Photography 2
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CFR who ever that floor belongs to I'd say they have a moisture problem, am I right?
Well...yes and no!
So, we're vetting a new vendor partner in a totally different kind of flooring material - magnetic LVT. We are literally their first distributor partner here in the U.S. (they are European based manufacturer).If you're familiar with the Metroflor version of magnetic LVT, this one is the exact opposite. With ours, the magnet is on the back of the LVT, and you use a rollable coating on the floor that has a magnetically attractive material (Ferrous Silicate FeSi) mixed into it. Once the coating is dry, you just snap a line and lay the floor.
There are different options for the coating, an acrylic base (which is what we used), a polyaspartic base, and a "temporary" coating which can be used on walls as well as floors.
First some background...
Our building was built in the 1940's. The slab is on grade with absolutely no vapor retarder. I argued that we should use the polyaspartic since it offers vapor reduction that the acrylic does not. Unfortunately, I was poo-pooed by our ownership for multiple reasons. The floor also has some rolls in it and really should have been dealt with prior to installation. Again, no-go. I was told that "this would provide "REAL WORLD CONDITIONS" compared to what our customers would encounter in the field...".
As part of the process, we did a test install in our breakroom. Everything went fine until we started laying the floor.
- First, I noticed we were seeing some shading variations at the edges of the tile. I've seen a similar pattern before and I knew what that problem was from that previous experience. (It's a decor film issue)
- Second, we started to notice some slight ledging and gapping. That was attributed to the slight rolls in the slab. I think they were being a bit ticky-tacky on that one, but we'll see...
- Third, I noticed that the product has a pretty significant "back-bevel" cut to the edge. Meaning if we look at the floor from the side, the top edge of the floor is touching and there is a gap at the bottom. Not sure that is a good thing at all...
(I think we saw that already but thanks for confirming it, right?)Anyway, we made the decision to switch the floor out as a result.
Our sundries rep and I decided to document everything as we were removing the floor to try and provide further detail and feedback both for ourselves as well as our vendor. When we lifted the floor this morning, we saw immediately that there was most likely moisture coming through the acrylic coating we used. However, we had lifted part of this floor over the past two months and there hadn't been any signs of moisture even several weeks after install. That may have been because we're in a pretty significant drought here and we only have had rain in the past two weeks for the first time in quite a while.
At this point, we're lifting up the rest of the floor, and then we'll apply a prep product that the manufacturer offers over the existing acrylic coating, and then apply the polyaspartic coating over the top and lay a new floor.
The nice part is this stuff is super easy to remove. You literally just lift it up and it will release from the subfloor. No sticky mess.
So cool 😎 thanks for bringing us into this new and exciting time of flooring.
Have you tried blocking out colors.... R G B instead of b/w or inverting to a negative?
Yeah, and that can work better in some situations, but I found this the easiest and most consistent way for my eye. Everyone sees color differently, but black and white tends to be more consistent in how people see it. If you look in these images, it not only shows the ledging problem, but you can actually see the light and dark shading issues along the long edges of the tiles. This is an inherent issue with this particular decor film. I've run into it before with other manufacturers. It has to do with the darker "chip" element and how frequently it appears along the edge in some tiles vs. others. The manufacturer stated that they couldn't see it, until I showed them in black and white as an example.
I remember some years ago when everyone was saying there’s an installer shortage. Everybody was talking about it like it was a going to break the industry because there would be no skilled installers left to install flooring. One such person was Robert Varden. I’d listen to him talk about all kinds of shit and never saw one tangible thing that made a lick of difference to me, an installer, yet that MFR came out with a magnetic floor in the same time period. That was when I realized the industry was effed from the top down and it was time for me to mosey on down the road to greener pastures. Not much different than the homeless problem if you ask me. You can only talk about a problem for so long, without actually doing anything about it, until people just decide to quit listening to you and leave.
This has nothing to do with photography but that magnetic floor brought back memories of why I said F this and left the industry.
This has nothing to do with photography but that magnetic floor brought back memories of why I said F this and left the industry.
The desire to improve sometimes exceeds
the technology and the concepts can fail.
However they or someone else usually dust themselves off and jump into Magnetic Flooring take 2 🎬 …..Remember The Thomas Edison quote 😜 …… As for Marketing people like RV, overselling something is what they do, it’s not a character flaw, just a desire to improve a situation that they believe exists from the evidence at hand.
Ironically I bet this technology is coming to counter tops too some day, if not already 😜 we can run, but we probably can’t hide 🫣 😜
✌️
I mentioned that because to view some barely discernable letters and numbers on a metal part, I think I used photoshops histogram sliders to remove colors to monochrome, then slid the RGB sliders one at a time and things showed up better with one color at a time.
....I thunk that's what I did. 🤔
I feel like most of the large manufacturers have somewhat thrown in the towel when it comes to the importance of training the installation trade on their products. To me, it makes absolutely no sense. But, that's where we've been for the last 20+ years. It really began to fall apart during the housing boom in the early 2000's. Our main vendor ran weekly schools at their training facility for years. All for free, you just had to get yourself there. When the housing boom hit, you couldn't get anybody to go, they were too busy to learn anything. At the same time you had a huge influx of guys jumping into the trade with absolutely no training, these trunk slammers were making more money than me and the dealers were happy to have them even if their work was subpar. When the bottom fell out in 2007 - 2008, everyone started screaming about an installation shortage. I've had dealers literally beg me for training, I'll agree and spend weeks getting everything set up and then on the day of the training have 2 helpers show up because the dealer "can't pull their guys out of the field for a day!" It makes me want to bang my head into a wall until it makes sense.
Too many college educated, think they know better, quite honestly, idiots who have never installed a floor in their life making too many important decisions and nobody with the cajones to tell them when they are wrong. Unfortunately, I figured out there is no such thing as "flooring jail" so my filter regarding their stupidity is getting less and less every day. 😳 😂 😂
Too many college educated, think they know better, quite honestly, idiots who have never installed a floor in their life making too many important decisions and nobody with the cajones to tell them when they are wrong. Unfortunately, I figured out there is no such thing as "flooring jail" so my filter regarding their stupidity is getting less and less every day. 😳 😂 😂
Wow..... Like always, you are dead on with every word.
....maybe I'm wrong and unions are good. I'd assume, and I could be wrong, but I'd expect unions to insist on trainings and especially updated trainings, for new products.
....maybe I'm wrong and unions are good. I'd assume, and I could be wrong, but I'd expect unions to insist on trainings and especially updated trainings, for new products.
