When Construction Projects Go Wrong

Since that article I’ve had lots of interesting discussions about who is liable when construction projects go wrong. Have you ever had a situation where something goes terribly wrong, one that is caused by ……hmmmm……a phantom?

How about the story, I think in France, at some famous museum? I heard on the news a while ago. A contractor, assuming experienced, was hired to hang a famous piece of art on the wall.  Those old buildings have thick walls, plaster, wire mesh. The only way to hang a picture was to drill in the wall. Through the wall the drill went, right through a Picasso (If i recall) on the other side.

How about when my buddy Dan finished a beautiful, hip, decorative concrete floor. At the end of the day Dan placed caution tape everywhere and DO NOT WALK signs in bright large letters where every one can see. Almost forgot the barriers that are about 4 feet high. Well, the next day there were these construction boot footprints right through the floor. Everyone knew who the jackass was but no one could prove it. So, when constructions projects go wrong, who is liable?

For those of you who visit Metrocrete we just had our own nasty experience, you may have noticed. We’re on a shared server and someone was doing something with their site to cause problems for everyone else. Metrocrete included.  Our blog posts were not getting indexed, Metrocrete was live, then dead, then live. Google didn’t know what to think. Those Google robots aren’t trained to assess the situation, they don’t judge, they just leave.  Freaking out and not understanding I tried to fix the problem but made it worse.  Sorry everyone, now I know.

For my customers I owe you an extra optimized article.

When construction projects go wrong it costs an innocent someone.  Leave a comment and tell us what you think. Or, if you have a story to share let us know.

Minneapolis Commercial and Industrial Floor

This Case Study is about a Minneapolis Commercial and Industrial Floor that left everyone standing there saying “Let’s Sue The Bugs”. www.gfonecoatings.com

So who is liable? Fortunately there is a good ending.

The Story of The Minneapolis Industrial and Commercial Floor That the Flys Made All Buggy

The owner of a High-Performance Diesel Truck Shop hired Garage Floors 1 to resurface his concrete floor  in Minneapolis. The owner needed a coating with specific features for his commercial and industrial floor.

Client Requirements

1. Light Reflectivity – wanted a glass finsh to reflect light under trucks while working.
2. Chemical Resistant -
3. Cleanable, non yellowing
4. Slip Resistant, Coefficient of Friction – used 3m Color Quartz
5. Quick Application – One Day

Challenges

1. Remove grease and oil from Floor
2. Complete in One Day

GF One Coatings of Minnesota specializing in the Minneapolis area used “Pure Bred”  One Day Floors Polyaspartic concrete coating , the only product they use. They grinded the commercial and industrial floor to a smooth and level surface removing all the potential contaminents and bond breakers. They repaired all the cracks. Finally they applied the new coatings with a glass finish satisfying the clients wish list. The new floor looked excellent as you can see in the photos below.

Then the flys appeared. Late in the afternoon about 30 minutes before the floor was completely dry hundreds of flys descended on the still tacky new floor.  An there they stuck. There was a mad rush to close the overhead door but it was too late. The damage was done. Holy…… I think I could here them yell in Connecticut all the way from Minneapolis.

The beautiful showroom quality floor was not looking so beautiful. So who is liable? Does the contractor come out of pocket and spend his profit fixing the floor or does the owner pay the contractor to come back and resurface the commercial and industrial floor with a new coating?

Fortunately polyaspartic floor coatings can be lightly sanded and resurfaced restoring the floor like new, a few hour job. In this case Joe Sheehan owner of Garage Floors 1 volunteered to come back and restore like new at his expense.

Sometimes things happen out of our control. Make a comment below and let us know your opinion.

If your Minneapolis commercial and industrial floor needs a new coating Joe Sheehan owner of Gf One Coatings of Minnesota can be reached at    651-748-5999 .  www.gfonecoatings.com

Minneapolis Epoxy Garage Floor Remediation

Garage Floors 1 spends a lot of time removing failed epoxy garage floor coatings in Minneapolis Minnesota and resurfacing with One Day Floors Polyaspartic concrete coating.

As with the following scenario epoxies have a tough time enduring the moisture and salts prevalent in  Minneapolis concrete.

For More Information Click www.gfonecoatings.com

The Challenge

Home owner is a snowmobile racer and spends a lot of time working on engines in his garage.  He had a wish list of features for his epoxy garage floor at his Minneapolis home.

1. Consistant finish – seamless, easy to clean
2. Non Slip
3. Team Colors – Black, white, grey, blue
4. High build with light reflection

The original application company had to return 3 times to fix the problems with the epoxy garage floor. The first coat had a hollow sound and delamination. The applicator applied additional coats. The finish was not attracative so the applicator was brought back for a third time adding more coats with the same result.

The Solution

Garage Floors 1 was retained to remediate the problem. First they grinded off 7 layers of garage floor epoxy down to the original concrete floor. What they found was the epoxy had delaminated but was held in place by excessive layers. That accounted for the hollow sound. The floor was wet. Moisture was trapped between the concrete and delaminated garage floor epoxy. There was an excessive RH Moisture level (Relative Humidity) caused by moisture vapor being pushed up through the concrete.

Garage Floors 1 then grinded off the top layer of concrete to remove any contaminents and opening the pores of the concrete surface. The next step was application of a moisture remediation polyaspatic coating. The Polyaspartic wets or absorbs into the surface of the concrete becoming part of the floor when it dries. Imagine glue absorbing into a sponge then hardening, same idea.

The final result was a high build system which will not delaminate satisfying the clients wish list. According to the client “you made me a believer”.

For epoxy garage floor remediation in Minneapolis Contact Joe Sheehan at  651-748-5999. www.gfonecoatings.com

For more information read the article Garage Floors 1 – Minnesota Garage Flooring

Twin Cities Garage Floor

If you have ever had your garage floor resurfaced and experienced delamination or peeling this Case Study may explain why.

The Challenge – www.gfonecoatings.com

This one was a garage floor coating applied in a residential garage floor in the Twin Cities Minnesota area. The cause of the failure was due to an inferior product. The product used was a hybrid polymer which is a technical term for a thinned down product. When coatings are thinned down they lose their cross linking capability. Cross linking is what happens when chemicals are mixed, they create a link like with a chain.  In this case the manufacturer thinned down the product causing the resins to sink to the bottom of the can. As a result the garage floor coating was weak and brittle, losing it’s flexability. As you can see it easily was scrapped off the floor.

The Garage Floors 1 Solution – www.gfonecoatings.com

As you may have read in other posts Garage Floors 1 specializes in “Pure Bred” Polyaspartic Garage Floor Coating, a One Day Floors product. This product is carefully scrutinized with a quality control system. Each gallon is properly blended and identical. The only adjustments made is a retarder that slighly slows down the cure and dry time for warmer climates.

In this case Garage Floors 1 grinded off the failed coating as well as the top concrete layer opening the pores of the concrete and removing any impurities. Then they applied new coats and a decorative chip system to the garage floor with a non slip finish.

Now the owners of the Twin Cities garage floor have a coating that looks and performs great with nothing to worry about.

Joe Sheehan Garage Floors 1

For more information about coating remediation or a new floor coating for your garage or concrete surface contact Joe Sheehan of GF One Coatings at  651-748-5999 . www.gfonecoatings.com

1990 was a lousy year for real estate in New York City. I was selling buildings like this one or at least trying to. Buyers were few and far between. Being a broker was not a very sexy job, people actually felt sorry for me when I told them I was a Real Estate Broker.

I was the selling agent for this building on East 73rd Street, a 10 unit building. The owner was a Japanaese company who put up their employees there who came to NYC rather than paying for a hotel.  It was tough to find a buyer and the price had to be dropped many times. I swear I had to show that building 100 times.

Finally I found a buyer and after a painful negotiation we finally had a deal, then a signed contract. I guess those were the olden days, the price was just over a million. Seemed like a lot at the time, but a deal. That meant a commission, a rarity in 1990, much like todays market.

The contract was signed in early February and if I recall closing was set for late March. The thought of a commission warmed me up in that freezing February. That was a cold month, I still remember.

I don’t recall the date but I know it was a Saturday night when I got the ill fated call.  How I was tracked down on a Saturday night I don’t know but it was about 10:00 PM  and it was the New York City Fire Department on the phone.  Imagine that call, why are they calling me? Not good.

Well it turns out there was a major problem at 59 E. 73rd Street. Water was flooding into all the adjacent buildings, not just a little but a lot. The Fire Department was looking for someone to give permission defore breakling down the door to go inside.  Who was I but the the broker awaiting  my commission. Boy, did it seem cold and ugly.

Well Monday morning I went in to NYC and begrudgingly took a cab up to E. 73rd Street. The door to the building was wide open so I walked in. No one else was there…yet. What a horror. The pipes had burst everywhere and water had destroyed the building. Water somehow got between the paint and drywall and there were trails that looked like snakes had crawled through the walls. Water was dripping everywhere, carpets were soaked and frozen, lights were shorted out. Holy Sh……so much for my commission. I hated NYC and Real Estate at that moment.

Finally some from the Japanese company showed up. Very weird scene. I started asking lots of questions like a detective. I kept probing trying to find out what caused this to happen. I figured I’d try and at least learn something.  Well after a lot of  CSY:NY detective work I finally got the answer. One of the employees at the company, a high level executive wanted to save a buck and decided to turn off the heat in the building. I can’t believe I said this but it’s true.

Well I don’t know what happened after that but about 18 months later the building finally sold. Someone actually bought the contract and I got paid. I’m sure there were a lot of insurance claims and law suits along the way. The owners probably got close to zero.

They sacreficed a few dollars and it cost them at least $1 million. Sadly I have seen variations of this happen, greed kicks in and it backfires. What I learned? Doing it wrong costs a lot more than doing it right.

Have a story to tell? Send to Ed Winslow, Tales From The Trenches at tips@metrocrete .com