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What is knowledge to a wood flooring contractor? Is it knowing how red oak responds to moisture?
Is it knowing how to safely operate a table saw? Is it possessing contacts within your industry that can further your business or career? The truth is, each of these things amounts to knowledge, but as Manny Navarro likes to say, most importantly, "Knowledge is power."
Navarro replied with that phrase when asked why he chose to attend the NWFA's Intermediate Installation and Sand & Finish School, held in St. Louis on Jan. 20-22. It was the first of the NWFA's 2010 technical school lineup, and Navarro was kind enough to let Hardwood Floors follow him on the second day of the school. Following are just some of the lessons he learned that day.
8 a.m. As folks trickle into the spacious classroom at NWFA headquarters, Navarro chats with fellow students. He talks to Cesar Abella about the monotony of his four-hour drive to St. Louis from Manteno, Ill., where his business, Hardwood Floors by Manny Inc., is located and where he lives with his wife Mary and six children, who range in age from 4 years old to 23. Clearly, the NWFA schools have the ability to draw people from far away; Abella actually drove 14 hours from New Jersey.
Navarro and his classmates eventually get to discussing lessons learned yesterday during a safety demonstration. Table saw and router safety were discussed, along with the importance of lung, eye and ear protection. Navarro reinforces these lessons for his peers by showing them his left thumb, which is conspicuously shorter than his right due to a table saw slip. Around his home, he's known for giving his kids two big thumbs up and belting "Heeeyyyy!" like Fonzie. "For awhile my kids called me nine-and-a-half," he jokes, "and for Halloween they'd buy me a fake thumb." Then, the students rave about a pneumatic nailer with wheels that they used yesterday. The nailer greatly enhanced their installation pace; until then, none of them had known about the product.
Yesterday, the students were placed in groups of five and assigned an instruction panel. With the help of their instructors, they installed 80 square feet of oak and birch flooring. After a brief rundown of the day's events to come, Navarro and his fellow students make their way to the demonstration floor to learn particulars of sanding.
8:30 a.m. 3M's Chris Livingston begins the sanding demonstration by providing a big machine overview. He explains the difference between drum and belt sanders and then discusses abrasives. He asks the students which abrasive grit they typically use to begin sanding a floor and receives answers ranging from 30- to 80-grit. He then asks how many sanding passes students typically take, and answers vary from two to three. With this exchange, Livingston reveals one of the reasons for the NWFA's technical education program: to promote best practices in the industry. He then explains NWFA's three-grit sequence of sanding, emphasizing the idea that, to ensure a flat floor, students should not skip more than one grit in the sequence.
8:50 a.m. Livingston addresses a topic new to many of the students: water-popping. In general, he explains, water-popping is useful if a high-grit abrasive is used to end the sanding sequence, which usually burnishes a floor; water popping opens the grain again to accept stain. Navarro raises his hand and asks whether it's safe to walk across a water-popped floor. Livingston and the other instructors advise against this lest it close the wood's grain.
Livingston moves on to explain the two popular stain application techniques: application with a buffer and the wax-on, wax-off method. Navarro raises his hand once more and explains how he has applied stain in the past using a mop. Livingston replies by saying, "Wood can only take on so much stain," and that by applying it so liberally with a mop, Navarro was probably wasting a lot of material. This, Livingston says, is obvious when stain "bleeds" to the top of a floor after heavy application, a problem called "bleedback." Livingston tells the students he prefers applying stain with a buffer; the floor appears a shade lighter than when wiping stain on and off, however, the application is more even and stain waste is kept to a minimum. He then advises students to never apply stain with an old carpet pad, another popular technique. Discarded carpet pads, he explains, can be littered with any number of contaminants that can lead to a botched finish.
Livingston admits there are a lot of ways to "get the job done," but reiterates that a contractor really needs to be on top of his game when finishing a floor. He tells Navarro and the others, "Finish time is when you get paid," and Navarro agrees. "I like to do all finish work myself because that's what the customer sees," Navarro says.
10:10 a.m. The students move back to the main classroom. NWFA Technical Training Director Steve Seabaugh flips on a PowerPoint presentation and, again, the topic is sand and finish. Navarro and his peers listen attentively as Seabaugh flips through the slides and gives relevant anecdotes from his own experiences as a wood flooring contractor. He warns to avoid the trap of trying to apply extra finish coats if a floor isn't turning out right. "Finish kind of acts like a magnifying glass—the more coats you put on, the more problems you'll see," he explains. He tells the class there is no such thing as a perfect floor, "so when you're selling your job, remind customers we're not operating in a controlled environment." And dust containment, he says, is "probably one of the best things for our industry"; customers don't have to clean for a month after a floor has been sanded, abrasives stay cooler and last longer, the job is cleaner and contractors stay healthier by breathing less dust.
11:40 a.m. Lunch arrives at NWFA headquarters and Navarro and his fellow students descend upon a food line of pork chops, baked beans and mashed potatoes. At the lunch tables, Navarro and classmate Abella discuss their common Latin American heritage; Abella's family hails from Colombia, while Navarro is from Mexico. Navarro's family emigrated from Mexico when he was just 4 years old and, as a teenager, he was forced to drop out of high school to get a job to support the family. Eventually, he began a career in the steel industry but was laid off. Navarro next found work with a flooring installer and, after five years, started his own business with his wife, Mary, whom Navarro readily admits he couldn't do without. While Navarro is the muscle in the field, Mary is at the home office shuffling childcare duties with business paperwork. "My wife takes care of all of that—she's awesome," Navarro says. Together, they've been in the hardwood flooring business for 10 years.
Navarro's business is lean—he employs just one full-time laborer. Serving the suburbs of Chicago, Navarro receives enough referrals to require minimal advertising (he takes out a Yellow Pages ad annually); today, he says he's booked for more than two months, a fact he attributes to his and Mary's attention to customer care. He's been enthusiastic about flooring education for awhile, and while on vacation in Florida recently, Mary surprised him with a day-long flooring school in Port St. Joe. There, Navarro met former NWFA Technical Training Director Daniel Boone, who encouraged him to attend NWFA flooring schools. Meeting Boone has paid off; Navarro regularly calls him with flooring questions on the job site. Navarro continues to expand his support network in St. Louis by meeting dozens more industry peers who invite him to call them with any questions from the field.
12:45 p.m. After lunch, Navarro and the other students go again to the demonstration floor to watch Seabaugh perform a hands-on sanding demonstration. He takes the students through the three-grit sequence, inviting them to crouch down on the panel after each pass and actually feel the progress.
Before discussing edging tips, Seabaugh spends a few minutes reiterating the importance of stretching on a jobsite; he even pays his employees to stretch. Next, he surprises most of the students by saying he takes his company's edging responsibilities on himself. "Why do I do the edging work on my crew?" he asks rhetorically. "Because I'm a glutton for punishment? No—I know I'm the most efficient, so I'll make more money." Seabaugh has heard many stories of contractors losing money on a job because of poor edging; usually guys finish edging a large floor before realizing they did a poor job. After Navarro asks for advice to improve his edging, Seabaugh advises him to slow down and check his work every hundred feet or so.
3:20 p.m. Navarro and four other students get to work sanding their panel; everyone gets a turn on the big machine and edger. Then, a buffer is used to blend. Adjacent to the panels, students are given one-on-one guidance with the buffer on concrete. Instructors show them how to move the buffer by tilting it up and down, which alters the direction of friction between the buffer pad and floor, instead of pushing and pulling the buffer with their hips. As always, a few students are taken for a ride before taming the turbulent machine. Navarro is the last student to work with the buffer and stops the machine in the middle of the panel. "Now hold on, Manny," says Cherryhill Manufacturing's Jeff Marcum, one of Navarro's instructors. "You're gonna wheel this buffer across the floor?" Marcum knows the wheels will leave a trail in the floor, so Navarro is told to fire the buffer up again and guide it to the edge of the panel rather than wheeling it away.
5:30 p.m. After helping sweep and vacuum the panel clean, Navarro mixes nutmeg color with a natural stain and begins applying it to the birch half of his panel. Next, Navarro is finally able to practice applying stain with a buffer. Before coming to the school, Navarro applied all his stain by hand or with a mop.
6:15 p.m. Navarro and his fellow classmates finish applying the stain and clean up their work area. Tomorrow, they'll apply finish to their panels and learn about board repair, but for now it's decided students and instructors must review their day's work with drinks and a meal at a nearby watering hole.
In the restaurant parking lot, Navarro calls Mary; he tries to relate all of the lessons he learned that day, but there isn't enough time. He then sits down inside, beaming with excitement after a good day. Navarro expanded the knowledge of his craft and his network in the industry. After finishing the school tomorrow, he'll return to Manteno a more powerful flooring contractor. "Coming to the school," Navarro says, "I can definitely tell I'm getting to the next level."
Editor's note: Navarro has applied stain with a buffer at his last two jobs. "They look gorgeous, and the material is lasting longer," he says.