Are you a contractor looking to employ an experienced vinyl flooring installer?

As a contractor, it’s tough to ensure you’re staffed correctly and quite often, you’re left with no choice but to employ or subcontract.  

We suggest following these steps to ensure you employ the skills of a qualified vinyl flooring artisan:

Questions to ask:

• Are you a member of FITA (Flooring Institute Training Association) and do you have a designation?
• Have you worked as a vinyl flooring installer in the relevant industry before?
• Can you weld and what is your methodology for joining vinyl sheets?
• Explain how you would assess the quality of a screed before fitting vinyl sheeting or LVTs?
• How would you perform a moisture test on a substrate?
• When would you recommend a moisture barrier?
• Do you understand the difference between fitting a PUR coated and non PUR coated vinyl flooring product? (PUR flooring can burn when being welded and a specialised nozzle is recommended)
• How would you choose the adhesive to use and why?
• Do you think it is important to check the product before installing, and why? (free from colour variations and defects)
• How will working away from home for long periods of time impact on your home life and how will you manage this situation?
• Can you do pattern work?
• Can you install wall cladding?

Tasks to assign:

• Provide a floor plan and ask the candidate to read/interpret it for you.  
• Ask the candidate to explain how he/she would work out the starting point for the flooring installation on a building site.
• Request a demonstration of his/her vinyl welding ability.
• Ask the candidate if he/she has ever had to deal with other building trades on site whilst installing the flooring?  And if so, how did they manage this situation?
• Create three different scenarios to discuss and ask how he/she would handle each one (in all three scenarios, request examples of any actual experiences of these):

  Examples:

  1. You have a conflict with the builder or team member on a site.  How do you handle the situation?
  2. The architect or team leader is questioning the quality of your installation.  How do you manage this interaction?
  3. The team is feeling demotivated and unhappy.  How do you manage this?

• Ask the candidate to take you to some reference sites where he/she has installed vinyl flooring in order for you to assess the quality of the installation.

Background research to do:

Obtain references from other flooring contractors who may have employed him/her previously to do a vinyl installation.

Research/enquire as to his/her social habits as these may impact on work performance.

Negotiate a financial package that is fair and sustainable for the project.  Financial disputes often lead to poor work quality that is costly to rectify.

A vinyl floor’s performance is dependent upon many factors and the floor covering itself is only one of those factors. Get all the insights in our eBook here. For more Polyflor insights, subscribe to our blog.