Articles In Categories at a Flooring Professional

If you have ceramic or stone tile installed directly to your concrete floor, you may have noticed cracked tile. There can be a number of reasons for this, including inadequate bonding, lack of expansion joints, use of an inferior grade of thinset, and cracking of the substrate. For the purposes of this article, I’ll address only the last factor: cracking of the substrate.

Many concrete finishers will tell you that it’s not a matter of whether or not the concrete will crack, but when it will crack. While there are a number of reasons for the concrete to crack, it’s almost impossible to determine when and where it will crack. Cracking sometimes occurs at the weakest point of the slab. For instance, if there is an inset porch in a floor plan, there may be one or two weak points (more…)

1. Apply felt pads to all furniture.

Self adhesive protective felt pads should be applied to all furniture legs paying particular attention to dining chairs – This is the furniture moved the most frequently and can quickly cause damage. Tip: Rough up the bottom of the chair leg with a piece of sandpaper before applying the felt to assist with a more permanent adhesion.

2. Use appropriate entrance mats.

Rigid spiky plastic entrance mats will assist greatly (more…)

I was asked to install some hand-scraped Hickory stair treads to match a customer’s hardwood flooring. The job also included opening up a portion of one wall of the stairwell, constructing the newel posts and installing wood handrails and metal balusters. If you do hardwood flooring, you may also see this as a great way to add custom services and better profit.

The customer provided samples of the hardwood flooring installed. I used these as a pattern (more…)

What is Solid Hardwood Flooring?

Solid hardwood is exactly what it sounds like, one solid piece of wood, through and through.

What is Engineered Hardwood Flooring?

Engineered hardwood is constructed of 3 or more thin layers of soft or hard wood, usually arranged in opposing directions for added stability, with a finished top layer of the flooring species.

What is the difference between laminate flooring and hardwood floors?

Hardwood floors will age and mature with your property. This means (more…)

This procedure will not correct the appearance of the seam if it is not constructed in an acceptable manner, but it will correct seam peaking or seam elevation. It is important to note that the installed cushion has an effect on the success of this procedure. The recommended cushion is to be manufactured with a scrim and must have a minimum density factor of six pounds. The room is to be (more…)

Have you ever gone to a house to do an estimate for new flooring and detected an odor of insecticide? And maybe the carpet doesn’t look all that worn or old? The combination of the 2 might mean there were bed bugs in the carpet. Some home owners (or hotel/motel/rental managers) may be embarrassed to mention it, but don’t hesitate to bring the subject up.

The population of bed bugs was greatly reduced (more…)

How many times have you damaged the walls trying to get the old baseboard off? Maybe you’ve seen the results of someone else’s efforts to pry the base off the wall. Or those craters on the face of the base when the nails have been pulled out? Who would have thought you’d ruin the board if you pulled a nail out the same way you put it in?

Now, far be it from me to think this article will be some great teaching instrument for the already accomplished flooring professional. It’s not aimed at pros because they already know this stuff. This is for the new helper, or maybe the home owner do-it-yourselfer and home improvement wannabe. It’s for anyone who has slapped their forehead when they realized it’s gonna take more than just a little bit of new base to cover them damages. (more…)