant to be a wee bit deceptive.
When speaking of production capabilities, one can't use the words:
"Local guy here "
and "they", for a second time in the same reference.
Was it a local guy, .........or a local crew?

If a "local guy" did 4500sq ft per night including pullup, prep and install.......... he'd put superman to shame.
How many men are "a local guy"?
.........and how long is "per night?" 8 hours, 14 hours?

I think when people do the bragging thing, there needs to be full enclosure of the details to avoid the obvious confusion that's goin on here.
I'm quite guilty of bragging too, so not playin favorites or trying to put anyone down........ just need to put all the cards on the table. My own bragging is how slow I am.

I don't think many here do Wal Marts on a regular basis, so it's hard for many of us to comprehend that kind of volume.

I think if one is going to do chest beating on volume work, one also needs to tell the entire story.

If "A" man (reference meaning singular) is installing VCT, it should include the actual time it takes to lay a given amount.
If you did a 16 by 28 foot utility room in a hospital with 4 metal door casings and with 2 round posts in the room, ...that's a lot different than doing a wide open center section of a Wal Mart with a handful of helpers, and not including the spread time and cutting in the trim pieces in your installation time.

Now that said, a box per minute is still quite impressive to me in a wide open installation with glue spread and ready to go..... so don't take my comments wrong.

How fast without a helper?
how fast if adhesive spreading was included?
How fast if trim cuts were included too?

I once installed almost, .....but not quite, ......13 square yards of woven carpet once........and it took well over two days. ...working alone.
The cotton thread in over 40 feet of hand sewn seams in the bunks on that tug boat were 100% invisible.

*************************************
Highup, most guys who specialize in commercial work near large cities will all know what the standard production quotas are. It's going to fall out on a Bell Curve distribution just like about any measure of human behaviors and characteristics. As you get away from a big metropolitan area the competition is less fierce. So even though the cost of living can be dramatically cheaper you can still fetch significantly higher prices per foot or yard when they do build something large way out where.

The main confounding variable is floor prep because to install sheet vinyl, rubber, VCT or lino we're going to spend WAY, WAY more time prepping the slab than the actual install.

Here's something to ponder. If I actually can lay a box of tile in a minute and the average DAILY production rate is around 1000' what was actually going on all those other minutes of the day when I wasn't laying the field?

 

[highup]

^ Nicely said. Since I am retired, speed no longer counts. If I am satisfied with the end result, this is true success.

Work is so slow for me I feel retired.

I know $$$ can be made doing commercial work, but you really have to bust your body to make money............. and when you get done, somebody hands you a punch list as a thank you for putting in 22 hours the last day because other trades kept gettin in your way.
Nope, residential for me. I am too picky to make deadlines they way it's required in commercial work.
At the end of the day doing residential, you get asked to stay for dinner, given an 'attaboy' and gained another friend and word of mouth advertiser.

Local guy has several crews, at one time working in different areas of the country. He was not bragging to me, he was griping and esplaining why he was letting the WMs go.

Now he does mostly cpt.

Thanks for the info. I'm from a pretty small area, and when something like Walmart is built, the crews are always from out of town.
"Crews" around here would best be described as three guys instead of two.

 

[highup]

*************************************
Highup, most guys who specialize in commercial work near large cities will all know what the standard production quotas are. It's going to fall out on a Bell Curve distribution just like about any measure of human behaviors and characteristics. As you get away from a big metropolitan area the competition is less fierce. So even though the cost of living can be dramatically cheaper you can still fetch significantly higher prices per foot or yard when they do build something large way out where.

The main confounding variable is floor prep because to install sheet vinyl, rubber, VCT or lino we're going to spend WAY, WAY more time prepping the slab than the actual install.

Here's something to ponder. If I actually can lay a box of tile in a minute and the average DAILY production rate is around 1000' what was actually going on all those other minutes of the day when I wasn't laying the field?

That's 45 tiles per minute X 60 ..........2700 tiles per hour?
......so you're tellin me you only work 20 minutes per day?
...you got a lot of cigar smokin and whistlin at the pretty girls time leftover.

 

[TNT]

*************************************
Highup, most guys who specialize in commercial work near large cities will all know what the standard production quotas are. It's going to fall out on a Bell Curve distribution just like about any measure of human behaviors and characteristics. As you get away from a big metropolitan area the competition is less fierce. So even though the cost of living can be dramatically cheaper you can still fetch significantly higher prices per foot or yard when they do build something large way out where.

The main confounding variable is floor prep because to install sheet vinyl, rubber, VCT or lino we're going to spend WAY, WAY more time prepping the slab than the actual install.

Here's something to ponder. If I actually can lay a box of tile in a minute and the average DAILY production rate is around 1000' what was actually going on all those other minutes of the day when I wasn't laying the field?

That's the biggest crock I've ever heard. I've sued guys like you and paid big money to fix their work. Sorry, but fast isn't shit. Quality of work perseveres over timing 100%. You can talk about human behaviors and characteristics much as you want, and you may just find that you should pay attention to mine. From what I see you saying, you slap down shit to get a decent wage because you're not worth much??

Tia

 

[Incognito]

That's the biggest crock I've ever heard. I've sued guys like you and paid big money to fix their work. Sorry, but fast isn't shit. Quality of work perseveres over timing 100%. You can talk about human behaviors and characteristics much as you want, and you may just find that you should pay attention to mine. From what I see you saying, you slap down shit to get a decent wage because you're not worth much??

Tia

********************
Sorry about the bad joke(s) about your friends Larry and Tim. It was meant to lighten things up but obviously came off as disrespectful and I wish I hadn't done that. I'll try to play nice.

So back to the point in question. Fast is as important as quality in my end of the business. Not more important mind you---JUST AS important. Seriously, just about anyone can install the basic VCT, glue down carpet, cove base, flat lay vinyl and so on if there's absolutely no pressure to compete on price and production. So it's a race. That's my perspective.

As I've been with the same shop since I moved to California in '87 I'm one of the guys the owner wants to hear from about new guys coming in. So at some point I'll be asked for my opinion on every guy that works here.

I can tell you this much. If I say the guy is GREAT, TOP MECHANIC, BEST I'VE EVER SEEN except for one minor flaw-----he's REALLY slow.

His days are numbered. It's not at all complicated. Almost all the shop's work is bid at a flat rate. Sure we get some cost plus work (T&M) but even that get's pushed pretty hard with the customer sweating over you every time you want the ticket signed. All the workers are paid hourly. So the faster we put the flooring in the higher the profit margin. Once in a while some aspects of a very large project are subcontracted out but it's a negligible percentage of the over all annual revenues of the shop.

To paraphrase Vince Lombardi-----Fast isn't everything, it's the ONLY thing.

Yeah, but here's the catch. Quality has to be taken for granted. By that I mean when we're measuring or comparing production there better not be any punch list or customer complaints to factor in. There's no room whatsoever in the equation for that factor. That guy is gone even faster than the slow guys.

 

[Incognito]

That's 45 tiles per minute X 60 ..........2700 tiles per hour?
......so you're tellin me you only work 20 minutes per day?
...you got a lot of cigar smokin and whistlin at the pretty girls time leftover.

************************
I'm not sure at this point how serious you folks are.

There's a lot involved in getting the box of tile setting there ready to be slapped in ASAP. I was always good with my hands. I taught myself to juggle when I was in grade school.

15-20 cartons delivered, prep, layout, spread, lay, cut and cleaned up is usually what would be expected on smaller VCT jobs in a day for a One Man Show. The bigger the job the more efficiencies of scale have to be factored in. So where there are hundreds or thousands of cartons out in an open area you ought to be able to AVERAGE double or even triple that "all-in" if you're competitive in a competitive market. You simply can't do that as a One Man Army. You need a crew that knows how to work together.

There was a pretty big swing in expectations from where I started the trade working out of New Haven area to Los Angeles. Production on some aspects of the trade were almost doubled and to get that you could only do it by lowering the standards.

My first big job out West was in the City of Industry with 500 cartons they wanted done in 5 days. The shop owner figured 1000' per man per day so he wanted to call the union and send me out 4 journeyman on Monday morning. I told him to give me one journeyman and a helper. First day I walked in, started prepping and did my layout, started spreading glue and the dude from the union hall laid 150 cartons by himself. I had spread the glue and the helper opened the boxes so all he did was slap in the field, mostly, he did help me spread glue for a little while just to get started. I learned a few things from that guy. I was done prepping and spreading for him early on in the day and so was able to continue prepping most of the store on Day #1. Anyway we got some help from the boss' brother on Thursday cutting in just that one day. Otherwise two journeyman and a helper finished a job that was bid for 5 journeyman.

We did even better upstairs (profit margin wise) on the pure vinyl with epoxy. The dude from the union hall was making ME look like Superman.

I've heard there are guys that will lay well over 200 cartons in a day if you get the glue spread for them and open up all the boxes. I heard this from people who are at or about my speed and have no reason to brag on someone else.

 

[highup]

Largest town I have ever worked in has a population of 16,000.
....OK OK, our adjoining town has 9,600, so call it 25,600.
Those guys you mentioned, could tile our entire towns in a week..... if we had the streets swept and the glue spread.

That's why I can't do commercial.......... I doubt if I have ever done 20 cartons in a day.

 

[Polestretch]

I doubt if I have ever done 20 cartons in a day.

That's a lot of cigarettes!

 

[TNT]

So the whole thing is, what is being called a "One Man Show" is anything but. And, being paid hourly makes you go faster? Exactly the opposite reason Larry and Tim left their small stint with union work - they made soooo much more by the foot than the hour, even with benefits. I guess the union daily requirements are very small.

Completely disagree with speed over quality. I have no problem telling people an installer will take twice as long as one from the competition, but the work will be done with precision. That's valuable. Even people in factories who are able to exceed quotas still have to shoot for doing all their work themselves and having minimal errors. Hmmm, this whole thing is reminding me more of a factory than true craftsmanship or a skilled trade.

If you don't do the delivery, take up and disposal of old stuff, floor prep, gluing, laying, transitions, base, treads and noses, you cannot really quote how much you do. That would be like me saying I sell millions of dollars a year, but don't measure, go on consultations, assist customers, figure take-offs, do research, write estimates, place order and complete all of the paperwork ~ just take the money.

Tia

 

[Incognito]

So the whole thing is, what is being called a "One Man Show" is anything but. And, being paid hourly makes you go faster? Exactly the opposite reason Larry and Tim left their small stint with union work - they made soooo much more by the foot than the hour, even with benefits. I guess the union daily requirements are very small.

Completely disagree with speed over quality. I have no problem telling people an installer will take twice as long as one from the competition, but the work will be done with precision. That's valuable. Even people in factories who are able to exceed quotas still have to shoot for doing all their work themselves and having minimal errors. Hmmm, this whole thing is reminding me more of a factory than true craftsmanship or a skilled trade.

If you don't do the delivery, take up and disposal of old stuff, floor prep, gluing, laying, transitions, base, treads and noses, you cannot really quote how much you do. That would be like me saying I sell millions of dollars a year, but don't measure, go on consultations, assist customers, figure take-offs, do research, write estimates, place order and complete all of the paperwork ~ just take the money.

Tia

*******************
This year I've done very few jobs alone. But that doesn't mean I don't "get" to work all by my lonesome or that there's any aspect of an installation that I don't have to be bothered with. If I had my druthers-----and sometimes I do----I would have no part of the delivery. I go to the shop less than 3-4 times a year and that's usually for some kind of a meeting or training. On a bigger job with apprentices I don't have to haul trash frequently but I'll make a trip out to the dumpster with some waste if I'm going that way anyways. We work together. While typically the apprentices would be sanding, sweeping and moving materials they're eager to learn and I'm willing to teach them when the time is right. I do everything they do at some point of the job and we're motivated to make them learn and do everything I do as soon as possible, if not sooner.

There have been years where it seemed I was doing every job all year by myself. It's just a matter of how the work comes in. They're not all 20 story office towers, defense plants or Walmarts. Now, back to the concept of efficiency. Do you think it makes sense for 6 men to have sanders and each sand their own classrooms? Does it make sense for all six men to then sweep, patch and glue?

This is some real basic stuff. I think Adam Smith and the pin factory is what I learned in Economics 101 and Henry Ford was also credited with turning industrial manufacturing on it's head with the concept of the assembly line. We try to send a dude out with the floor sander a couple days ahead of the crew. So maybe he's got 25-50K square feet all sanded and some of even clean swept before I show up. Now the cords and the dust are all out of the way. So if theirs tons of prep we go in light, like a good 5th period apprentice, a journeyman and a laborer and do nothing but float, level and skimcoat for a few days-----far out enough ahead so that when the installation starts they don't ever bump up against the prep crew and run into all the mixing paddles, buckets, powder, dust and so on.

Yes. It's an assembly line. Yes, that makes it like a factory. Adam Smith recognized in the Wealth of Nations (1776 by coincidence) that by dividing up the labor the workers in a pin factory were between 240 and 4800 times more productive. We sure don't get those extremes in the construction industry. It's just the same principle that we're using. THATS how a man can lay 100 or 200 boxes in a day. He's ONLY laying VCT and not handling all the other things we know are involved. I sort of assumed that the other folks in the business realized this. I wasn't making it a point that I'm some kind of Superman. I can teach an apprentice to slap in VCT much quicker than I can teach him to do a good job patching.

I never said speed over quality. The pin or Model A Ford doesn't suffer in quality because many hands are involved in the process. Quite the contrary.

Quality HAS TO BE a given. I don't know how to be more clear on that issue. The guys who's work isn't up to snuff don't last a week with any reputable shop. It's much easier to get by if you're just slower than the average. When works plentiful we have to use whoever is available. The more men you have the more your shop will represent the AVERAGE installation in both quality and quantity.

When I went out on my own for a little while I made quite a bit more than union wage on an hourly/monthly basis. When I had a few guys working for me I was doing very well indeed. I just didn't like dealing with the whole contractor racket from A to Z. I like packing my tools at 3PM and calling it a day.

 

[TNT]

Incognito,

I can accept and have respect for your facts and thoughts, but that still doesn't forgive you saying you can do a certain amount "alone" or that you're a "One Man Show". I completely understand the assembly line concept and the value of it, but you can't claim doing a certain amount of work if it's a compiled effort.

Tia

 

[Incognito]

Incognito,

I can accept and have respect for your facts and thoughts, but that still doesn't forgive you saying you can do a certain amount "alone" or that you're a "One Man Show". I completely understand the assembly line concept and the value of it, but you can't claim doing a certain amount of work if it's a compiled effort.

Tia

********************
Fair enough. I can see where the confusion comes from.

When I'm running work and accountable for crews I'm asked on the front of the project for manpower (production) estimates. What do you NEED to get this job done? That's where I break down my explanation, similar to what I did above to my dispatcher/scheduler, boss, customer and other trades.

When I'm asked "how long will it take" I have to FIGHT to make everyone involved realize that we don't want to work in smaller sections. We want to work in processes, as in #1 prep, #2 layout and cutting/distributing material #3 install #4 base/trim. We don't normally even use the same men for these different jobs if we can negotiate the right conditions. Ideally the entire preparation would be done before I snap a chalk line. Of course we virtually never even get close to that ideal. It's a part of WHY I use those crazy production numbers. When a man is constrained by the job conditions to handling every tool he owns every day working in small section at a time production suffers greatly no matter how great he is as an installer and how hard he is working to be efficient and productive. He's trapped in an inherently inefficient system.

When I can explain to everyone that IF THEY GET OUT OF THE WAY and let us work efficiently not only will we do better quality work but we can go much faster an get the hell out of everyone elses' way. Let me use another absurd and extreme example to make my point. We were doing endless commercial office space with basic level loop glue down carpet. The carpet was cut by machine in Hartford, CT and delivered to the sites, frequently in Westchester County, NY. , Southern CT and Southern Mass, up as far as Boston. Blueprint has every seam and every cut drawn and numbered including letters for the fills and what cut they come out of. Prep is done days in advance or at least well out ahead. Rolls are hauled into the building, tossed into the room and opened up with the arrows going the right way by laborers/apprentices who leave when the truck is unloaded. Buckets of glue are spread out in front of the doors pretty much as needed.

So a journeyman does nothing but actually glue down the carpet, trim down the wall, make a seam or two and make a neat pile of the scraps in the center of the room. He doesn't even have to haul off his own scraps. You couldn't possibly make it easier for an installer without training monkeys to do his job and just let the installer feed him cookies or bananas.

We were doing this type of system with one office tower after another for most of the '80s and into the '90s. The details aren't all that different for carpet tile, stretch, VCT, sheet vinyl or whatever else was involved. So it's kind of irrelevant to me what a man would average "all-in" including driving to a store or shop, loading his truck, going to the supply store, unloading the rolls, determining the best layout, finding a cutting area, cutting up the rolls and so on and so forth up until he drops the bags of scraps in the dumpster. We do have to work similar to that often enough and we all have numbers for those kinds of conditions based on the men, locations and materials.

Th production numbers for those different types of projects don't "cross over" and in that sense you, Larry and Tim are correct.