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Lauridsen Consultancy Group, Denison, TX (2026)

04/25/2026

Setting and Managing Real Expectations

One way for retailers and flooring contractors to set and manage real expectations with buyers is with an addendum to a sales contract.

Typically the addendum should be introduced after the close of the sale where a commitment has been received from the buyer and the addendum made as a part of the sales contract prior to the sale being concluded. An addendum of this sort would be an advisory document as to what to do or not do and what to expect and when.

A couple of examples as to what you might include in your addendum would be a notice about product care and specific areas to be addressed such as natural characteristics found in wood flooring. This is especially important where a manufacturer may not provide complete care and maintenance instructions for a finished product or one where you finished the wood onsite. Typically care and maintenance instructions must be provided to a homeowner at the time of sale. It eliminates the potential for a buyer to later claim “the installer told me to use vinegar and water on the hardwood floor and now it’s ruined”. Believe me once you experience one lawsuit and how much it costs you in time and money just defending yourself, you’ll never want to go back to doing it the way you were.

With respect to informing the buyer as to proper expectations this is another area you can excel at and appear fully transparent. Remember how McDonalds got sued for hot coffee being spilled on a patrons lap? It wasn’t just the temperature of the coffee that got spilled and caused alleged injury but the fact that the coffee cup did not contain the warning “Caution Hot Coffee!” that got them into some hot water.

So if you’re selling a character grade floor, they get a character grade but the sample does not have the literally hundreds of characters in that one 2 x 2 sample on your display you may want to add to your addendum an explanation for character and what to expect.

Again it’s one thing to say it another to put into writing to protect your business as the mind gets fuzzy after a while. This is especially important for those in certain regions of the United States where a particular floor or species may be impacted greatly because of local climate conditions and your customer’s failure to maintain the climate control as recommended.

At Lauridsen Consultancy Group we offer retailer/floor contractor specific customized text for your needs to be added to your addendums to take to your attorney for review as part of our consultancy service. Call us at 972-689-5190 for a quote today.

04/09/2026

Explaining flatness and its accuracy

Q. I keep hearing about flatness but isn’t that the same as level?
A. No it’s not. Level is the same as slope. So if you were to place a level on a floor and the bubble doesn’t remain in the center, there is a slope in the floor. Flatness on the other hand is a measurement of two points. So if using a 10’ screed point A would start with the screed touching the surface and point b, which would be at 120” would touch the surface as well. Anything under that screed not touching the surface would then be the flatness measurement. That’s in a perfect world. Often along the way of that 10’ the screed may touch the surface which if it does the span has just been decreased and can no longer be reported as x” in 10’ but rather where it touches. So if it touches in the middle and the gap between screed and floor is 1/8” then it’s reported as 1/8” in 5’. When measuring all of the humps, valleys and crowns in a floor count and any coming into contact reduces the span.

Q. If span is reduced by crowns in a floor, can’t we just measure the crown?
A. Absolutely but then you are no longer measuring flatness but for a crown. To be fairly accurate you need to place a level, preferably a digital 4’ or 6’ level centered on the crown so that the gap at the ends of the level are equal in distance from the floor. If there is only one gap at the end where the level is hanging in mid air while the other end is touching the level you are then technically measuring slope in the area.

Q. Is using a screed or straightedge on top of a concrete slab an accurate way of determining flatness?
A. According to the concrete industry it’s an approximation, but normally all that’s required of installers and inspectors as it’s still recognized by the industry. But the most accurate way of determining flatness is the F number system and using a device called a dipstick which is very expensive equipment. It’s found under ASTM test method E1155. In my personal experience it has its applicability 48/72 hours after placement on the slab but I would argue it’s practicality in the flooring business especially after the concrete has cured for personal reasons I won’t get into here. It essentially uses a grid system of measurement in which it takes measurements every 2’ at which the center point 1’ a measurement is obtained and converted into an Ff number. There is a chart that is produced by the concrete industry that provides an approximate conversion into a fraction of an inch in 10’. So an Ff 50 corresponds approximately to a flatness of 1/8” in 10’ which would be a very flat floor. Most specs for flooring call for a Ff of 35. There is another method using an F meter but I won’t get into that here. Just know there are many options for determining flatness of a slab.

Q. Can an inspector use a laser level to test for flatness?
A. An inspector can do just about whatever he wants on a jobsite but the question is not what he uses but how he interprets the results. If I take a laser which I’ve done and point it at an object, and at the end of the object I produce a result, what is the result? If done correctly I obtained a slope measurement. A slope measurement is the same as level according to the concrete industry. With only some minor exceptions that’s not what the flooring industry cares about they want to know the flatness of the surface. Now I’m not saying an inspector cannot obtain flatness with laser but two things would be in question, one the accuracy of the laser as most have a tolerance listed in their technical data such as 1/16” or 1/8” and the second is determining two points which are exactly at 0”. There must be a point A and a point B within a span that both are exactly at 0” or no deviation. And somewhere would be a deviation between the laser and floor in which to capture a measurement between said two points to create a span. Sounds challenging, it is. I would put my string against any laser any time.

Q. Can an inspector measure for flatness on top of an existing floor covering?
A. Many inspectors do this including me. It’s not so much about obtaining the measurement as it is about interpretation of the results. I one time received a call from a sales rep asking me to come to a jobsite as his customer was tearing up and replacing a floor because the inspector wrote in his conclusion that flatness was off by 7/16” in 6’ and the claims department denied the claim and blamed the installers. I went there and did all my normal tests then let the installers take up the floor. What did I find? A rigid core floor that was floated over a concrete slab that was floated with patch/leveling compound. Not one area was 7/16” in 6’, in fact the vast majority was 1/16” in 6’ with the exception of one area was 1/8” in 6’. So how did the inspector get 7/16” in 6’ then? I cannot say for sure as I wasn’t there. I only know that no flooring was taken up during his inspection so he had to be measuring on top of the floor. A cupped floor (we refer to as curling). Surely the inspector would have surmised a measurement on top of a cupped floor would produce a measurement at the center of each plank and that would essentially create a “cupping measurement” but he didn’t write that in his report. He wrote that the subfloor was out of flat and he was disproven. The floor was torn up for the wrong reason as they had a subfloor moisture issue causing the curl.

02/12/2026

Today’s webinar with FCICA attendees

01/21/2026

See me live and in person next Monday at the FCITS recertification class just before Surfaces in Las Vegas. That is as long as my flight to LAS from DFW airport doesn’t get canceled because of the incoming winter storm. I have an early Sunday morning flight so hopefully not! In any event I hope to see you all at surfaces.

11/16/2025

How a wrong diagnosis code can result in a claim turndown

I sometimes hear installers and some dealers complain “they turned down my claim”, adding some choice adjectives at times. But when I’ve looked into the reasons behind the turndown sometimes I find it’s simply a coding error.

I use the example of a claim I was asked to inspect after a turndown was issued and the dealer wasn’t happy about it. The floor was previously inspected by an independent certified inspector and after his determination it was coded as an “installation error: out of flat subfloor” resulting in a cupping of an spc rigid core floor.

According to the inspector the flatness was 7/16” in 6’ which was greater than the 1/8” in 6’ allowed by the manufacturer. But upon arriving at the home and the floor taken up by the installers who were there to replace it because of what the previous inspector stated, I checked the floor for flatness using a straightedge and found it to be 1/16” in 6’ with one area of the floor 1/8” in 6’. All of it, the entire substrate was within flatness guidelines.

So how could it be mis coded like that? Well I wasn’t there so I don’t know what the inspector did or did not do to come up with that number. I can only surmise he checked on top of the floor and that the concave appearance of the floor created by the curling of edges along the long side of the planks resulted in height difference between the edges of the plank and its center which some would say was cupped. While that number may be true for an installed plank measured onsite it’s not a flatness measurement of a subfloor. I for a number of years have contended it virtually impossible for an inspector to get a very accurate reading of the subfloor underneath by measuring on top of a rigid core floating floor. However with every rule there are exceptions to a rule and so it takes a very experienced and knowledgeable inspector to make such assumptions. Still I had the proof right in front of me that the installers properly floated the subfloor with a leveling compound before installing the floor.

All that said, the curling had nothing to do with floor flatness at least on this jobsite leaving the unanswered question, what caused the curling. Upon checking attic stock I found the material to be flat which would suggest something had to occur after the fact and act as a catalyst, post installation.

As I went about checking for other alleged causes for curling the one thing that stood out to me was the concrete ongrade subfloor. It was high on my meter and so I issued a report still naming it an installation issue, but should be coded as installation- subfloor moisture related. Why installation and not site related? Only one reason because the installers didn’t test. If they had tested and documented it was within the manufacture guidelines at time of installation then it would site related subfloor moisture. Arguable you bet but without testing how do we know what it was that time of installation

Now I don’t know about you and how you view things but there is a big difference between coding something as install-flatness versus install-subfloor moisture. I’m not saying the manufacturer will change its stance but depending on its positions a manufacturer might be more lenient about a subfloor moisture issue than a purely installation error. I want to highlight the word “more” here as most manufacturers list what subfloor moisture limits are, and can turndown claims for high moisture. So it becomes a question of “just how high was the moisture” and that I couldn’t answer as I was only doing qualitative analysis. But based on my experience I believed it to be high.

Even so there are other parties to a claim and some of those others may have a partial responsibility when it comes to subfloor moisture as I always argue that an installer owns the testing of the subfloor or at the very least must verify it was done just prior to his arrival. But what the installer doesn’t own is the moisture. He didn’t come into the home with 55 gallon drums and pour water on top of the slab. It’s not his water. But he can essentially make himself the owner of that surface by essentially accepting the conditions present at the time of install. Which is why testing is crucial because you don’t know the slab intimately and you dont need to know its future. If one tests it and its dry but then tests wet a year later because of a water leak, how is that the installers fault? Well it isn’t but the question will come up well did you test and if you say no then you’ll be asked well how do you know it wasn’t wet? When you installed it you accepted the conditions by present by installing the floor, but yet you didn’t test it. How are you not responsible? So testing is a way of protecting you from future events you have no control over.

So i started this post with how a wrong diagnosis code can result in a claim turndown and the above example even though turned down for the wrong reason was still a turndown as i explained above. But there are other times a wrong diagnosis code can result in a turndown such as: edge breakage, installer related. Absolutely installation can result in some corner or edge breakage in a given floor but when I investigated it further I found the damage occurred on the same corner and traced it back to manufacturing who then corrected the issue on the line. That resulted in a coding error and changed to manufacturing related. But it’s how one presents the evidence and supports it to truly show a manufacturing defect exists that makes a difference between whether a claim is paid or not.

A big part of that is use of terminology and correctly applying it. If you say something is cupping but it’s really peaking that creates a totally different scenario in the mind of the claims analyst which is why it’s best to just explain what it’s doing instead of applying a label which maybe wrong. That’s best left to the experts but just like anything you can find good inspectors and the not so good, which maybe another reason for being highly selective especially when you are the one doing the requesting. tn

11/04/2025

Welcome new and not so new friends following this page.

While I’ve typically picked a topic and wrote some detailed response I thought it would be interesting to have a casual conversation on any flooring and related questions you might have had. A bit of a Q&A session.

So what’s on your mind?

09/17/2025

Help me to help you. Please invite your flooring friends to like my page and follow. Right after the live training I’ll be doing at the synergy convention I’ll be sharing with you some other live and over the web training I’ll be offering in complaint prevention and what to do (and not do) when you have a claim. I have a passion for this after spending years as an installer, then as a dealer and finally working for manufacturers in fixing the huge disconnect the lack of synergies we could be doing together to prevent complaints from occurring on the jobsite. I’ve been told by some naysayers what I’m doing will never work and I disagree. Let us refuse to be defeated and rise up to the occasion and do this. Attend one of my live presentations and learn how. More info to come

09/17/2025

Those of you going to my session tomorrow it is at 10:30am in the Evergreen room at the Synergy convention. There was a mixup on the internet page via the QR code on the time scheduled but it is correct in the printed program and signage at the show. Don’t miss out because I’ll be sharing information you may not get anywhere else and may just change your lives!

09/17/2025

The truth as to why floors fail.

This Thursday I’ll be at the Synergy convention talking about Complaint Prevention and what to do (and not do) when you have a claim. We will go over the steps to preventing complaints as just like a forest fire they start out small and eventually burn thousands of acres but could have been stopped by preventing the fire in the first place. How do we do that, at the very beginning of the sale and not after the installation and the customer calling to complain. We do that starting with the sales associate in the store asking open ended questions about a customer’s lifestyle, needs and wants and then guiding them into products that will fulfill that need. We otherwise know this as specifying. Once the specification is made the next step to qualifying the customer is setting correct expectations. This is a very important step as much of what goes wrong with jobs is a failure to communicate, but it’s a two way street. This is a time for a frank discussion between buyer and seller as to wants and deliverables. And when something cannot be achieved to express that to the customer in a way that they have choices. And those choices are:
a) do things installation wise that will work like floor prep.
b) change to a different product that will work

I did not include c) because c) stands for see you hopefully again as you watch the customer walk out the door.

It’s not the goal of qualifying customers to watch them running to the nearest exit but to establish a relationship, a customer for life one where there is mutual respect and trust. But we cannot have this without transparency for every floor, as to its features and benefits will also have its shortcomings. Thus the goal here is to find a product the customer will love, is willing to live with despite its inherent flaws.

09/16/2025

If you are at the CFI/FCICA/FCITS/FCB2B Synergy flooring convention come by and see me Thursday morning when I present “Complaint prevention and what to do (and not do) when you have a claim”.

08/11/2025

6 Mil Poly will save us all from disaster!!! An open letter (post) to dealers and installers.

I was there, in manufacturing tech services, when the decision was made to add 6 mil poly especially for a concrete subfloor for any installation of rigid core floating floor. It wasn’t a new idea as it had been around since the early days of laminate, in one form or another. Does it work? I would have to say given how my phone was ringing less often after being introduced as a recommendation, sure thing. But as I visited with a sales rep as he talked about a certain account regarding a curling complaint (what inspectors like to call cupping) I asked if they put poly down and was told “no they didn’t. They never do.” That was to my astonishment considering the amount of notice we put out. So then “why no claims, til now”. His answer was profound “I guess they’ve been lucky”.

While luck really has nothing to do with it, perceptions do. I can’t even begin to count the times I had been to visit every home in a subdivision, not because every floor curled but because one said in a social media page how theirs did and the manufacturer is replacing the floor next week. A wildfire started and don’t ya know Inspectors love the feast (as opposed to famine). If ones cupping they must all be cupping, whether they noticed it at first or not!

Nowadays those stories spread like wildfire and often spread not just by homeowners but installers too. You’ll be amazed how thoughtful, considerate and all telling your installers can be when they are in someone’s home and the homeowner is complaining about their floors. They’ll say just about anything and they will disclose all this information, “the facts” even if they dont know what they really are. And this despite the fact that every installer in America has received 180 hours in formal training in complaint handling in the field.

Oh wait that’s 180 hours to become a realtor followed by an exam. My bad.

When I owned a flooring store years ago I personally visited complaints mainly because I wanted to see what my guys were doing but also gain back some of that control. Having been an installer prior i knew just what to look for and when homeowners were suffering from heightened awareness syndrome. Despite this I continue to hear dealers say “we don’t have time for that!” But they do have time for the entire neighborhood calling to complain and the dealing with the builder afterwards “why do you have so many complaints”?

Installers are the last individuals you want looking at the $25k floor and saying “it wasn’t me” Now if you are a professional installer and take absolute pride in your workmanship by all means carry on! But know you are one of the few and not one of the masses. And i honor your professionalism and to do the right thing.

But back to the bandaid approach of placing poly on the floor and now everything will be alright. Maybe. I can’t even begin to count how many had poly down and it still curled. Most of those were because of poor placement (ie no tape on seams, no overlap, keeping poly a foot from the wall, etc, etc, etc). But then there was the occasional swimming pool found under the poly which ain’t stopping anything. It brings new meaning to “floating” floors. Personal floatation device not included.

So while the perception is poly saves floors, it saves most jobs. And that’s assuming most jobs are failures to begin with, which they are not. But everyone is looking for the easy answer and so we will just assume it’s the answer until that one failure happens and then it’s the titanic hits the iceberg time. We all are going down. Still nothing could be further from the truth! Billions of dollars in these floors are produced every single year yet if you listen to some they would suggest we are on a sinking ship. All hands abandon ship! All hands start selling laminate. Well isn’t that what they told you years ago when laminate experienced noise or locks breaking or gaps at the ends”? Why, all hands abandon ship for WPC”. And now we going back, right??!! When the real concern should be what’s going on with concrete and why? How do we determine it? It’s not as difficult as all believe. A little knowledge is powerful. Take back your power whether you are a dealer or installer.

If you’re going to the joint FCICA,WFCA, CFI, FCITS convention in Nashville in September I’ll be there speaking on that very topic.

05/15/2025

Dealers and flooring contractors, have you protected your assets today? With some installers protecting one’s assets could be summed up as “covering one’s a$$”. Both are really the same this although the former phrase contains within it some legal language that comes with it.

Many will remember the infamous lawsuit involving a cup of coffee served at a drive through window and burning the lap/leg of the driver in the car. One could have easily argued there is no liability there, everyone knows coffee is hot. But it wasn’t so much that it was hot that it caused the company who served it to be entangled in litigation as the plaintiff contended there was no warning on the cup that coffee was in fact hot and that it might burn you. That legal precedent has been established years ago where a bad actor could in fact provide as a legal defense amble notification of the risks. Is it any coincidence that when you go in for surgery before it can take place you sign consent and within the consent advised as to what might go wrong in pre, during and post surgery. It’s not for your well being at all but to protect the assets of the hospital where you receive treatment. I’m aware of a flooring case where the plaintiff literally fell through the floor and sued with their basis not the fact the the floor was defective but rather not warning about it with signage and barricades. It would seem that courts take a dim view of someone ignoring signs and sneak around barriers and get hurt and expect someone to pay for their injuries regardless. There is such a thing as duty to protect oneself and another of notifying that the risk is present.

Given this thought process we can carry this into our daily practices with the consuming public. Have you ever encountered a situation where a homeowner buys a beautiful hardwood floor from you but then complains as to its quality, arguing it has open character? Yet we as experts in the industry have grown to accept this based on its grading. So we show up at the homeowner’s residence with a tube of plastic filler ready to fill those voids and the homeowner says “you ain’t coming in my house with that $6 tube of caulk to use on my $25,000 floor, I expect a new floor”. And when your now on its fourth replacement you start to question that original decision of giving them a new floor. Something which could have been dealt with early on during the sale.

When I owned a flooring store years ago we had contracts we would sign with the buyer but even sometimes that wasn’t quite enough. We would sell them carpet for their home and in the contract just like the sample disclaimer would read

“color may vary from dye lot to dye lot”.

Yet I still had the occasional buyer who would call the store and say you sent out the wrong carpet and I would have to go to the site with sample in tow and explain how it can vary often giving the homeowner a discount for accepting, thus taking away from my assets. So then I redid the contracts and made it bold type. Still didn’t make a difference so I instructed my sales people to use a yellow highlighter. Still nothing changed. Then we highlighted and had a place to initial. Still complaints.

One day a set of samples from one of my manufactures showed up at the store and I was ready for it. 50 colors I was told and I had a display that would hold 50. Except I didn’t have 50 but 51. Within the samples were two burgundy colors that were labeled exactly the same except for two very different dyelots. I had an idea. So I took both samples and literally nailed them to the wall next to each other and told my salespeople the next time someone buys any material, I want you to circle, highlight and have the initial then point to the samples and say this is the example.

Afterwards my complaints for color variation went to zero because we established what the standard was with the buyer. They now knew the coffee was hot. And it didn’t persuade anyone to go buy something else. It wasn’t a deal breaker.

Too often salespeople are afraid to discuss the negatives along with a product’s attributes in fear they will run out the door screaming and take their business elsewhere. There is a right way and wrong way of discussing the positives and negative attributes of any flooring product and makes the difference between being that sales consultant versus minimum wage order taker. We don’t necessarily need to nail samples to a wall as to what may go wrong but we can include an addendum to a contract with a set of expectations for what’s deliverable or not in a given floor. And should that complaint come in refer to it as we discuss the homeowner’s concerns.

Lauridsen Consultancy Group

04/25/2026

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02/12/2026

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11/16/2025

11/04/2025

09/17/2025

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