20 Units and a Sea of Mud

November 18, 2009

That, of course, and my never-ending and -failing struggle to keep the Ms. Joneses of the world as happy customers.

The latest multi-family I was involved in – my first in the South – was no exception. It began with red mud on my boots.

Mind you, it wasn’t simply a little mud. We’d just experienced a month of torrential rains and a flooded Atlanta. The ground had reached the saturation point, which made for an interesting initial tour of the jobsite. There were crews laying sod in puddles and prepping to pour sidewalks that I imagined simply sinking into the soft earth, never to be seen again.

We walked from unit to unit to get the lay of the land and assess any conditions that could lead to an accident – an essential first step to ensure jobsite safety. Sidewalks already in place were mud-covered, slippery and littered with abandoned sod pallets, which made for less-than-ideal conditions for carrying around heavy pieces of granite.

And, that red-clay soil could only be described as the “meat and potatoes” of the dirt world; it stuck to everything. Boot bottoms had to be scraped continually, and sidewalks were only safe once the mud patches had either dried or been shoveled away.

Having worked on ice-covered sidewalks in the Upper Midwest, I knew that moving granite while having unsure footing is dangerous for a couple of reasons. First, it presents the opportunity for a foot to slip, potentially injuring the person carrying the stone or sending the piece itself crashing to the ground.

Second, when lifting in unsteady conditions, anyone’s likely to tense up and risk a straining type injury to the back, arms, or legs.

As treacherous as they were, those same sloppy sidewalks gave us the ability to use a drywall cart to get our countertops past the worst of the mess and to the front door of some of the units. On our jobsite tour, we also learned that two of the front units connected through garages to the back of the building. That would allow us to go through the center of the complex and avoid a long carry or cart ride – not to mention the mud – with some of the countertop pieces.

The next thing was to determine exactly where all of the pieces would go. It’s common for a multi-family job like this to be bid by simply denoting the number and types of units without ever actually seeing the layout of the building, and this was the case here.

Also, the company providing the cabinets gave us the measurements for the countertops in all the units. The first time we saw the finished building was when we showed up with the granite.

The day before, I received a list of which units corresponded with which type. Since the countertops were marked according to which type, and not the actual location, of a particular unit, it took the lead installer and me a while to sort them all out.

This wasn’t bad for a two-story, 20-unit job with a tight-knit crew. On a larger project, though, an exact map of the layout provided ahead of time is absolutely necessary to avoid confusion. On one of my earlier multi-family jobs, some of the crews literally got lost and installed countertops in the wrong units, sometimes on the wrong floors. I also found entire kitchens stored in unfinished units and inexplicably abandoned.

Once we knew where the pieces were to go, the next job was to get the countertops off the delivery truck. In some cases, the GC will provide a fork truck to unload; on this jobsite, if you wanted a truck unloaded, you were literally at the mercy of the framing carpenters and their Lull®.

Be prepared in a case like this, as time equals money. I was instructed who I needed to see – and, in roaming the job-site trying to find him, I nearly got run over by the lunch truck (nicknamed the roach coach in some places, as I was later informed). Once I found my guy, I was informed that immediate service was available for $100; otherwise I’d have to wait an hour-and-a-half … or maybe more. We’ll be kind and call this entrepreneurial spirit.

The most important lesson we learned on this jobsite was about the thickness of the fork tines on the Lull lift. Our wooden delivery frames, made from recycled laminate pallets, had spacing set up for lifting by a traditional fork-truck tine – which happens to be much thinner than the Lull tines.

We had to tip some of the frames back and place 2 X 4s underneath to get enough room to lift them. Tipping up a frame with a couple grand in granite on it is not exactly stress-free, but we pulled it off without a major disaster.

Once the frames were on the ground and in front of the building, we needed figure out how to unload the granite. I’m a firm believer in efficiency through completing an entire type of task and then moving on to the next one.

When I installed residential projects, I liked to unload all of the tops and get them into place, even if there were several different rooms. When I’m in “moving” mode, I like to stay with that until finished, and then move on. When I’m in “seam” mode, I like to do all the seams on a job one after another.

We began to unload the tops frame by frame and move them all into place. This was useful for a couple of reasons. First, they were safer in the units, and much less likely to be tipped over or run into when sitting on top a cabinet instead of on a frame. (Also, the pieces are less likely to mysteriously disappear.)

Moving all of the tops into place also gives you a good idea if you’re going to need to replace anything. This potentially gives you time to have the boys in the shop work on replacements while all of the detail work is done at the site.

Once we had the unloading under control, one of the crews began to mount clips for vanity sinks and deliver the kitchen and bath sinks to their respective units. The beauty of the “internationally sourced” acrylic vanity bowl is that it varies in size and shape so much that it’s almost impossible to mount one “wrong.”

From past experience, we made the bowl opening smaller than the provided template, but we didn’t go overboard. We’ve all seen the bowl opening cut so small you end up with 1/2” of top hanging inside the sink, creating just another place for junk to collect. This time, all the Chinese-made kitchen sinks had enough consistency in size to provide a flush mount.

Knowing what to expect on a jobsite is a key to a successful install, but it’s almost impossible to get through a multi-family without a few surprises. This time, we learned – as we began installation – that we needed to cut outlets into the backsplashes. Cutting outlets into 4” backsplash is a pain, but we faced with the “no-choice” ultimatum and the crew proceeded to make it happen.

We had a few other issues with miscommunications on angles. Since I hadn’t taken the measurements, I couldn’t make sure that the fit was good enough for that great “drop it, glue it, and go” situation that’s the nirvana of every installer. We worked out the odd angles on-site, and the cabinet guy who contracted with us was impressed by the resulting field seams.

We also found scattered cabinets here and there that weren’t set. Some needed plumbing adjustments, others needed drywall repairs, and a few simply didn’t fit. We were instructed to leave the pieces in place and the cabinet company would take care of them; this is always a liability issue waiting to happen, but sometimes a necessity.

Unless you want to take the responsibility to come back and place the tops when the cabinets are done, you’re going to have to trust that the tops will work. It’s always a good idea to take digital pictures and make sure the tops are in perfect shape before you leave.

It’s also a good idea to understand how to work with other trades on the jobsite. I’ve worked in a unit where everyone was trying to finish up at once, which isn’t a pretty site (or sight, for that matter).

On this jobsite, the only people we dealt with were those doing tile in the showers, touch-up work on the drywall, and laying sod. None of them really hindered our progress. The guy walking through the units testing every one of the hard-wired fire alarms and every fuse was a different story.

There’s nothing like being surprised by losing your lights and having a high-decibel screeching noise go off at the same time; it’s guaranteed to put you in a good mood. He was smart enough to seemingly not know a word of English, or he was just numb from being cursed at so much that he didn’t care anymore.

The install took about three full days to complete. We were able to avoid breaking any of the base pieces, and ended up with only a few pieces of broken backsplash. We had two return trips – one to remove some forgotten debris from one of the units, and one to reattach a sink clipped into place without silicone on its top.

All and all, not a bad first go round for a multi-family in the land of red dirt.

Jason Nottestad, a 15-year veteran of the stone industry, is National Customer Service Manager for VT Stone Surfaces; he’s now on his third year of “The Installer” columns for Stone Business. He can be reached at JNottestad@vtindustries.com.