In this series of articles floor covering expert Terry Weinheimer of the Weinheimer Group LLC will discuss the selection of carpet, resilient, laminate, hardwood and other floor covering materials.
Next to a house or an automobile, floor covering is one of the largest purchases that many homeowners will ever make. Like an automobile or residence floor covering can be a purchase of joy or one of pain. A floor covering that is properly specified for the location, in which it is to be used, will add to the beauty of its environment. A properly selected floor covering will also add value, comfort and pleasure to any home or business. At the same time, a floor covering that is selected with little or no thought as to its environment is likely to result in a major disappointment.
Floor covering is both an important and a valuable element of a property design. Floor covering can offer both the desired aesthetics and required performance qualities, when care is taken in its selection. With the huge variety of fibers, styles and colors available an individual can find a product in the correct price range that will provide years of enjoyment and function.
Should an improperly selected floor covering be it sheet vinyl, laminated wood, carpet, hardwood or any other product fail, the unhappy consumer often places blame on the dealer they purchased it from. In turn, the dealer will likely blame the problem on the floor-covering manufacturer. If the floor covering is carpet, the carpet manufacturer might blame the problem on the fiber manufacturer who in turn places the blame back on the retailer, consumer or another individual or inanity. This can be one big viscous circle with everyone being blamed and no one taking responsibility.
As a consumer you should expect the sales representative to educate you and steer you in the right direction instead of going along with you to make the easy sale. Unfortunately many companies fail to educate their sales representatives so that they understand how products differ and therefore a consumer must be prepared when making a purchase.
The author sees it as a responsibility of those marketing a floor covering product to understand color, construction, performance and installation, and to pass this information on to the end user. The consumer needs to understand that by spending just a little more money, (often only a few extra dollars more a month) on the purchase, it will save them many dollars and a lot of grief over the life of the carpet. Unfortunately, for a consumer the word is caveat emptor (buyer beware).
The author has spent over twenty-five years as a floor covering consultant and inspector. In this roll he has analyzed thousands of installations to determine what has caused the products premature failure or loss in appearance. Regularly it is found that the performance exhibited by a product is consistent with the characteristics of its construction. What this usually means is that the product has failed as it was not properly specified or selected for the environment in which it was to be used. Often the cause of the failure is a result of the floor covering being improperly cared for due to lack of knowledge or neglect. Improper selection and care are avoidable situations that may require a little study on the part of the end-user.
Selecting the correct floor covering for your installation needs to be done with a lot of thought and a little planning so that you will experience the satisfying performance and enjoyment that you deserve. As you may have experienced with a past purchase, a floor covering that is absolutely perfect for one residence or even a single room may be a disaster in another. With this in mind you should carefully decide whether you want the same product and color throughout or a different floor covering treatment in different rooms or areas of the installation. Unfortunately many buyers and sellers of floor products only look at the product with two elements in mind aesthetics and price. Aesthetics includes such things as color, style, pattern, texture, luster, and feel. Price is often based upon how cheaply can we buy it?
In the next article we will discuss aesthetics and price.
Floor Covering 101: Aesthetics and Price
Aesthetics and price while being two of the more important elements are but part of the selection process. In addition to aesthetics a properly selected product will be chosen for its appearance retention characteristics which includes its ability to withstand wear and its soil-hiding ability. With a hard floor you will look at addition characteristics such as its resistance to moisture, scratches and gouges. With a carpet you are interested in additional factors such as it resistance to matting and crushing.
To get the correct product you must understand the environment in which it is to be installed, the look you would like to achieve, how much you are willing to spend, the care it will receive and how long you expect it to last. Not all floor covering products or carpet fibers and constructions have the same performance characteristics so you will need to understand these when making your selections for the various rooms in you’re home.
Another major problem many end-users face in the selection of floor covering is the tendency to be able to select it on an unemotional basis. It is common for many consumers to select a product on emotion because it is fashionable, makes them feel good and they believe it to be at a price that will work within the budget. “And besides, they saw it advertised on television and it looked like it never got dirty and it also has a ten year warranty”.
In the next article Terry Weinheimer will discuss soil-hiding considerations
The building may be located in the country on a quiet road or near a major highway or manufacturing facility. You may have a fully landscaped situation with grass and walks or you may have dirt and gravel around the structure. You may be in an area that is routinely exposed to rain and mud. Maybe you’re on the beach or in the dessert and sand is a consideration. Some offices, motels, and retail stores are exposed to tracking from asphalt parking lots. Maybe you have a restaurant that operates in part of the building, or a garage where your teenagers work on cars. You will need to carefully think about the specific composition of soil so that the correct selection can be made. The type and color of soil will vary by geographic location running the gamut of light to dark and somewhere in-between. Selecting a floor covering that has is similar in tone to the soil will tend to hide it.
Not only should it be able to conceal soil it is advisable for it to be a product that can be easily cleaned and cared for. Concealed soil that is not removed will damage any floor-covering product. You need to understand that stain and soil resistance on carpet helps to repel spills and dirt but it does not eliminate maintenance. Advertising for carpet may lead one to believe that a carpet that is treated with a stain and soil resisting product will not get dirty, you must understand that this product will not keep a carpet clean but allows for easier clean-up of common household spills. Stain and soil resist products are a good selection for any carpeted room in the house and will assist with maintenance in high traffic areas such as hallways, stairs or any other room where activity is high and food or beverage is consumed.
Some advertising for laminated wood, sheet vinyl and other flooring products also tend to give the impression that the floor is indestructible. Everything can be destroyed and often it takes little effort so you really need to understand what you are buying and where you are going to use it.
A Shameless Industry – by Terry Weinheimer
Most rational adults recognize the exaggerated marketing techniques used by the magazine sweepstakes industry. Almost monthly you receive mailers announcing that your name has been selected to win a large amount of money. Of course, when you read the small print you will usually understand the difference between being selected to win and actually winning. In reality it should come as no surprise that you are just being baited to purchase magazine subscriptions. Yes, you might win something; you probably have a one in a million chance of winning the 50-cent prize and a one in a billion chance of winning that grand prize.
While I hate to admit it, I often see advertising in the floor covering industry that is reminisce of the sweepstakes industry. It is shameless that our own industry day-after-day advertises floors as if they were indestructible and self-cleaning when we know this not to be true. Just like the suckers that bite on the magazine deals, gullible individuals that fail to read the small print in our own ads are taking the bait. Some of the most misleading manufacturers and retailers produce and sell some fine floor covering products. In their quest for a larger market share these otherwise respectable companies allow the advertising departments to push the limits.
Consumers are purchasing flooring products based on the way they perceive the advertising. When they find that their new floor actually requires care and is not indestructible they feel violated or believe that the product is truly defective. Within months of installation the complaints start to pour in but the practice of misleading advertising seems to continue.
In addition to the exaggerated advertising claims our industry has many sales people who stretch the limits even further to make a sale! Week-after-week and day-after-day, as a floor-covering inspector/consultant this author investigates claims where flooring products have been sold as indestructible. At many of these installations the consumer has done everything possible to prove that these indestructible floors can be damaged. Scratch resistant floors have been sold as scratch proof and they often look as if someone has used a garden rake on them. Some floors are swollen and popping off the substrate from leaking dishwashers, broken pipes or pure abuse and the consumer insist they have been told that no amount of water would damage the floor.
For nearly 20 years I have been out of the sales business. I owned floor covering stores for many years. I must admit that there were times that I was tempted to oversell, and in truth there were times that I gave in to those temptations. As a young entrepreneur I had a struggling retail store. I had high goals but was not producing enough volume. The first high-volume salesperson that I ever hired turned out to be an individual that exaggerated the value and ability of products. With dollar signs in my eyes I found myself impressed by his sales production and the profit margin at which he produced. Within days of hiring this man the complaints started to come in from consumers that were misled and overcharged. My own greed had allowed me to believe that the increased sales that he had brought to our struggling store were needed. In a very short period of time I had allowed my own greed to pull me into his gutter.
It took a couple of weeks before I started to realize that dishonest techniques were not needed to make sales and if they were I was in the wrong business. I recognized that I was giving up my self-respect, and I had been raised to respect it highly. Within the month I had let this sales person go but it took many months to overcome the damage I had allowed him to create during his short stay. From that time on, when I caught employees using blatantly misleading statements, they were immediately reminded that if they could not sell honestly they would be shown the door.
Most companies understand that our industry has no room for salespeople that are going to run your business into the ground. Some of us had to learn this the hard way!
