Experience and training of flooring installation crew should never be a question mark for consumers

We talk about product quality. We talk about price, which in today’s economy means we bypass some higher-quality products. But except in the instance of installing Marmoleum from Forbo, we have not talked much about installer training.

States like Oregon that have mandatory contractor licensing, which means continuing education credits that include some training in flooring installation, might tout their efforts to protect consumers. Some manufacturers, like Forbo, also require that their sheet products be installed by a contractor the company has certified in order for the product warranty to be valid.

But flooring distributors – that stock and supply products to flooring dealers – and the dealers themselves are not doing a reputable job unless they routinely provide training for flooring installers, says Victoria Haugen, marketing manager for Wanke Cascade, a Forbo distributor, headquartered in Portland, OR. Read the rest of this entry »

The power of the people must come into play for carpet recycling effort to bump to the next level, outgoing director says

Listen up people: The next time you tear out old carpet, think before you put it out for the trash collector and send it to a landfill where it will pollute the planet until the end of time.

There are now more than 100 carpet recycling collection companies in the United States, and it’s easy to find out if there’s one near you.

Just ask Georgina Sikorski.  At the time she took charge of the Carpet America Recycling Effort (CARE) in 2009, CARE had diverted 1 billion pounds of carpet from landfills. Today, that number is more than 2 billion, and although Sikorski is leaving her post in April, she says that number will keep going up – if you do your part.

“People can quickly determine if there is a collector in their region by going to the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) map, which has contact information for the over  100 Certified CARE Collectors,”  Sikorski, says. Read the rest of this entry »