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I read a study about how much time we spend on subfloor prep and the number was way higher than I thought
It was in a trade magazine from the NWFA. They tracked a bunch of crews and found that on average, pros spend 40% of a job's total time just on subfloor prep. I always knew it was important, but that's nearly half the clock. It made me look at my own jobs from last week differently. I was rushing the prep on a glue-down vinyl plank job in a Phoenix condo to meet a tight move-in date. Now I'm thinking that extra hour of leveling might have saved me a callback. How do you guys balance prep time against client deadlines without cutting corners?
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cooper.nathan6mo ago
That 40% figure from the NWFA sounds about right to me. Prep is the whole job. I don't see it as a separate time block to balance against deadlines. The deadline includes doing it right. Rushing prep just moves the problem to the finish line. A callback costs more time than doing it right the first day.
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aliceshah6mo ago
Oh man, this is SO true. I read a case study once about a big commercial job where they skimped on moisture testing to save half a day. The entire floor failed six months later. The tear-out and redo cost more than the original profit, plus they lost the client for good. That prep time isn't a suggestion, it's the actual job. Cutting it is just borrowing time from future you, with huge interest.
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felix_henderson546mo ago
Preach. It's the whole foundation.
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