Expert Installation with Josh Plank
/What Distinguishes Us
When it comes to being excellent at flooring installation, there’s a lot more that goes into it than just quality craftsmanship. Lead flooring technician, Josh Plank, highlights a number of key components needed.
In our interview, Josh lists “attention to detail”, “professionalism on the job”, and communication as significant parts to delivering quality flooring solutions to customers. To that point, we pay careful attention to what our customers are saying in order to bring their dreams to reality.
Josh also talked about the many hats expert flooring installers need to wear. Today’s technicians need to know how to do trim work and concrete finishing to name a few necessary skills.
The Importance of Floor Preparation
Floor prep. Floor prep. Floor prep. “To me, it always comes back to that,” he says. There’s a lot of hidden work that goes into floor preparation. When installing luxury vinyl plank (LVP), for example, it’s critical that the subfloor is smooth so imperfections like dimples, bumps, or grooves don’t “telegraph” (show) through the flooring material. It’s about the entire flooring system working together from top to bottom, which makes readying the subfloor for installation so vital. From the prep to the glue to the flooring materials, it’s all one system. Cutting corners at any step along the way can result in a poor end product.
Some Mistakes DIYers Make
Where Josh has seen failures in craftsmanship over his 17 years of experience is in the details. He noted the failure to properly undercut door jams, putty nail holes, install trim work, install moldings, install transitions, or caulk. A challenge installers face is making transitions work, especially transition pieces that aren’t engineered for that particular use. Not nailing underlayment correctly is another failure he’s seen, and it can have embarrassing effects. If the underlayment doesn’t have enough nails holding it to the subfloor, over time, the underlayment can bubble up and create a trampoline effect. That is neither professional installation or quality craftsmanship. It doesn’t matter if the flooring material is properly adhered to the underlayment when the underlayment isn’t properly fasted to the subfloor.
