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Short and sweet here. I happen to know a pretty fair amount about carpet.....and pad.
Monday, a lady called me. Her kid had been sick and the carpet smelled. She told me the carpet was about 9 months old, and when she got it, from Lowes, she had gotten the "moisture barrier" pad. Assuming that was the case, I did what I do. Then told her if the odor wasn't better in a day or 2 - call me.
She called me. I went back today. Again, she insisted that she had gotten a moisture barrier pad. Perplexed, because what I had done should have taken care of the problem, I proceeded to pull up 3 different corners of the carpet - to look at the pad. Trust me, it wasn't "moisture barrier" padding.
I showed her the pad. She showed me the bill from the installation. I politely explained that perhaps in the last year things had changed, but the padding sure looked to me like your typical "sponge" pad. In fact, I told her, it WAS sponge pad - not a moisture barrier pad. We conversed for 20 minutes or so, and I left.
When I got home, to the office, there was a message from her. I called her back, and lo and behold, she had called Lowes. Told them what all had transpired, so on........and now they are sending out someone to inspect her whole house to see if the correct padding had been put in.
Oh, they also said "uh, we don't use that installer anymore".....they volunteered that info - like they already knew a "mistake" had been made.
This is the second time I've come across a Lowes installer that didn't put in what the customer had paid for. Coincidence?
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Can't say to be honest but usually an installer will only install what has been provided to him by the company. Unless of course he just happens to have enough padding laying around to do the job and wants to have better padding laying around...
My money is on Lowe's screwed up.
#GMSTRONG
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Kinda my thought. Then, throw in the fact that the whole house had been recarpeted - the main floor - about 1600 sq. ft.
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I guess my main concern would be...why the moisture problem in the first place?
#gmstrong #gmlapdance
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Quote:
I guess my main concern would be...why the moisture problem in the first place?
Didn't want to get into details - but her kid puked. It stunk like.........puke. I took care of the carpet - but a few days later it still stunk. Since I had been told it was a moisture barrier pad - all I did was take care of the carpet. Should have been "problem solved".
LIke I said, I went back - today. Found out that what she had told me wasn't the case, concerning the pad. She then showed me the receipt from having the carpet and pad installed. At which point I again said "this pad here, on the floor, isn't that pad there, on the receipt. I don't know why, but it isn't" And she made a phone call.
I took care of the odor today, after seeing the pad. Oh, I didn't charge one red cent for today either. And I even told her that I would stop in whenever they came to replace the pad and treat the back of the carpet - again, at no charge.
Dealing with local people has its perks.
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Quote:
I guess my main concern would be...why the moisture problem in the first place?
My guess is the kid was drinking orange pop. Never fails. 
Again I'm guessing but I believe the special pad is mostly used on concrete floors?
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Ahhhhhhh, I wasn't thinking moisture from above the carpet. Got it, thanks.
#gmstrong #gmlapdance
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Nah - the moisture barrier pad is usually, at least in my experience, used for households that have pets........pets pee. Pee sits for more than a minute or 2, or 3, it soaks through the carpet, into the pad. The foamy, spongy pad. And we all know what sponge does with liquid, right?
That's just been my experience. The moisture barrier is on the top of the pad - right next to the back of the carpet.
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Quote:
My guess is the kid was drinking orange pop. Never fails.
Generally it's that or red gatorade, or kool aid. But it wasn't in this case.
Let's just say I can get pink pepto bismal out of carpet! 
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Quote:
Quote:
My guess is the kid was drinking orange pop. Never fails.
Generally it's that or red gatorade, or kool aid. But it wasn't in this case.
Let's just say I can get pink pepto bismal out of carpet!
Let's just say we don't want to know how pepto bismal got on the carpet in the first place. 
#GMSTRONG
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
My guess is the kid was drinking orange pop. Never fails.
Generally it's that or red gatorade, or kool aid. But it wasn't in this case.
Let's just say I can get pink pepto bismal out of carpet!
Let's just say we don't want to know how pepto bismal got on the carpet in the first place.
Too late man - in my reply to michelle - it's there. 
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#gmstrong #gmlapdance
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Quote:
Nah - the moisture barrier pad is usually, at least in my experience, used for households that have pets........pets pee. Pee sits for more than a minute or 2, or 3, it soaks through the carpet, into the pad. The foamy, spongy pad. And we all know what sponge does with liquid, right?
That's just been my experience. The moisture barrier is on the top of the pad - right next to the back of the carpet.
I should have known. Barkley is gone but not forgotten. 
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Well having worked in the same business as what you are doing Arch I have had a lot fo contact with installers. There seem to be a lot of slimeballs out there who ride around in rusted out trucks,installing carpet. In the business,as you know,you tend to learn how to sniff out the slimeball installers and align yourself with the good,honest installers because those guys are a reflection of you and your small business when they go into a customers home. This is vital for a small,service oriented business. So in my experiences the slimebag installers tended to contract with the big box corporate retailers because they werent under as intense of scrutiny and could get away with a lot more shady stuff.
My Butch Davis gut feeling is that the installer was paid by Lowes the cost for a moisture barrier pad but they pulled a fast one and instead installed the cheaper standard foam pad.
If this women wasdnt getting new pad installed,that she has coming to her obviously. A water claw would have done a great job of getting that puke out of the pad.
KING
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Can't say to be honest but usually an installer will only install what has been provided to him by the company.
Lowes does not make carpet or pad,they call the installer(who is a contractor,not employed by Lowes),the installer goes to whatever supplier he uses and gets what Lowes has contracted him to install.If he can get the carpet for cheaper then his profit margin is better. He gets paid the same amount oper square foot regardless,so if he can slip in a cheaper pad without the customer noticing,then he makes out better on the whole deal.
KING
You may be in the drivers seat but God is holding the map. #GMSTRONG
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Lowe's doesn't make carpet, of course not but they do buy carpet, with their size and buying power they buy at cheaper prices than you can get from a local supplier. They have warehouses and inventory. I'd find it difficult to believe they send an installer out to a job where they aren't providing the product but send him to purchase it from a local supplier.
#GMSTRONG
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No, they don't make carpet, but they sell carpet out of their retail outlets. The installers typically go and pick up what was bought from the store.
Appliance stores don't make the stoves either, but when they come out to install your new stove, you expect the stove you paid for to be placed in your kitchen.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn. GM Strong ![[Linked Image]](http://www.dawgtalkers.net/uploads/small-gator-chomp.gif)
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Lowe's doesn't make carpet, of course not but they do buy carpet, with their size and buying power they buy at cheaper prices than you can get from a local supplier. They have warehouses and inventory. I'd find it difficult to believe they send an installer out to a job where they aren't providing the product but send him to purchase it from a local supplier.
I am sure with thier bulk buyinmg power they get better prices but the installers still go to a carpet supplier and pick up the carpet,for a bigger job anyways. On thsi job,the installer is getting paid a certain amount to install a higher cost pad,if he isntalls the cheaper pad,and gets away with it,he makes more money. Fortunately for this lady,she had someone come into her house who knew better(Arch) and the installer will be caught. Lowes will replace the pad at their loss and then attempt to recoup their money from the installer.
KING
You may be in the drivers seat but God is holding the map. #GMSTRONG
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Stores sell the material, write up the ticket, the installer picks up the material, as listed on the ticket and takes it to install. I dont know where you are from, but any flooring business ive ever seen or dealt with leaves no room for subcontracting installers to go buy their own material. That would just be asking for trouble.
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Ok, I know for a fact that it does not always work that way. There are certsin suppliers that have contracts with the major carpet mills,and that is based regionally We did not do installing,we did cleaning and repair work. We would take installation work but we contracted that out. We had a good trustworthy guy who ran his own carpet wholesaling business and he sold to most of the installers in the area,because for a certain manufacturer he was the regional supplier. He would get calls from Lowes and others all the time when they sold jobs that required that brand of carpet. I remember they guy had one van set aside and he had like ten different magnetic signs that he could slap on the side with different companies that used to contract with him to supply and install the carpet. If he was shady he could have tried to pull off what this installer tried to pull off. This guy was a wholesaler,not a retailer,he didnt have a storefront where you could walk off the street and look at carpet. Hius work came from the retailers,or from others in the carpet business like ourselves.
KING
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Quote:
Stores sell the material, write up the ticket, the installer picks up the material, as listed on the ticket and takes it to install.
Even in this case,wouldnt it be easy for the installer to pick up the material but instead of installing the good pad,installing a cheaper pad and then reselling the more expensive pad that is already paid for??
KING
You may be in the drivers seat but God is holding the map. #GMSTRONG
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Moisture barrier on pad....what a great idea. I'm going to look into this.
I also wanted to add, I clean carpets for a living, and would recommend flushing the pad with O.S.R. Then extract w/ a water claw as someone else stated.
If she doesn't get her pad replaced, that is. I would hope Lowe's would make that right.
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The installers typically go and pick up what was bought from the store.
Not always,especially on a very large job. The installer goes and gets the carpet from the regional supplier for that brand of carpet.
KING
You may be in the drivers seat but God is holding the map. #GMSTRONG
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Kingo no offense, but your way off base with this. The store sells the material to the customer. All an installer does is deliver and install. Really that is the way it works. Installers do not go to any regional warehouse to get anything.
Regional warehouses deliver to the stores every day, or in my stores case on Monday Wednesdays and Fridays. If for some reason you need something from the warehouse immediately you would send a store employee to pick it up possibly, very rarely would the actual installer ever go to the distributor, and in the rare case that he did, he still wouldnt have a choice of what to get, he would only be picking up what the store ordered.
Now there a few likely scenarios of what happened here, but at the end of the day, it is the Installers responisibility to verify that he has the correct materials before he installs anything.
The installer replacing the material for profit is very very unlikely, hoarding material in the hopes that someone else would be interested in that exact same material makes no sense if you understood the logistic of storing, transporting, and then finding another customer that wanted the exact material. And watergaurd padding is not a hot selling material.
The Lowes warehouse sent this guy out with the carpet, the warehouse should not have released the carpet if the proper pad was not with it. So IMO this would fall on both the instore leader of the crews, and the crew itself. The Carpet should have never left Lowes without the proper pad, and it should never have been installed either.
Most likely here, is that the install was scheduled, the pad wasnt in the store, and no one from Lowes on down to teh installer had the integrity to call the customer and delay the job. Instead electing to just go ahead and get it done with the hope it would never be discovered.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...
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j/c
Well, Lowes IS sending someone out to check the whole house. I told the lady I wasn't going to pull up carpet corners everywhere, but I did know, and told her and showed her, that where this particular problem was - the pad was not what she thought she got, or what she paid for.
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