FLOOR COATINGS 101: LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES!!!Thank you all for your helpful remarks regarding the lingering odor from a newly installed floor coating system, a decorative polyaspartic polyurea under that topic on this blog site ("Lingering ODOR polyaspartic polyurea decorative.") We learned several things from our experience in our floor coating system failure. Perhaps we can help others to avoid a miserable, on-going problem:
1. The customer should consider doing intensive research regarding the manufacturer, the flooring contractor and the type of floor coating system that is being recommended. Know who specifically will stand behind the product and the work to be performed. Get a clear idea of what remediation efforts are to be offered you, at what expense, should the floor system not meet expectations or completely fail, as happened in our case. I believed that we did the necessary research and accepted the local contractor’s planned suggestions for a new decorative polyaspartic polyurea floor coating system. I believed that I had established a working relationship with the local contractor who promised me a floor that would elicit “wow” whenever it was described. The only problem was that I learned AFTER the installation and AFTER I started complaining about the offensive, lingering odor present within our garage that the local contractor admitted that he had switched manufacturers and flooring systems, unbeknownst to me, from the one that had been proposed to me. The ‘ol bait and switch” and I thought I was more astute!
2. The customer should verify and thoroughly discuss the exact project plan that is envisioned by the local contractor/manufacturer, such as products to be used, qualifications and experience of the floor coating installers, the reputation of the manufacturer and how it handles post-installation problems or product failure; the amount of product planned for the project, the planned mixing methodology and timeline of the project, ensure that the mix ratios have been logically planned and mathematically confirmed; obtain and review product material safety data sheets, environmental data sheets and the technical data safety sheets; get a sense of the working knowledge of the class of chemical compounds being used, how volatile they are, what hazards may be present during or after installation, what the local contractor knows about the chemicals and the precautions, if any, that employed.
3. The customer should carefully read and understand the manufacturer’s product warranty and liability declarations; evaluate the fine print in the local contractor’s contract and disclosures and warranties. Currently, our whole free-standing, new construction garage is a chemical waste dump site and is completely unable to be inhabited.
Murphy’s Law seemed to govern all that was associated with our floor coating installation……
a. The flooring system that was installed was not authorized by us.
b. The floor coating installation has failed due to improper mixing of the three chemicals
c. At more than one month post installation, the manufacturer has refused to remediate our floor coating installation failure that has proven to be a human health hazard; the local contractor has no clue as to what has occurred.
d. For the weeks post installation, we have first hand experienced that this manufacturer has refused to stand behind their product or recommended product usage; the manufacturer has refused to send any of their representatives to the site.
e. We determined after the post-installation problem that the local contractor did not understand the class of chemical compounds he was using, had just switched to this manufacturer’s chemical products and disclosed otherwise; the local contractor did not possess the MSDS, EDS or TDS for these products
that included polyaspartic polyureas and PM acetate, a solvent reducer; the local contractor still represents on his web site another well-known and respected type of flooring system that I had planned to have installed!f. We experienced the manufacturer’s recent response to our serious problem that has caused asthmatic respiratory problems: the manufacturer sent us a letter from their chief litigation counsel cautioning us that any further contact by us to the manufacturer should be made to the manufacturer’s headquarters legal department, instead of offering any help to us from their sales, technical or chemical staff. In other words, hostility, callous disregard for human health and property and legal posturing were the only offerings! It seems that they are begging us to hire an aggressive litigation counsel to resolve our dilemma!
g. We wish we had found this blog before initiating our project. There is a wealth of helpful information here. We would have been happy with the experienced senior members from this blog to complete our garage flooring project. Timing is everything!
h. Will provide follow-up as our remediation begins……
Good to hear...I've got 20+ gallons of your stuff sitting in my garage right now to set up.
I know, we can guess and you can just quote the one that gets it right. I'll go first (U coat it)
Which one pays the 7K.
and get things, and do things worng all the time as you can tell by my threads. But I don't say my neighbor did it. Me and I think others come on here to share experience and to find "how-to" do something, not "how-to misrepresent. (If I'm worng about that I will apologize to BillyG)
out of me.