What did you do today?

[highup]

These are concrete and steel we are wrapping with LVT and aluminum anodized trim I should’ve never taken this job .
I did take it because it was part of 21000 feet we did last year


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Ouch!
....that's a lot of concrete drillin'. How wide is the nose?

 

[highup]

I went back to my octagon nightmare, put the seam together and stretched it today.
Color ma ass whooped. Travel to the room, with tools, pad, strip, seamer, tubes, cords, glue gun..... 59 other items was 20 stairs each trip.... 13 on a narrow metal, spiral staircase. Not that I'm counting.
......plus 100 feet each direction from my truck.
.....not that I'm counting.
I think I ended up stretching around 14 directions before all was said and done. It's sug every direction for sure.
No hallway to set tools out of the way, so during all these stretcher direction changes everything..... Everything, got moved dozens of times, plus the railing and it's two piece steel trim plates that finish the stair surround.
I'll see if I can show my crazy stretching sequence tomorrow.
....back and forth is an understatement.
I'll go clean up tomorrow. Had to depart to put a check in the bank.
I put the two circular trim plates pack in place so it looks nice of the homeowners pop in
Seam turned out super nice.... made my day.

 

[highup]

Well, I came up with about a 14 way stretch.
The first six or so are what some might do with a kicker to hook before stretching. I can't kick, ask my 30 year old hernia. I use a kicker to nudge carpet onto the tackstrip before my initial stretches, but in this case I wanted more oomph during the initial hooking. Some stretches were done twice, especially the last angled one.
I stretched hard into that angled corner, then angled the two longer walls towards it, which loosened the angle wall a little bit, so my last stretch went once more into that short angled wall.
It seemed to be stretched really tight and even.
The long walls are about 9' 6", the angles 5' ...ish. the rooms about 17'6 by 17'6"
...........could you imagine the stretching this room with a bed and furniture
......it ain't a happnin' buddy .
Woulda been a lot easier without that metal staircase.
Anyway here's the progression of the stretching.
Not sure if it makes sense.... It does to me.

 

[Floorist]

I am very sick. Dont know when I will be back.

 

[C.J.]

Well, I came up with about a 14 way stretch.
The first six or so are what some might do with a kicker to hook before stretching. I can't kick, ask my 30 year old hernia. I use a kicker to nudge carpet onto the tackstrip before my initial stretches, but in this case I wanted more oomph during the initial hooking. Some stretches were done twice, especially the last angled one.
I stretched hard into that angled corner, then angled the two longer walls towards it, which loosened the angle wall a little bit, so my last stretch went once more into that short angled wall.
It seemed to be stretched really tight and even.
The long walls are about 9' 6", the angles 5' ...ish. the rooms about 17'6 by 17'6"
...........could you imagine the stretching this room with a bed and furniture
......it ain't a happnin' buddy .
Woulda been a lot easier without that metal staircase.
Anyway here's the progression of the stretching.
Not sure if it makes sense.... It does to me.

How many times did you have to move your poles around everything, or everything around your poles?

 

[C.J.]

I am very sick. Dont know when I will be back.

Is this new? Or the same stuff you’ve been dealing with?

 

[Incognito]

I am very sick. Dont know when I will be back.

Get well.

 

[highup]

I am very sick. Dont know when I will be back.

Hospital sick?
That was sudden. Take care and fill us in a bit when you can.

 

[highup]

How many times did you have to move your poles around everything, or everything around your poles?

I did a lot of angle stretching to get my starting walls set good, so that avoided the stairway issue early on. The stair entanglement issues started about the 7th stretch. It wasn't that bad. There were about 5, possibly 6 times I had to disconnect and reposition the tubes.
The thing that helped most is not having to tuck neatly around the floor trim pieces. Those two circular pieces set directly on top of the carpet.... I had about 4 inches allowance to worry about. I can get it that close.
I'm all vacuumed up and gone now. I vacuumed the room, the stairs, and also the Coretec room below because it was covered in fuzzies from tossing all the scraps down there.
The room has a cool ceiling. Much nicer color than the image shows.
I measured with the Disto Lazer. It's 42 feet from the window to the gravel below. No way without the Genie lift.

 

[highup]

The guys that did the other 240 yards of carpet picked up all their scraps, but didn't vacuum at all.....fuzzies everywhere like a chicken factory exploded. If they had, they might have decided to trim this seam at the top of the stairway. I had the long hall laid out with no seam there...... They whacked this section off, then put it back on. I told the store owner about it. I also told him I'm not touching it. He asked if the owners complained about it. I replied "they will"
This is a 14,000 square foot ultra custom home.
$1.5 million? $2 million? They started construction 3 years ago.
This is a job you kiss ass and go overboard on. The other seams might be ok, but they used XK50 tape and should have used a urethane lower profile tape. How does $9 per yard sound...... and my brother and I even had the pad and tackstrip installed for them. Cuts were made in advance at the warehouse, just had to load them up.
.....and I even double stripped all the rooms.
Rant over

 

[C.J.]

I’ve heard people complain about XK-50, I loved it. Better than K-40 but not overkill. 3” for doorways and closets and 6” for LR, DR FR type seams you wanted to minimize peaking. I loved it for berbers.

Vacuuming when you’re done allows you to see what the customer will see before they see it. I wouldn’t have trimmed someone else’s seam either.

 

[Csason]

Ouch!
....that's a lot of concrete drillin'. How wide is the nose?

The concrete is just like an insert the actual tread is concrete so the nose is steel. We are using urethane to attach the trim AND the LVT. No drilling.
The “nose” exposed is 1/4 inch (that dark stripe in the LVT) it has 1 inch vertical and 1 3/4 “ horizontal hidden

 

[Csason]

The guys that did the other 240 yards of carpet picked up all their scraps, but didn't vacuum at all.....fuzzies everywhere like a chicken factory exploded. If they had, they might have decided to trim this seam at the top of the stairway. I had the long hall laid out with no seam there...... They whacked this section off, then put it back on. I told the store owner about it. I also told him I'm not touching it. He asked if the owners complained about it. I replied "they will"
This is a 14,000 square foot ultra custom home.
$1.5 million? $2 million? They started construction 3 years ago.
This is a job you kiss ass and go overboard on. The other seams might be ok, but they used XK50 tape and should have used a urethane lower profile tape. How does $9 per yard sound...... and my brother and I even had the pad and tackstrip installed for them. Cuts were made in advance at the warehouse, just had to load them up.
.....and I even double stripped all the rooms.
Rant over

Amazing work bud

 

[highup]

I’ve heard people complain about XK-50, I loved it. Better than K-40 but not overkill. 3” for doorways and closets and 6” for LR, DR FR type seams you wanted to minimize peaking. I loved it for berbers.

Vacuuming when you’re done allows you to see what the customer will see before they see it. I wouldn’t have trimmed someone else’s seam either.

The carpet is Karastan and has a backing similar to what I've always referred to as a tarp back. It doesn't have much depth in its structure, so the adhesive on the XK is more than it needs.
Karastan recommended XU-90, Orcon's low melt urethane tape. That's what I used.
I have used XK-50 .....almost forever.
I called Karastan's tech line many years ago when they started making these smooth backings. The said XU-90, so either that or the Koolglide is what I like with these smoother backings.
I went up to the house the day they started. One guy was already putting a seam together. From the smell, I'm wondering if he had his seamer set too high.
I spend a ton of time on the seams. On that upstairs room, I stretched the seam lightly, then stay tacked it so the seam was tight together, meaning I didn't have to click it around as I was putting it together. They won't even know the room has a seam 5 feet out from the wall.
I was real happy the way it turned out.
I'm still stiff tho.
For a guy that doesn't install much anymore, those two sets of stairs , the main and spiral staircase has me whooped. 17 lower ones and 13 on the narrow spiral set. The spiral is so narrow you can't carry much per trip.
I can easily count 20 trips up and down, hauling everything known to mankind into that room..... Three 18 foot rolls of pad were 3 trips. 4 stretcher tubes were two trips. Everything had to come back down, so double that to 40..... hell, must be closer to 60 in reality. ....so that's 30x7.5÷12x120 steps....... 2250' up and down?
Not that I'm counting, but that explains the missing 4lbs on the bathroom scale.
I should have asked for the keys to the lift

 

[highup]

The concrete is just like an insert the actual tread is concrete so the nose is steel. We are using urethane to attach the trim AND the LVT. No drilling.
The “nose” exposed is 1/4 inch (that dark stripe in the LVT) it has 1 inch vertical and 1 3/4 “ horizontal hidden

I'm glad there are guys like you out there capable of doing those large jobs. I'd get fired before noon on day one for taking too long to vacuum and damp mop the floor.

 

[highup]

I’ve heard people complain about XK-50, I loved it. Better than K-40 but not overkill. 3” for doorways and closets and 6” for LR, DR FR type seams you wanted to minimize peaking. I loved it for berbers.

Vacuuming when you’re done allows you to see what the customer will see before they see it. I wouldn’t have trimmed someone else’s seam either.

If the homeowner doesn't complain, the builder might. I'd like the installer to see his own work and do some pondering...... If I trim it, he'd never know it. I want him to.
The builder currently has his finish guys doing cleaning, and minor touchup everywhere so that the customer won't be blue taping anything...... They won't have anything to complain about. His guys do nice work.
Once done, the builders cleaning crew will do a final spit shine of the place.

 

[highup]

Amazing work bud

Thank you.
What adhesive do you use on those stair nose trims?

 

[C.J.]

Never tried the XU-90. Back when I was doing carpet I would often refer to the CRI standards but hadn’t begun calling tech support until I got into doing hard surfaces for box stores. Back then I was working out of a Carpet One and could go to other seasoned installers with questions or even the sales team who were either installers themselves or been doing it long enough to know.

There’s no one that knows anything that you can talk to at a box store. Maybe not literally no one but you know what I’m sayin, it’s different workin for box stores. I won’t say you gotta sell your soul but you definitely sold something.

 

[Csason]

Thank you.
What adhesive do you use on those stair nose trims?

I am using Sika bond urethane because my helper likes it and he’s in charge of that. I use PL from locktite specifically PL x3 the super duper is overkill , I also use a couple other off brands that Cisco carries as long as it’s urethane /polyurethane I’m good it has to be pried off with a pry bar when dry

Honestly these stairs should be covered with Mercer vinyl commercial stair treads and I argued that with the owners and the architect but I lost

 

[Floorist]

I have lost 12 lbs in 2 weeks. It scares me, but anything I eat makes me sick and my hemoglobin won't stay up.