Well well well
It seems that after two years, this guy is suing my buisiness because of his engineered brazailian teak floors.
it all started two years ago when he called us for an estimate for his 3 thousand square feet brand new construction apartment.
We gave him and estimate, all proper materials he needed for installlation and he decided to go ahead..
We told him to get Sika bond T-55 because that was the best adhesive for his brazilian teak floors, engineered 5 /16of
On the day of the installation, we had huge surprise. As we started checking for humidity , we came to find out floors were not leveled, with 1 inc difference throughout. We told customer we were not going to install. We packed our tools and left.
Customer contacted the builder, they came back leveled the cement.
We were called again to restart the work. We came back checked humidity levels, everything was fine and ready to go.
We were done after 3 days. 6 months after that, customer called up and stated floors were coming up in the middle of all rooms. We came back to repair it one spot as test, we removed some planks used more glue, it worked. Customer wanted repair for the entire 2950 sq ft done for free. He stated" im not blaming you, i'm suing the builder, but as of courtesy you should repair it for free. I told him that it was not our fault, but he refused to pay for the repairs. Sure enough year and half later, i received a summons. customer suing me and building company stating we both failed to inspect floors and properly install. wants his money back and all costs reimbursed.. builders blaming us, customers blaming us. i know i did my job right. who can be blamed for this?

If you followed all the procedures and have them documented you may not have to be concerned. What sends up red flags to me is what type of "leveling" product was used? Some can take quite awhile to cure especially with the depth mentioned. Was the slab tested for moisture before the actual installation?

What Ken said. Doesn't Sika also have a moisture system as well as adhesive? Not sure who is responsible for what where you are but out here installers are responsible for moisture testing the slab. That should not be in my opinion though because we are not considered concrete experts.

We did moisture checks.
We did everything we were supposed to
The customer knows it too but since he could not get anybody else to repair for free he is suing.
I don't have a contract with this guy anymore since this was two years ago
Just came back from
My lawyers office, will keep you guys updated


We used a moisture barrier adhesive.

Like Ken mentioned.....What patching compound was used by the builder? Did you notice any cupping? I'm, assuming not, since he wanted the floor re-installaed ? Maybe there was a compatability problem between the patching compound and adhesive? If it wasn't a moisture issue?

What type pf tests, explain the procedure. But I would be careful about what you say if your going into a lawsuit. No names.....

I had a customer that had to level his floors before I could glue down his flooring for him.His mason used some kind of an epoxy based leveling medium that was dark grey in color. I can't remember the name of it .But I waited a month before I would get near the floor and as Ken mentioned, your adhesive may have not been happy about trying to stick to the leveling material under it.

I can't give you any helpful legal advice but in the future , I encourage you to write down in your proposals that you are not responsible for this sort of thing and the builder or homeowner assumes all responsibility . I had no idea if my glue down would stick to the epoxy used to level my customer's floor so I made him responsible for it and he was okay with that .

Good luck with the suit.

Thats great advice. And like Howard said, compatability issues with different manufacturers products arise. Best to write yourself out of the picture for those third party prepping people. I doubt they even care if their product is compatable with what your going to use to stick it down with. Best to use whats typically used in our flooring industry. And there's thousands of products out there used to seal concrete and thousands of different chemical compositions as well.

Course there is always the bond test Which should always be perfromed if your not sure what has been put down on the concrete or what ever the substrate. But even then that is not the same as a whole floor being bonded to it. You always have the right to walk away because in many courts of law the ole saying goes, your the expert and you decided to go with it.

Now I am rambling again.

Sika T-55 is not a moisture barrier.

Acclimation? It may not have anything to do with the substrate moisture. it took 6 months to pop. That would be about the seasonal adjustment to a higher rH condition of say summer.substrate moisture rears its ugly head in less than a month.

[quote]We did moisture checks.
We did everything we were supposed to
The customer knows it too but since he could not get anybody else to repair for free he is suing.
I don't have a contract with this guy anymore since this was two years ago
Just came back from
My lawyers office, will keep you guys updated/quote]

I look at things simple, if you did everything correct, why they first repair? Why is it "coming up"????
If you did the first repair,, why didn't you just go ahead, and in dead time, fix it?

Again, why is it coming up? There has to be a reason, and in a suit, the consumer will have to state what you did wrong so what is it he is saying you did wrong? He can't just say,
"he did it wrong", he will have to have someone say how and what you did wrong.

So, why?

Well, when you went back to do the repair, you had to take up a loose board. what did you see under the board ? Was there leveling medium stuck to the Sika Bond ? Or did the Sika seem to not stick to the leveling medium ?

IF the Sika stuck to the leveling medium and the leveling medium broke away from the floor, that at least will show a jury that your product stuck and the builders did not. Even if you did nothing wrong, lawyers will manipulate the case any way that they can so all you can really do is deflect blame away from you and towards the builder.

What floor is the apartment on?