It’s the last thing to be installed before your tools get put away; it was either wall base or carpet base and pretty much was installed the same. Carpet base (years ago) had an advantage because the length was determined by the roll size of the carpet. Wall base was (years ago) manufactured in four-foot lengths but that too changed, and 120-foot coils are available to speed the installation process. As a visual extension of the flooring to the transitioning from a horizontal to the vertical plane, wall/cove base has come a long way in a relatively short time.

Well, the holidays are over, the work is (for the most part in my area) spotty at best, and we have a new president coming into office. Changes are coming (inevitably), including your New Year’s resolution. Do you have one yet? Here’s one I came up with after viewing the photos for this article. May we all resolve to do a better job regardless of the task at hand! Because your work is your signature and the quality of your work is the calling card. Remember all those one-liners your parents or mentors taught you, like “Your Word is Your Bond” and “Any Job Worth Doing is Worth Doing Right”? The older I get the more I seem to use those one-liners. So in the spirit of “Quality Work” in mind, let’s practice our powers of observation and take a look at a couple installations, playing a well-known game in my house, twenty questions. And we’ll see if “You Make the Call.”

In the last article I showed you what was happening in the basement of a three-year-old, multi-million dollar healthcare facility. The cheapest fix for the basement area was to replace the vinyl with carpet and turn up the dehumidifiers.

Hey, I know it’s an old saying from a butter commercial, but it seems appropriate for this “Best of the Worst” or “Shock and Awe” type article. The following information and photos are for learning proposes only. They are for your visual pleasure and are intended for mature audiences; any rebroadcast or misuse without written permission from FCI and ME is strictly prohibited. The names have been changed to protect the innocent; the events and time line are real and used as a teaching tool for those who choose to pay attention. All others can keep their comments to themselves or share them with one of their equal intolerants. OK, now that the political lingo is out of the way let’s get to it!

As a child I walked a lot with my head hung low, looking at the ground beneath me watching every step I took, being sure to not step on a crack because, of course, that would break my mother’s back! As a flooring guy I still spend a lot of time with my head down, looking at every floor I walk over, wherever I go. I can’t help myself; I critique every substrate I cross watching the endless combinations of flooring and how they transition from one type of floor to another. The majority of you reading this do the very same thing; sure you do and that’s ok. It means you’re paying attention; life has tripped you up so many times that you are trained to be cautious of that dreaded next step!

The March Issue of FCI had some really great information about cracking in ceramic floors and concrete joints. So, I was prompted to show some examples of what a worst-case scenario can look like in a VCT installation when the GC and flooring contractor ignore the job site details regarding the concrete subfloor.

Tack strip is a pretty generic item in our industry right? Wrong. Invented in 1938, there has been very little change to its physical composition. Plywood in different widths, pins and nails in different sizes, and tensile strengths-this is all we have seen in the way of change. But many of us in this trade never saw the first pieces of stick and only get a glimpse of the past when a very old carpet is replaced. But I assure you there has been change.

There are so many types of underlayment available to the retailer/installer these days that it is hard to keep track of them all. A quick history lesson is in order here to understand what and why we have OSB, OFB, Plywood-Birch, Plywood-Poplar, Meranti and Lauan/Mahogany. Which one is best for your customers needs?

This is one of the fun issues we do at FCI magazine, Troubleshooting. As part of your customer service from installers, retailers and distributors, being a problem solver and troubleshooter is both a benefit and a burden.

This will be, hopefully, the final drain detail on this subject. But never say never, right? That’s floor covering for you. We all need to pay attention to the particular job site conditions we are confronted with on a daily basis. Most of the time moisture problems are from the bottom up. A green slab, with the resulting high levels of water vapor emissions, is just one type of several possible moisture-related problems found in the field.