• Straps – Blue Crain straps are very efficient and help keep the floor tight. I use one every three feet or so, and I find they are especially useful if you’re working alone.
• Persuader – A big heavy mallet with a white rubber end is great for tightening up a stubborn floor.
• An Extra Trowel – I recommend this for a few reasons. First, you might have an extra person show up and this way you can put them to work. Second, the trowel is a measuring device, and gets worn down as it is scraped against the concrete all day, changing the amount of glue used. Be sure to change out your trowels. Additionally, if you tape your trowel with blue tape to expose only the notches, it is much easier to clean up at the end of the day.
• Five Gallon Buckets – These work great, particularly when you’re working alone. In order to weight down the floor, you can also use boxes of wood flooring, sandbags, or even free weights. However, I prefer to use the buckets, filled ¾ of the way with water. The handle makes them easy to carry and they don’t take up much storage space.
• Pre-made Wedges – These are easy and fast to make, and essential for tightening the floors at the walls.
• Crain Spacers – Use these for the first rows so you can leave the necessary expansion space, and push against them to tighten up the rows and stay on line.
• Epoxy Kits – You want to be the one to discover any possible hollow spots before the homeowner, and be able to repair it. 3M and Bostik make great kits, and you should be able to pick a place in the grain to make the repair undetectable.
• Double-Sided Tape – Use this on short blocks in a line, so you can push the first three rows against them and keep the boards tight and the rows straight.
• Template Paper – You can make templates for difficult areas, like inside of a staircase wall, so you can mark it first, cut all the boards at one time, and simply drop them in.
• Powernail 500 – I don’t leave home without it.
• Paint Buster Hand Cleaner (3M) – Somehow, the glue always ends up all over your hands, and it’s important to keep them clean. I know a floor guy with a new stainless steel refrigerator in his garage, and it’s not there because he wanted it. He keeps it backwards, so he’s not reminded of the smudges of handprints on the front…

These are just a few tricks for installing a glue-down floor. Be sure to protect the carpet and tile with plastics. In the end, it is better and more efficient to install slower and keep the floor clean from adhesive than to go faster and deal with missed areas later.

• Listening is key. Be sure to listen to all of the customer’s concerns and wishes. Talk about their expectations and lay everything out on the table before entering into an agreement.
• Have a good contract. I got mine from the N.W.F.A. and altered it slightly to suit me. A written, signed document outlining the work to be done, products to be used, and the payment terms will put both you and your customer at ease and ensure you are on the same page within the agreement.
• A great portfolio sells jobs. Let your past work speak for you. A high-quality presentation of your past works, with prints or a digital representation, can speak volumes to your credibility.
• Set up an agreement with your employees. It can sometimes be frightening what employees say to customers, so arm your employees with proper responses to potential questions or problems. Keep an open communication with all your employees.

You should check the floor with a moisture meter before water popping. When you think it is dry, be sure to check it again, to ensure it returns to the original readings. In my opinion, water popped floors should sit overnight to dry fully before staining. I know many people might disagree, and move more quickly in the process, but it’s important to remember and be aware that moisture can stay in cracks and in seams much longer, potentially causing adhesion problems later.

I am often asked if you can put a fan on the floor to speed the drying process. If you want to use a fan, have it point away from the floor, in order to draw moisture out. If it points across the floor, the floor will dry unevenly, potentially affecting the stain color. Great care should be taken in the staining process to not drag feet or kneepads across the floor, as it will show and ultimately be tougher to touch up.

A side effect of water popping is grain raise. A simple step you can take to help eliminate grain raise is to run a thick red pad over the floor with a buffer after it dries and before you stain, in order to knock off the nubs that can rise up. Nubs might not be a technical term, but you catch my drift!

Water popping a floor requires an additional step and the homeowner should be charged accordingly. That being said, it can be a beneficial process for the beauty and longevity of the homeowners’ new hardwood floors.

How to make custom treads:

• Start with 1/8” inch Masonite and rip it into 2″ wide pieces on the table saw.
• If your treads are roughly 39 1/2″ inches then cut the Masonite about an inch shorter. This step does not have to be accurate and you can cut several at once with a chop saw.
• Next, cut several more Masonite pieces about 12″ in length.
• Place one of the long pieces to the back of the tread, and place a 12″ piece at each end on top, following the angle of the wall.
• Take a hot glue gun and apply a little glue to each 12″ piece where it sits on top of the longer piece.
• After you give the glue a few seconds to set up, you’ll be left with perfectly accurate templates.
• When gluing your treads down, you can also help prevent cupping and increase adhesion to the substrate by adding a kerf cut along the underside of your treads.

Landing strip or bull noses usually come in either 3 1/2″ or 5″ widths, but there are situations where it may help to create your own widths. For those situations, follow these steps:

How to make custom bull Noses:

• Start by ripping 1/4″ inch stock into a 1 ½” inch wide piece.
• Epoxy it to the end of a board and clamp it down until it adheres.
• You can put pin nails in it, but keep the nails away from the ends.
• When the epoxy sets up, take a router with a 3/4” inch round over-bite and make a couple passes.
• Flip it over and do the same on the other side.
• Once you’ve done this, make a couple passes with an oscillating sander.
• You have now created a custom bull nose to the exact measurement you desire!

Helpful Bonus Tips:

• Be sure to label your templates accordingly before taking them home.
• If treads are prefinished, use a rubber mallet to tap them in.

Staining a floor is a lot of work. Traditionally it’s on your knees, and there’s a lot of wiping on and off, standing, crouching, walking, and grunting. Why not try and use the buffer method? The idea of staining floors with a buffer has recently gained popularity. Most people that try it wonder why they didn’t start doing it earlier.

Why you should consider staining with a buffer:

• It’s easier on your body. Enjoy the benefits of staining while standing up!
• You’ll go through much less product. It’s amazing how far the stain can go when you buff it on.
• Your stain will dry faster since it’s being applied quicker and more evenly.
• There’s less chance for bleed-back since the stain won’t flood the floor.

When staining a floor by hand there is a tendency to “flood” the floor by dropping wet rags onto the surface. When this happens, stain can potentially seep into the area between planks and cause the floor to not dry properly. The top of the floor may have every indication and appearance of being dry, but the cracks in the end joints and seams might still be wet. If you run into this, your floor may have adhesion problems after being coated. Some people believe that this can contribute to “White Line Syndrome”, or any occurrence of white lines between boards in a wood floor. You can help avoid WLS by trowel filling your floor before applying a coat of stain.

Please also be aware that your floor may be a little lighter in color than you’re used to after using the buffer. You can address this by staining a shade darker.

Options:
Luxury Vinyl Tile today has almost nothing in common with the vinyl tile of years ago. The quality, look, and feel have improved tenfold. LVT used to lack design. Now, designs and textures are incredibly detailed. From stone to distressed flooring and even leather, the options are limitless and incredibly realistic. LVT is green and can be recycled, which makes it a great fit for commercial settings and Lead Certified buildings. Additionally, more and more designers are selecting Luxury Vinyl Tile for home solutions. It works great in place of laminate or wood inside of kitchens, outdoor patios, bathrooms, and really anywhere in the home.

Durability:
It is extremely resilient and can be installed in high traffic areas. It’s comfortable to walk on and homeowners love how easy it is to maintain. Reward Access XL comes with a 20 year residential and 10 year commercial warranty. Galleher stands behind this product.

That being said, I would like to share some things I have learned. I could go on for a week, but here are just a few:

Keep Records
As contractors, we wear a lot of hats and sometimes neglect record keeping. Good record keeping is critical. Take your moisture readings on the subfloor in multiple areas – the N.W.F.A. recommends at least 40 boards per 1000 sq. ft. – as well as the wood flooring itself. Write down the moisture content of the subfloor, in addition to the relative humidity. Take a picture of the trowel you used. Take pictures of anything relevant and add it to your files. If you don’t have records, you put yourself at a great disadvantage should you go to court.

Measure moisture
Moisture is responsible for 90% of floor problems. Invest in a good moisture meter. I think a pin moisture meter with insulated pins is a must. The readings come only from the exposed tips so it can measure moisture accurately at different depths. Be prepared to answer questions, such as when it was last calibrated.

Acclimate
So many times I hear people say, “We let it sit for 2 weeks!” Acclimation is not just a time factor. Be aware that wood can also be acclimated off site if jobsite conditions are not favorable. Take the time to really understand the effects of acclimation, moisture and relative humidity.

Know the guidelines
The N.W.F.A. has both installation and sand and finish guidelines (now in Spanish too). It is a wise investment to know the literature.

Cooperate
If you have a floor that is being inspected, it is best to cooperate with the inspector if he calls to ask you questions. This professional conversation can be extremely beneficial.

Lastly
Be aware that if you call for an inspection by an N.W.F.A. certified inspector, you may never get the conclusive answer you’re looking for. There may not be one. Don’t be of the mindset that an inspector is there to help you. An inspector’s role is to draw conclusions based on testing, observation and related industry standards.

Well, I hope this knowledge will be of some value to you as well!

Hi. I am Wayne Highlander, a new Galleher Sales Representative working out of Northern California. Like many people in this trade, I am a second-generation floorman. My uncle Stan was a floorman for 50 years, my two brothers have been in the trade over 25 years each and another cousin for about the same. Depending on whose side of the story you believe, when my uncle hired me I was either cheap labor or he was teaching me a trade and “I should damn well appreciate it!” A few years later I hired my brothers and depending on who you believe, they were either cheap labor or I was teaching them a trade and…. The truth is, I was lucky to be able to work with them for so long and I am proud of the work they continue to do.

I see a lot of families working together. It makes me smile when I see fathers and sons, brothers and cousins, and even fathers and daughters. I think nothing says I love you like carrying someone’s sander out to the van for them!

As I have come to know Galleher over the last few years, I have realized Galleher is a family business too. It is the oldest floor covering distributor in Southern California, dating back to 1937. Jeff and Todd Hamar grew up in the flooring business too. When I was hired, they made it clear that the company still follows family values. “Trust, honesty and doing the right thing for the customer.” I look forward to working for Galleher and our valued customers.

If you have technical questions or concerns, please contact me at whighlander@galleher.com or 510.846.8825.