TIL the hard way why you never skip sweeping before a stretch-in on a remodel job

I was working a kitchen-to-dining-room carpet swap in a Victorian house in Portland last Tuesday. The homeowner had just had the walls skim-coated and I thought they swept up fine. I started my stretch-in on the longest wall without double checking the floor. Halfway through I felt the kicker slip and the carpet bunched up real bad. Turned out there was a pile of dried joint compound dust right under the tack strip. I had to pull the whole piece back, vacuum the subfloor myself, and re-stretch it. That cost me an extra 45 minutes and I was late to my next job. Has anyone else had a similar disaster from assuming the prep crew actually cleaned up?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_tessa13d ago

Assuming the prep crew cleaned up" is like assuming your dog didn't eat your lunch, you know?

joel_hall1713d ago

Right, this is actually a pretty good example of the whole "trust but verify" thing that applies to basically everything in life (and work). It's like how people assume the mail carrier will leave a package in a safe spot, but you still check the porch before it gets dark. That extra 45 minutes you lost is basically the cost of assuming someone else's version of "clean" matches your own. The real kicker (pun halfway intended) is that most people aren't being malicious, they just have a different bar for what's acceptable. So now you're stuck paying for their standards, which is a pattern I see all the time in home projects, customer service, and even with friends.