Wow, what a two-week run! Where do we begin? Hmm, let's go back a few weeks to before the Expo.
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Wow, what a two-week run! Where do we begin? Hmm, let's go back a few weeks to before the Expo.
We took on a job that is not our area of expertise: a VCT strip-and-wax job. I got a call from one of our doctor's offices, and Mrs. Barbara said, "We have some tile work." So off we go to the doctor's office to look at what my mind was thinking would be ceramic tile in the bathroom or entry. Well, she said, "We need the floors cleaned and heard you have the right equipment." In a blink off an eye I almost said, "We do not work on VCT cleaning." But in that same blink my head went to money for the trip to the Expo. Now, not knowing what folks get for a strip-and-wax on VCT, I said $.50 a foot, and we can have it done in four days.
So after the fact I Googled "cost of VCT strip & wax" and, with a bucket of luck, it said .24 to .50 a square foot, so yay for dumb luck. If you have never done VCT work, it is easy as eating a slice of pie. Now the bad news: Just when you think you got the luck of the Irish, bang, the pot of gold is nowhere to be found. They had to have it done at night, plus do it in stages. The stage thing is okay, but working at night? I am in bed right after they roll the street up. I did not want to mess with Clifford working our other jobs during the day and did not want to pass on easy work, so what to do? Well, I got a worker lined up for nights, then left our day plans alone. I did not want to kill the guys, so it became my J-O-B to work day and night. Can you say old man? When I was young doing that would not have been a thing, but now, at 50, it is a huge thing. Kim (my wife) made fun of me because I would roll in about 2:30 a.m., get in the rain locker, fall into bed, then roll right out at 6 a.m. still half-asleep.
The work we had planned during the day was a 600-foot install, plus an 800-foot resand. I booked both at the same time because they were just a few homes apart and we could run between both. As the finish was drying we'd go back to the install, run back and coat, and run back and run and run and run and run … and if you know me, I do not run. Limp real fast, yes, but not run. Being worn out and running on high for 16-17 hours for six days in a row had to be some of the longest days I have put in for a long time. I felt like a government mule-worked all week and then rode to church on Sunday.
The wax job went great with no troubles other than it was late when we got done. The install was a bit of a pain only because the stairnose was not ready for us to install with the flooring, so we had to put in blanks where it was going to go so it would keep the flooring straight during the install. The room has knee walls that are 1 1/2 out from the rest of the room, and that was a bit tough to make it all look right to the eye. We had lines snapped all over to keep it all right on the mark for the room and stairnose. The sand-and-finish was not so easy! It was water damage from the ice maker line getting plugged, letting the water back-flow all over the floor. Plus-and I am not being ugly-it was dished out, with chatter and wave from the word go. I would have thought the homeowner did the work 16 years ago when the home was built, but it was a floor man who did it.
Getting it flat was the first step, so we did a 20-degree cut with 40-grit then 40 straight before we moved to the 60-grit. It was now flat and I wanted to keep it flat, so we brought in the multi-disc sander with 60-grit. The floor looked good and flat. Clifford wanted to cut with 100 on the big machine, but it was so good-looking that we went to 80-grit then 100-grit with the multi disc unit. After that we got the buffer with 120 on a soft plate. It was slick as it could be, but most of all very flat. This job was poly with super-high-gloss and, as we all know, high-gloss shows every mark, scratch and imperfection.
The fireplace was marble, and we did not want to touch it with the edger, so here is the trick we used. We taped the edge of the marble, then got a long, straight board:
We put the board on the blue line, and if you could see blue, you know it was not on the edge of the marble. We ran the edger while someone held the board down:
We got a straight, great-looking line:
This removes the worry of hitting the marble and the stress of trying to repair it if you do hit it.
The wall lines are flat and clean, the photo of the cupped floor along the wall lines tells the story of the water damage:
Just a heads-up with the trim, we do not remove it on the resand jobs. That saves the funds on the bid and time with the install of the trim. If your edger is set up correctly, it will sand tight to the base and shoe-look how tight we got to the vent and base by edging:
We got the job done and put on the high-gloss poly finish with three coats, it looks like a pool of water. One thing I am not good at is taking photos, so it was very hard to get one with the finish on. The sun or any light would flash away the look; folks, this was high-gloss.
Now here is the good story of this job: They paid us $200 extra for the work we did and the little extras we did; they were vey happy with the work and attention to detail. That just feels good when you get that extra reward for the extra care. We clean up every night and make sure our path to the trailer to the home is clean, with no mess left at any time. If the job is clean, the finish is clean, and if the finish is clean you got some happy homeowners ... We got the extra reward in the end.
Good Friday came around, and Clifford had the day off, so to share the good feeling I paid him the full day's pay. Keep that in mind if you're the boss: If your workers are doing things right, then that-like Ken Schmidt talked about in his keynote at the Expo-will drive more great stories from the homeowners, and more jobs will come from that. So, reward your workers when you can.
The reward for me after working like a government mule was going the NWFA Expo; what a great show-my blogs about that are already up here (a video blog).