Medintech - High School Corridors

Started prepping this yesterday. Slab wasn't too bad. Existing VCT was torn out after a flood by a company hired by the school district. Not too much adhesive residue was left. I actually tried to sand it but it wasn't THAT clean. So we backtroweled off the pimples and goobers and skimcoated the entire floor, then a light sanding and minor patch here and there. Today me and another journeyman dropped in the two full roll shots down the center of the main corridor and got about halfways down the cross hall with the railroaded shots. Has to be 100% complete tomorrow-----welded, based, transitions and cleaned off. Shouldn't be a problem.

 

Oh, no JP. There was a helper........1rst period apprentice with us both days. But the journeyman laid carpet half a day yesterday before he helped me dial in the prep. I forget to mention helpers sometimes but he's a really good "kid" as far as hustling and keeping the work clean and the job moving. He came into the union with some experience working in marble restoration as well as working for a non-union shop doing VCT in Target stores. So he's not so "green" as a lot of them.

He's a VERY slow moving kind of guy----relaxed and confident in himself. So some of the other journeyman commented on that. But I'd prefer a guy who walks over and gets the job done right than the buffoon who runs around and F's up everything he touches.

Ya tu sabes.

Hustle is about giving the employer a good, fair 8 hours work for 8 hours pay. Not about how fast you appear to be be moving back and forth in no particular direction, sweating and stinking like a fool.

 

With a trowel Mike. Same way we glue everything else...........?

 

Seriously though, we don't all agree on best methods. Nobody I know can install something like this by themself. So there's a few ways of skinning the cat and the few guys doing it have to agree and be comfortable with the method. My partner today wanted to peel back the shots the long ways and do half at a time. I was inclined to glue the whole sheet and walk backwards in the glue with the roll wearing spiked shoes.

THAT'S what everyone else I work with wants to do. Honestly I prefer to do it the way this guy wanted to but I've been losing the argument for so many years and doing it the OTHER way I was extremely disinclined to do it the way I was taught and am much more comfortable with.

The downside to the long ways is if you are SLOPPY you will telegraph the glue line where you spread half and half.

I'm not sloppy. I spread the glue whilst they did prep and set up the next hallway.

It's really a great question Mike.

Bottom line is we don't agree on the best method and a LOT depends on how many men you have who are qualified to handle sheet vinyl and what THEY think.

Hard to believe but as a foreman I have to allow for THEIR talents and preferences.

 

Armstrong Medintech is .080"gauge -------2MM

It's like wallpaper to me. No need to scribe anything on a "flat lay" job like this one and few guys would ever pattern scribe or direct scribe anything. It's just too easy to whack in freehand----------faster and better because you can't drop 82 foot shots into a dried pressure sensitive glue with ZERO shifting off of your set marks/scribe lines.

RUBBER sheet flooring is a very different animal in multiple respects. On a flat lay job you rarely would need felt paper scribing methods. Some jobs and some materials CAN be free handed. It's really a case by case deal. One size does not fit all.

 

Mostly hook blades.

But the utility knife blade and lino knife are a big part of any detail work---------door jambs, window walls. thresholds........etc.

 

I believe it gets the same treatment.

 

Finished up right on time------8 hours for us union boys.

Total was about 250 s/y vinyl, 45' reducers, 300' of cove base and 300' of heat welding.

I would have liked to have another helper so I could have finished even earlier and had time to double check/detail out the job. Included in this contract is about 3000 s/y C&A carpet. I've been here 13 days total. Other guys worked here 4 other days that I was at other sites or took Saturday's off. GENERALLY I know we did a quality job but in the end I got the Bum's rush. So I wouldn't be surprised to find some "punch list" complaints and have to spend a half a day or so doctoring up some of the............%$%#@$$

GOD BLESS AMERICA

Note the last picture. 250 s/y of vinyl and that's all that's left.

 

Thanks Jim.

In the second to last photo you can see some humps in the slab near the rest room. I would normally have screeded and skimmed that out dead nuts flat. But they just don't have the time. Both my employer and his customers often have a priority of TIME over my personal obsession with perfection.

No one will ever notice those slight rolls but they annoy me to no end. I could have 2nd coated that entire slab of 250 s/y in 3-4 hours tops with an apprentice mixing the Feather Finish and scrubbing out the buckets and wiping down the trowels every few batches.

It would have been a 97 on a scale of 1-100. I'd rank this one around 83. I REALLY needed another day.

I'm just a worker. If they want FASTER I can give them that so long as there's an understanding with both the shop and the customer. I'm here to serve their interests and make a living. STILL, I sure like to walk away from jobs in the upper 90's as opposed to the lower 80s. A man has to make a living somehow. This is what I do.

 

Now that's a new one on me. I wouldn't have been able to contain myself had that nut ball assaulted me. I would have countered his barrage of idiocy with a volly of stupidity that would have left his head spinning.

No one beats me when it comes to being a stupid idiot.

Reminds me one day I was doing Flexco rubber cove in a hospital/wellness center under the Four Seasons Hotel in Westlake Village, CA. Superintendant comes up to me and tries to be a DICK about putting a seam up the cove instead of cutting it back and seaming it up a few inches off the cove stick------as is actually more orthodox.

Well this guy was a F'n pipsqueak and it was obvious he was just trying to bully me. I wasn't even the guy who installed it. I probably would have cut back the fill down onto the floor rather than do it up on the wall. But this guy was a KNOW NOTHING preppie and I didn't like his attitude so I turned on him.

By what authority-----what expertise do YOU have to question our layout? Can you show me somewhere in the architects specification or manufacturer's recommended installation practices that prohibit this. Then I actually got myself worked up into a tizzy. That's the RIGHT way to do it! I've spent my whole life doing this. Who the hell are you?..........blah, blah blah.

The dude just melted and after that we could do no wrong. Going batshit crazy is not something I recommend to anyone but this guy just pushed all my buttons. He wasn't really a complete A-hole. I think he was just looking to find someone on the jobsite he could be the boss of and feel important. I have no problem with that when said person DESERVES respect and brings up valid issues from a position of experience and competence.

 

God forbid.

Seriously though, I can't say I recall seeing anything worse than that.

WTF?

I dropped in those 2 82 foot full rolls yesterday down the main hall and of course there were a couple little bumps I had to beat down and dig out. I was teasing the new apprentice. Did you drop your bowling ball underneath there? I saw a big ol' pimple. Then I couldn't find it. This morning with the lights out it was staring me right in the face. I had to do some surgery. Say no more.