Sisyphus and an LVT setting Out Question

[Spinny]

The rock is pushed up, the rock rolls down.

Some LVT went down, some LVT was taken up again - manufacturing fault affecting 20% of the planks.

Apply shoulder to rock - attempt to push.

 

We have chosen LVT planks with a featured wood design. Some planks are fairly plain, some are heavily featured/knotted. So how do we decide how to lay them out. I had a concern that the contractor was not laying them randomly and seemed to have laid more heavily featured ones than plain ones.  They said we open 2 or 3 packs then lay them as they come. Amtico said loose lay them and then swap planks around until you are happy, then stick down. Contractor not happy with that approach.

 

I appreciate the PITA of loose laying them first, especially with a total area of 50sqm (could only really loose lay a section at a time) but it is going to be down for 20 years.

 

Experiences, thoughts and comments...?

[G and J]

We've recently had a similar amount of amtico laid. Not planks but a  figured/textured design. Our fitter did lay out section by section then fit.

[Nickfromwales]

3 hours ago, Spinny said:

Contractor not happy with that approach

Tell him to (expletive deleted) off.

 

I think you need to remind him you're paying the bills and it’s your house. The tail doesn’t wag the dog!!!

 

Agree to pay him the downtime as an extra, an hour or two at his 10hr day divided by 10 x 2hrs, and take control of how this gets laid.

 

Will the replacement 20% be the same batch / variant? If not guaranteed, then they need throwing in here and there to camouflage them. 

[Spinny]

I am told Amtico have agreed to replace the whole order with new packs from a different batch number which will be quality checked before despatch and should be with us on Wednesday.

 

Slightly makes we wonder a bit...

Why would you need to quality check something that should be quality checked at the factory ?

What is happening to the original packs now ?

Who actually bears the cost of 2 wasted man days due to supposed premier manufacturer shipping out defective product ?

 

I also wonder the original packs were about 50/50 plainish vs featured. Could I sensibly take say 10% of featured planks and leave them out of the mix ? If the colour match is good could I take selected non-defective planks from the original batch to mix in ? 

 

I believe the Amtico is manufactured in wider sheets with a single photographic image, then cut into strips and boxed. I had a couple of sample planks from one box and they did seem to match if you placed them along side each other. No doubt you can't lay them that way as they need to have staggered joins and you would end up with one large scale repeating pattern.

 

 

 

 

Edited 23 hours ago by Spinny

[Spinny]

Guy just said 'I am not doing that'. Seems difficult to square with Amtico recommending dry laying and the contractor being an Amtico Premier partner. You would have thought he could at least say, 'it will take longer to lay that way so there will have to be a price increase'.

 

It would have helped if he had at least said something like, these planks vary a lot, do you want to have a look before and as I start laying ?

 

When I raised it he said 'I can't take these up again'. Once his boss came to look at the manufacturing faults they had spotted (but only mentioned to their boss and not to me). The boss said these will all have to come up - and come up they did.

 

Kitchen fitter called today too, saying he intends to come early. Tomorrow I am calling the kitchen company to bend their ear. I have had to wait 6 weeks for them to get missing parts. I sent them a gantt chart showing the earliest 2nd fit date. They are supposed to be coming later not now. I am not having it. They insisted on being paid 100% on delivery. Now I have 90% of a kitchen, they couldn't even be bothered to tell me when the parts had arrived, and they want me to renegotiate dates with their sub contract fitter. As ever, once people have your money they take their eye off the ball. This job isn't running to other people's convenience, it is running to a sequenced plan.

[saveasteading]

20 hours ago, Spinny said:

Contractor not happy with that 

Doesn't have much argument if the instructions say to mix and rotate and dry lay. It's good that the instructions do say that, as I don't think they always do.

I hate repeated when products  mimicking  a natural product  have obvious repeats.

Tilers, vinyl layers, paving slab layers are not necessarily aesthetes. But it's part of their job so well done for hanging on to that boulder.

[Dreadnaught]

"Amtico Premier partner" - oh dear! Concerning.

 

I am planing to have Amtico LVT and thought "Amtico Premier partner" meant an easy life.

 

I wonder if Method Statements exist from Amtico than be can inspected and quoted. 

[Nickfromwales]

4 hours ago, Dreadnaught said:

"Amtico Premier partner" - oh dear! Concerning.

 

I am planing to have Amtico LVT and thought "Amtico Premier partner" meant an easy life.

 

I wonder if Method Statements exist from Amtico than be can inspected and quoted. 

Meet your fitters at the door, invite them in for ‘the chat’. 
 

If that goes well use them, but if they are obtuse or confrontational then you just smile and say thanks for coming out, ask them to make their way back out the front door…and give them the FO.

 

“He who pays the piper”.