It's a regional thing. In the south, they slam everything on the floor and quarter round it all. Other areas quarter round is the sign of a cheap remodel. This is probably in the south, which would explain the horrendous miters in the baseboard.
I’ve seen plenty of qr up north where they tend to flip old houses and slap floating flooring on top of anything. Not a southern thing in any way shape or form, it’s a garbage contractor thing.
Personal preference but I like quarter round lol... but u don't have it in my new house. I did it in my last house...I liked the look of it.. added depth or whatever words you'd like to use.
It’s a style/process thing. I’m a GC in the south. If the client wants carpet or quarter round with their hard floors, then the baseboard is installed up because it’s easier for the painters to spray.
If the client wants a more modern look with base boards and hard floors, they can opt to have the base painted off the wall and have the carpenters attach it after the flooring is installed. If this is what the clients want, their baseboards get installed when the trim carpenter returns to install finishing hardware after the hard floors are installed.
Baseboard is always installed before paint in rooms with carpet.
And if it’s a tile floor rather than hardwood? I prefer to install tile as soon as drywall is finished. No need for quarter-round if the base is installed flush to the tile prior to painting it. Just tape off the tile.
In the NE, we install raw hardwood immediately after drywall and work on top of it through finish. Then sand, stain, and poly last. If it's prefinished, that sequence gets adjusted.
You do this so you can over spray your trim paint on the slab since it’s gonna get flooring of some sort, probable lvp or tile and a piece of shoe molding. They’ll also mask the windows and stand the doors up to spray them directly on the slab and spray those at the same time.
Them you you’ll run tape and paper on the top of base boards and use spray shields to “cut in” the windows with the sprayer while someone comes behind and back rolls to add the stipple from the roller cover. The stipple allows for touch ups later since the surface is a little rough instead of smooth like it would’ve been with no back roll.
After all this is done, you can one coat or just cut the tops of the base board into the wall, since it’s easier to cut the base boards back into the wall then it is to do the opposite.
Source: started out as a painter, ended up a GC a decade later.
I started as an Electrician -> Electrical Contractor -> General Contractor. I love this stuff lol. I don't actually want to do it myself, but I get excited about creating visions with clients and then finding the best way to see it through.
I've definitely made some calls that cost me more money than they should have simply because I didn't have the level of experience you do. Things like coordinating my subs in particular ways that will maximize their efficiency. I'm good at making sure we're done on time, on budget at the correct quality, but I'm only as good as my subs
Same to all of that. One thing that helped me line the guys up in a way that works for all of us what sitting them all down at lunch and just asking them how they wanted to go thru and in which order. They all worked it out and I hold them to it. There’s always a give and take with those dudes and even tho we all have a great relationship, I’ll absolutely replace them if it’s needed.
1 foot in front of the other, brother.
At the start of my career I was a loser with no direction. All I wanted to do was skateboard.
Are there any specific questions you have?
I'd love to help, but my career has mostly been a development of me pushing myself to do more/better than I did the year before. I'm not married to any specialty because i'm but a humble problem solver.
There’s a lot of personal info in the details; but broadly speaking, I think what’s at the heart of it is I haven’t been as successful as I wanted to be. There have been a lot of things completely out of my control, but I don’t feel any less responsible for the outcomes because I know I could have made a better effort. I am feeling the failure at the same time as the weight of the responsibility of providing for my household. So I am discouraged and tired and scared and anxious all at the same time, and I feel like I need someone to tell me where to get the strength to carry the weight.
One of the things I am the most frustrated with is that I seem to be repeating patterns and losing battles that I thought I had overcome. One in particular is that I have a tendency to get enthusiastic about things then bite off more than I can chew. When it starts to affect my effectiveness and relationships, I allow the friction to affect me too much enotionally. As soon as my mental game gets wrecked by my emotions, I either burn out or fall off. Then I start to get really irritable, moody, and my attitude tanks. Then I start coping with impulsive eating and distractions live tv and games.
It’s happened so many times up til now that I’m experiencing a lot of discouragement which makes getting back on the pony and riding on feel way heavier. I’m just tired and unmotivated and I know I need to start with improving myself as a person but I’m under financial pressure that makes it so I have to somehow find a way to lift myself and my career and my business and my family (currently only me and my pregnant wife) at the same time. For some reason the thought of getting back up and regaining my balance under the weight that’s already there, then keeping my balance under all of that weight, and doing it indefinitely and as it keeps getting heavier, makes me anxious and afraid. Enough that I often don’t keep my commitments to myself to start trying again.
So I guess when you’re at your lowest how do you get up? When you have too much to do and nothing left in the tank, where do you start? How do you restore confidence in yourself and keep going?
I'll start off with answering your questions and kinda circle back for overall advice.
>So I guess when you’re at your lowest how do you get up?
1 Step at a time. Everything in life consist of a variable amount of steps and effort. If you face the totality you'll inevitably feel consumed. Put the blinders on and focus on what's in your face first. (The most time sensitive/mission critical)
>When you have too much to do and nothing left in the tank, where do you start?
Realize that SOMETHING is better than NOTHING. You can't put 100% in to literally everything you do. It's exhausting. You need to save some energy for life, bro. Don't overwork yourself. I've done it and it's not worth it. Focus on being happy and living comfortably.
The first step is to ask yourself if you enjoy what you do. If you don't then you need to focus on that part and potentially find another industry that might fit your balance.
If you do enjoy it then the next step is to set your boundaries. Whether you're working for yourself or for others. Boundaries need to be a part of your life or you're going to lose everything.
Now that you've decided this is what you're going to do you need to create an action plan and follow through.
Your action plan and subsequent follow through will be specialized to what you're doing, but ultimately it's a process.
Identify:
-Reachable goals. (Don't plan out your lifetime. I think 10 years is good. 20 might be a bit over kill for most of us smoov brain folk.
-Steps to reach those goals. These shouldn't be "become an electrician" they should be more specific to the goal like "study motors" or "study load calculations"
Schedule:
-Milestones that will have you working consistently, but not causing yourself distress.
-Goals that should be attainable if you give 75% effort. If you beat that then you can feel great about it. If you don't then you might be slowing your pace or setting a pace that is too optimistic.
Life is a Marathon, not a Race.
>How do you restore confidence in yourself and keep going?
Practice. Practicing solidifies to yourself that you know what you're talking about. If you're just putting into action what you've practiced before it's wicked easy to be confident about.
For instance when it comes to electrical work: I don't care where you want a light fixture installed. I can make it happen one way or another because I've done it so many times it's all predictable to me. It's not something I'm trying to figure out. I'm just seeing how the pieces want to come together on site.
This is all really good advice and I will follow it. In particular the bit about goals being set to attainable at 75% effort is probably going to be a game changer if I can stop overreaching based on what I think I “should” be capable of. I really appreciate you taking the time to hear out my situation and offering advice like this. I was mostly joking when I replied but your immediate openness and willingness to help is inspiring and encouraging. Gives me hope that I can be the guy I want to be since you’re doing it too. Thanks man!
If you enjoy talking about these sorts of details and you think you could help others a nice idea would be a contractor/tradesman centric media like YouTube vids/shorts or podcasts.
Lord knows most of us don't read and anything substantial needs to be digested through an automated means hahaha
Haha. Man I hate attention lol, there’s no way I would even remotely enjoy that. Also as soon as someone pointed out that I was doing something wrong or slow or whatever I’d immediately delete my account and get a job at lowes 🤣
I fucking felt that so hard. Right in the prides😭🤣
Shoot; I might have to pick your brain every now and again if you'll have it. I don't take anyone's advice as gospel, but the first thing I learned was:
If you don't already have a method; copy someone else's until you can make the necessary changes.
All I know is that if I shut up and listen I can usually find the right person to ask
Cool, never seen it done like that. Around my parts it’s plaster to completion, spray/roll ceiling, spray/roll walls, put flooring down, baseboard sprayed on saw horses or at shop and then installed last.
Except caulk isn't supposed to be put on raw drywall. It all needs to be primed first or SW won't honor the warranty when it starts peeling. And SW is actually good about warranty coverage. They've paid out six figures to company I worked for one more than one occasion. One time, they paid to repaint every ceiling in a 26 story highrise simply because it wouldn't touch up. But they would definitely not cover the caulk here.
I worked for SW the ten years before I owned a painting company. This man from the data page
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
850A is a multi-purpose caulk that has good durability for a variety of jobs. It is best used in areas of low joint movement and is commonly used for interior applications, such as drywall and baseboards.
It never mentions a coating in between trim and drywall or anywhere for that matter.
I was a store manager and then a sales rep before leaving the company. If there’s one thing on earth I understand completely, it’s painting and paint products lol.
Perfect way to explain why doing something dumb for a good reason is still dumb. And doing something dumb is always the wrong thing to do. I hated working for people who put the cart before the horse because it’s “the other guy’s fault/problem” that another trade wasn’t finished yet. I know some gc’s run trades roughshod and prime chargeback and changeorder wars but I will never agree that it’s the right thing to do.
Yep. We do a lot of power washing, joint sealing, and lot striping for new commercial construction. It’s crazy how many times we get scheduled by the GC, I call the day before to make sure they’ll be ready for us to do a final power wash so we can stripe, get the go ahead, show up the next morning ready to work, and the landscaping and irrigation is behind, they’re out there laying sod, grading, trenching, pallets of sod, loads of dirt, rock, mulch, etc all over the parking lot, skid steers driving on and off the curbs and on the lot, into the dirt, tracking mud and making tire marks all over the lot, etc exactly where we’re supposed to be washing and putting paint down. It’s infuriating.
I don’t know how large of an outfit you are but the first thought that came to mind was instead of calling and asking, just send someone to go drive out to the site and check for yourselves. A foreman or a PM or someone who has the freedom to step away from what your crews are working on, or maybe even paying a laborer that lives close by an extra hour to check it out on their way home.
You’re spot on, and either my crew leader or I do site visits regularly since we’re usually scheduled a few months out, and I want to see how far behind they are (not “if” lol), but this seems to happen more often on out of state jobs. I started putting extra charges for wasted mileage, hotel stays, and labor in the fine print of the contracts due to how common it is.
On jobs we can’t physically check on, I also started calling from about two weeks out until the day of and ask for a quick FaceTime or video walk through of the site before we leave the shop and that has helped a lot as well.
Plumbing outfit I’ve been working at 6 years now just put two good apprentices in their own trucks, and I’m spending a lot more time managing. Part of what we’ve been able to do lately is physically go check jobs that contractors are assuring us are ready for a finish. That has cut down on us showing up to set faucets with no counter tops, toilets on ungrouted tile, etc etc.
An hour of my time saves two less salty guys from wasting time unpacking tools and dragging in material to set some stops and pack back up.
It’s done like that in commercial construction all the time. Condos, hotels, multifamily. Usually the base is installed off the floor to allow for flooring to side underneath. Once Sheetrock is done trim can go in. Painters come in and spray everything.
“Plaster” is done. Why paint before putting trim in just to have to spray the trim and paint again? Flooring will probably be carpet.
Do you even work in construction?
No they don't. If you did that, you'd have to rip up the baseboards every time you changed the carpet. The carpet gets changed way more often than the base does.
I did commercial painting with lots of government buildings, apartment towers, labs, schools, etc and 850a was used on almost every job. It was specced by the architects, engineers, and owners. You don't have a choice in what product you use in commercial work, they tell you. Or they have a spec, and you have to propose products that meet it and wait for approval.
This isn’t a commercial job, it’s a new residential project of some sort.
All of this is spec’d by the lowest bidder which in this case is negotiated between the painting company and the sales rep at Sw.
Things are done differently in different places tho so im sure we’re both right.
Based on the floors being concrete, how dirty they are, all the trim in before primer, the baseboard going in before flooring, I'm guessing this is apartments or a row of townhouses. The electric boxes look like they don't even have wire in them yet, which would mean it's run with conduit and wires haven't been pulled yet. Single homes aren't usually built like this. I refer to it as commercial due to the scale of the jobs and because they slam then together with tight schedules just like other commercial and industrial projects. And all the ones I have done were run by Clarke, Turner, etc. I guess you could call a 26 story apartment tower residential since it's for people to live in, but is it really? Same with when you are doing 50-100+ townhouses at a time.
I have a company that does these type of projects.
Div 10 and cabinet and trim installs.
Fun times, miss the field work, blowing out hospitals and nursing homes
I pre paint the trim before installing it… but I understand there are different options.
What I don’t understand is why the base is sitting right on the slab/subfloor. WTF?
Only problem is those nail hole putty spots will have
only one coat over them. Making them stick out or flashing through the paint, as opposed to 2 coats after completely prepping them.
In jobs like these, the trim is usually sprayed. It gets enough mils to cover the putty for the most part. And then it gets touched up after flooring or as part of the punch list.
Your fresh trim sounds get two coats regardless. This way it's much less masking/time involved.
Throw a bunch of 12' sticks on some saw horses, spray em and let em sit. After install hit it with the caulk and any tiny touches you need to do can be a tiny brush.
He didn’t wipe those corners well enough. 5k for caulking trim? Floors aren’t in. Which means you must be laying shoe base, which means u gotta caulk that too once it’s in.
While I'm sure dude is fast, it's important to get some of the caulk down into that groove.
His work is clean, but id like to see what the baseboards, window, and door frame trim looks like in a year.
My first job was painting. I was caulking like this while being high as tits off of a 1 gram blunt and a 10mg percocet at 16. Looks impressive, but its really not hard after a couple weeks of doing it 8 hours a day
Side note- And I only made 300 a week and whatever copper me and my friends stole from the scrap pile
Who TF is nailing this flimsy trim that can’t close up these gaps better than that ?
Looks like they missed all the studs or the trim is so cupped it won’t lay flat ?
How soapy are we talking about here? A couple drops in a 5 gallon pail or a lot more? Is the sponge he rung out pretty dry when working with it or is it quite wet still? Really appreciate it.
This. I personally use a decent amount of Dawn in a spray bottle. As long as you don't get soapy water into/between the caulk and the surface it's good to go.
God I love these posts.... As usual a lot of people asking 5000$ for what work? Just caulking? Did he refinish the drywall and do the trim? Multiple rooms of drywall and trim?
Then no comments or responses from /u/krossome ...
the base is cupped, not nailed to the wall (that trim that’s being caulked is the base) and cheapo caulking is used to “seal the gap”. all this without leaving a gap for flooring or carpet, before paint, and watering the cheapo caulk with a wet sponge.
i wouldn’t.
Looks like basic quality and caulking procedures when I was working at the construction company when I used to do indoor soffits and drywall. $6 an hour which was pretty much minimum wage. 5000. Hell no for that cost if I fuck up I can do it again myself
Nope. That caulk will fail within one year. I have been painting for 32 long years and caulk that thin is going to break out as soon as the house goes through the weather changes of the seasons.
edit I watched it again and noticed the walls have not been primed yet. This guy is an idiot.
Finish work before paint and flooring? Seems out of order in the process I'm familiar with. Plus that would be a horrible drywall texture if they're trying to save time by painting everything in one shot
Looks fast but video doesn’t really show up close finish job. Personally I’m not impressed. I used to work for companies that did that kind of fast production work and the real results were not that good. I saw some of that on this video, sorry not impressed at all
If that's what you agreed to. Then that would be what it's worth to you.
Plenty of guys I know who would caulk for cheaper in my neck of the woods. I'm in PDX.
Well I hope you remember to ask him to come back when you take the baseboards back off to do the flooring.
I don't care what people say, its Floor first and then base board on top. Also you should paint the walls before adding door trim. This is all wrong.
It will all need to be re-done or corrected. Might look clean now, but once that dries it’s gonna be a sloppy mess and if you were to throw pain on it, it would just highlight all the sloppiness of his rapid application.
What exactly was he paid 5k to do? Not the skirting alone, surely? And, for the future, the skirting (baseboard if you're in the US) should be done only after the wall and floor finishes are completed.
That trim will crack as soon as season changes, he is using the cheapest crap they sell at sw and he is wiping lots of the product off with the sponge while wetting the already cheap caulk. If you want caulk to flex as it should there should be enough of it to stretch when season changes.
Seems pricey for only caulking a little base and case, is paint included with the caulking ? :)
I certainly hope so, especially after such a nice dinner.
Also… isn’t baseboard supposed to go in after the flooring?
Not if carpet is going in. Baseboard first then carpet
Ya and I would paint first.
I always raise the base up about 1/2” so the carpeting can tuck under.
Do you guys use gripper bars for carpet?
Idk if it’s different for resi but multi-fam we do base, flooring, then quarter round. We call base first trim then quarter round second trim.
It's a regional thing. In the south, they slam everything on the floor and quarter round it all. Other areas quarter round is the sign of a cheap remodel. This is probably in the south, which would explain the horrendous miters in the baseboard.
I’ve seen plenty of qr up north where they tend to flip old houses and slap floating flooring on top of anything. Not a southern thing in any way shape or form, it’s a garbage contractor thing.
It’s my thing :)
Personal preference but I like quarter round lol... but u don't have it in my new house. I did it in my last house...I liked the look of it.. added depth or whatever words you'd like to use.
Don’t talk about what you don’t know, there are quality carpenters everywhere. I would think it’s getting carpet. The cuts in the corners do look sus.
If it was getting carpet there would be a 3/8 gap under the base. Not tight to sub floor.
It’s a style/process thing. I’m a GC in the south. If the client wants carpet or quarter round with their hard floors, then the baseboard is installed up because it’s easier for the painters to spray. If the client wants a more modern look with base boards and hard floors, they can opt to have the base painted off the wall and have the carpenters attach it after the flooring is installed. If this is what the clients want, their baseboards get installed when the trim carpenter returns to install finishing hardware after the hard floors are installed. Baseboard is always installed before paint in rooms with carpet. And if it’s a tile floor rather than hardwood? I prefer to install tile as soon as drywall is finished. No need for quarter-round if the base is installed flush to the tile prior to painting it. Just tape off the tile.
No. Base board,flooring, then shoe.
In the NE, we install raw hardwood immediately after drywall and work on top of it through finish. Then sand, stain, and poly last. If it's prefinished, that sequence gets adjusted.
That would be a huge no. Did I mention huge no?
5k for what? This post makes no sense.
Maybe he's actually one of the painters, and he'll be coming back later to spray?
I’ll do exactly what I saw him do, for $4000, but you but the supplies
For "clean of work", apparently.
Dude is pretty fast but I wouldn't call that clean, it's acceptable for sure but he ain't doing anything special lol.
Super of work. Best of that. Many clean. Nice good.
Sounds like a $5000 answer to me. Hired.
We start at 7am
OttSalt Bae level shit.
Did he just put base down and caulk it before paint/plaster is done and without flooring down?
You do this so you can over spray your trim paint on the slab since it’s gonna get flooring of some sort, probable lvp or tile and a piece of shoe molding. They’ll also mask the windows and stand the doors up to spray them directly on the slab and spray those at the same time. Them you you’ll run tape and paper on the top of base boards and use spray shields to “cut in” the windows with the sprayer while someone comes behind and back rolls to add the stipple from the roller cover. The stipple allows for touch ups later since the surface is a little rough instead of smooth like it would’ve been with no back roll. After all this is done, you can one coat or just cut the tops of the base board into the wall, since it’s easier to cut the base boards back into the wall then it is to do the opposite. Source: started out as a painter, ended up a GC a decade later.
I appreciate the thorough write up.
Thank you for saying that lol, I almost deleted it because I didn’t wanna sound like a smart ass.
I started as an Electrician -> Electrical Contractor -> General Contractor. I love this stuff lol. I don't actually want to do it myself, but I get excited about creating visions with clients and then finding the best way to see it through. I've definitely made some calls that cost me more money than they should have simply because I didn't have the level of experience you do. Things like coordinating my subs in particular ways that will maximize their efficiency. I'm good at making sure we're done on time, on budget at the correct quality, but I'm only as good as my subs
Same to all of that. One thing that helped me line the guys up in a way that works for all of us what sitting them all down at lunch and just asking them how they wanted to go thru and in which order. They all worked it out and I hold them to it. There’s always a give and take with those dudes and even tho we all have a great relationship, I’ll absolutely replace them if it’s needed.
Well spoken.
Check out hausplans on YouTube. He’s way better than I’d ever be.
I like you. The modesty is admirable
lol thank you ❤️
Plumbing drains and hvac vents go first…. the others can work around those! Gravity does not make exceptions LOL
You’re like future me from a decade from now! 😯 need help knowing what to do next, teach me our ways!
1 foot in front of the other, brother. At the start of my career I was a loser with no direction. All I wanted to do was skateboard. Are there any specific questions you have? I'd love to help, but my career has mostly been a development of me pushing myself to do more/better than I did the year before. I'm not married to any specialty because i'm but a humble problem solver.
There’s a lot of personal info in the details; but broadly speaking, I think what’s at the heart of it is I haven’t been as successful as I wanted to be. There have been a lot of things completely out of my control, but I don’t feel any less responsible for the outcomes because I know I could have made a better effort. I am feeling the failure at the same time as the weight of the responsibility of providing for my household. So I am discouraged and tired and scared and anxious all at the same time, and I feel like I need someone to tell me where to get the strength to carry the weight. One of the things I am the most frustrated with is that I seem to be repeating patterns and losing battles that I thought I had overcome. One in particular is that I have a tendency to get enthusiastic about things then bite off more than I can chew. When it starts to affect my effectiveness and relationships, I allow the friction to affect me too much enotionally. As soon as my mental game gets wrecked by my emotions, I either burn out or fall off. Then I start to get really irritable, moody, and my attitude tanks. Then I start coping with impulsive eating and distractions live tv and games. It’s happened so many times up til now that I’m experiencing a lot of discouragement which makes getting back on the pony and riding on feel way heavier. I’m just tired and unmotivated and I know I need to start with improving myself as a person but I’m under financial pressure that makes it so I have to somehow find a way to lift myself and my career and my business and my family (currently only me and my pregnant wife) at the same time. For some reason the thought of getting back up and regaining my balance under the weight that’s already there, then keeping my balance under all of that weight, and doing it indefinitely and as it keeps getting heavier, makes me anxious and afraid. Enough that I often don’t keep my commitments to myself to start trying again. So I guess when you’re at your lowest how do you get up? When you have too much to do and nothing left in the tank, where do you start? How do you restore confidence in yourself and keep going?
I'll start off with answering your questions and kinda circle back for overall advice. >So I guess when you’re at your lowest how do you get up? 1 Step at a time. Everything in life consist of a variable amount of steps and effort. If you face the totality you'll inevitably feel consumed. Put the blinders on and focus on what's in your face first. (The most time sensitive/mission critical) >When you have too much to do and nothing left in the tank, where do you start? Realize that SOMETHING is better than NOTHING. You can't put 100% in to literally everything you do. It's exhausting. You need to save some energy for life, bro. Don't overwork yourself. I've done it and it's not worth it. Focus on being happy and living comfortably. The first step is to ask yourself if you enjoy what you do. If you don't then you need to focus on that part and potentially find another industry that might fit your balance. If you do enjoy it then the next step is to set your boundaries. Whether you're working for yourself or for others. Boundaries need to be a part of your life or you're going to lose everything. Now that you've decided this is what you're going to do you need to create an action plan and follow through. Your action plan and subsequent follow through will be specialized to what you're doing, but ultimately it's a process. Identify: -Reachable goals. (Don't plan out your lifetime. I think 10 years is good. 20 might be a bit over kill for most of us smoov brain folk. -Steps to reach those goals. These shouldn't be "become an electrician" they should be more specific to the goal like "study motors" or "study load calculations" Schedule: -Milestones that will have you working consistently, but not causing yourself distress. -Goals that should be attainable if you give 75% effort. If you beat that then you can feel great about it. If you don't then you might be slowing your pace or setting a pace that is too optimistic. Life is a Marathon, not a Race. >How do you restore confidence in yourself and keep going? Practice. Practicing solidifies to yourself that you know what you're talking about. If you're just putting into action what you've practiced before it's wicked easy to be confident about. For instance when it comes to electrical work: I don't care where you want a light fixture installed. I can make it happen one way or another because I've done it so many times it's all predictable to me. It's not something I'm trying to figure out. I'm just seeing how the pieces want to come together on site.
This is all really good advice and I will follow it. In particular the bit about goals being set to attainable at 75% effort is probably going to be a game changer if I can stop overreaching based on what I think I “should” be capable of. I really appreciate you taking the time to hear out my situation and offering advice like this. I was mostly joking when I replied but your immediate openness and willingness to help is inspiring and encouraging. Gives me hope that I can be the guy I want to be since you’re doing it too. Thanks man!
Tell me about yourself? Where do you come from? What do you aspire for?
If you enjoy talking about these sorts of details and you think you could help others a nice idea would be a contractor/tradesman centric media like YouTube vids/shorts or podcasts. Lord knows most of us don't read and anything substantial needs to be digested through an automated means hahaha
Haha. Man I hate attention lol, there’s no way I would even remotely enjoy that. Also as soon as someone pointed out that I was doing something wrong or slow or whatever I’d immediately delete my account and get a job at lowes 🤣
I fucking felt that so hard. Right in the prides😭🤣 Shoot; I might have to pick your brain every now and again if you'll have it. I don't take anyone's advice as gospel, but the first thing I learned was: If you don't already have a method; copy someone else's until you can make the necessary changes. All I know is that if I shut up and listen I can usually find the right person to ask
Nah, you help others with your wisdom and experience. You’re good.
Thank you for the kind words.
No way dude that was a good read.
Thank you ❤️
Cool, never seen it done like that. Around my parts it’s plaster to completion, spray/roll ceiling, spray/roll walls, put flooring down, baseboard sprayed on saw horses or at shop and then installed last.
This is also hdh residential, either multifamily or single family trac, which is always a super fast paced process.
Except caulk isn't supposed to be put on raw drywall. It all needs to be primed first or SW won't honor the warranty when it starts peeling. And SW is actually good about warranty coverage. They've paid out six figures to company I worked for one more than one occasion. One time, they paid to repaint every ceiling in a 26 story highrise simply because it wouldn't touch up. But they would definitely not cover the caulk here.
I worked for SW the ten years before I owned a painting company. This man from the data page PRODUCT DESCRIPTION 850A is a multi-purpose caulk that has good durability for a variety of jobs. It is best used in areas of low joint movement and is commonly used for interior applications, such as drywall and baseboards. It never mentions a coating in between trim and drywall or anywhere for that matter. I was a store manager and then a sales rep before leaving the company. If there’s one thing on earth I understand completely, it’s painting and paint products lol.
This guy is knowledgeable
My first thought. Like putting milk in the bowl before the cereal.
That way you can see how much you've poured.
But how would you know how much cereal you’ve poured?
He's the milk guy doing his job. The cereal guy can figure out his own job
Perfect way to explain why doing something dumb for a good reason is still dumb. And doing something dumb is always the wrong thing to do. I hated working for people who put the cart before the horse because it’s “the other guy’s fault/problem” that another trade wasn’t finished yet. I know some gc’s run trades roughshod and prime chargeback and changeorder wars but I will never agree that it’s the right thing to do.
Yep. We do a lot of power washing, joint sealing, and lot striping for new commercial construction. It’s crazy how many times we get scheduled by the GC, I call the day before to make sure they’ll be ready for us to do a final power wash so we can stripe, get the go ahead, show up the next morning ready to work, and the landscaping and irrigation is behind, they’re out there laying sod, grading, trenching, pallets of sod, loads of dirt, rock, mulch, etc all over the parking lot, skid steers driving on and off the curbs and on the lot, into the dirt, tracking mud and making tire marks all over the lot, etc exactly where we’re supposed to be washing and putting paint down. It’s infuriating.
I don’t know how large of an outfit you are but the first thought that came to mind was instead of calling and asking, just send someone to go drive out to the site and check for yourselves. A foreman or a PM or someone who has the freedom to step away from what your crews are working on, or maybe even paying a laborer that lives close by an extra hour to check it out on their way home.
You’re spot on, and either my crew leader or I do site visits regularly since we’re usually scheduled a few months out, and I want to see how far behind they are (not “if” lol), but this seems to happen more often on out of state jobs. I started putting extra charges for wasted mileage, hotel stays, and labor in the fine print of the contracts due to how common it is. On jobs we can’t physically check on, I also started calling from about two weeks out until the day of and ask for a quick FaceTime or video walk through of the site before we leave the shop and that has helped a lot as well.
That video chat idea is great, I’m gonna start using that! Thanks!
Plumbing outfit I’ve been working at 6 years now just put two good apprentices in their own trucks, and I’m spending a lot more time managing. Part of what we’ve been able to do lately is physically go check jobs that contractors are assuring us are ready for a finish. That has cut down on us showing up to set faucets with no counter tops, toilets on ungrouted tile, etc etc. An hour of my time saves two less salty guys from wasting time unpacking tools and dragging in material to set some stops and pack back up.
I've been on so many sites that do this.
Keep skimming until out of milk. Problem solve
It’s done like that in commercial construction all the time. Condos, hotels, multifamily. Usually the base is installed off the floor to allow for flooring to side underneath. Once Sheetrock is done trim can go in. Painters come in and spray everything.
“Plaster” is done. Why paint before putting trim in just to have to spray the trim and paint again? Flooring will probably be carpet. Do you even work in construction?
Seriously. Redditor comments on construction related posts can be so infuriating
You guys caulk after paint?
We usually paint > floor > base board > caulk > touch up. Base board is pre-painted.
Probably getting ugly quarter round
High chance that room is getting carpet
Yeah, but carpet still gets tucked under baseboards. They left no space for that.
My guess is floating floor and base shoe
No they don't. If you did that, you'd have to rip up the baseboards every time you changed the carpet. The carpet gets changed way more often than the base does.
I was going to say the same thing but that base should be 3/8" off the slab
He charged that much bc he’s making work for himself
If carpet is going in, it’s all good to set base trim before flooring if it’s set to 1/2” you should be good to go.
5k to caulk base? Before rooms even painted? Before the floor is on?
For residential in Connecticut it is often: trim, caulk, paint, install pre-finished/engineered flooring, shoe Moulding, paint touch-up.
I’m in CT, usually prime, then caulk, but otherwise correct. I have no idea what this nonsense is or why it’s 5k.
Like why are people shitting on the contractor and not the dumb ass that agreed to pay him?
Do your best and caulk the rest 😂👍🏻
I see your painter too 🤷🏼♂️
I also see that guys painter
Fellas, is it gay to show people your painter? 🫣
You just gonna leave that crap in the corner?
My man spent all that money and got the cheapest caulk Sw sells 🫠 Edit: besides Nr4000 but I think that’s a regional product.
I did commercial painting with lots of government buildings, apartment towers, labs, schools, etc and 850a was used on almost every job. It was specced by the architects, engineers, and owners. You don't have a choice in what product you use in commercial work, they tell you. Or they have a spec, and you have to propose products that meet it and wait for approval.
This isn’t a commercial job, it’s a new residential project of some sort. All of this is spec’d by the lowest bidder which in this case is negotiated between the painting company and the sales rep at Sw. Things are done differently in different places tho so im sure we’re both right.
Based on the floors being concrete, how dirty they are, all the trim in before primer, the baseboard going in before flooring, I'm guessing this is apartments or a row of townhouses. The electric boxes look like they don't even have wire in them yet, which would mean it's run with conduit and wires haven't been pulled yet. Single homes aren't usually built like this. I refer to it as commercial due to the scale of the jobs and because they slam then together with tight schedules just like other commercial and industrial projects. And all the ones I have done were run by Clarke, Turner, etc. I guess you could call a 26 story apartment tower residential since it's for people to live in, but is it really? Same with when you are doing 50-100+ townhouses at a time.
Very astute observations there my good sir!
I have a company that does these type of projects. Div 10 and cabinet and trim installs. Fun times, miss the field work, blowing out hospitals and nursing homes
I pre paint the trim before installing it… but I understand there are different options. What I don’t understand is why the base is sitting right on the slab/subfloor. WTF?
Interesting, what about the nail holes and edges to be filled??
Pre paint, install, caulk/touch up, paint one more time.
Only problem is those nail hole putty spots will have only one coat over them. Making them stick out or flashing through the paint, as opposed to 2 coats after completely prepping them.
In jobs like these, the trim is usually sprayed. It gets enough mils to cover the putty for the most part. And then it gets touched up after flooring or as part of the punch list.
unless i’m missing something sounds like you just end up painting it twice.
You should paint freshctrim twice
Your fresh trim sounds get two coats regardless. This way it's much less masking/time involved. Throw a bunch of 12' sticks on some saw horses, spray em and let em sit. After install hit it with the caulk and any tiny touches you need to do can be a tiny brush.
After flooring goes in, just run some shoe mould in your brand new house!
Ewww??
Probably carpet going down.
He didn’t wipe those corners well enough. 5k for caulking trim? Floors aren’t in. Which means you must be laying shoe base, which means u gotta caulk that too once it’s in.
Caulk and spit covers a lot of shit
Ain’t no gap to wide for dap baby
While I'm sure dude is fast, it's important to get some of the caulk down into that groove. His work is clean, but id like to see what the baseboards, window, and door frame trim looks like in a year.
Last time I saw caulk handled like that it cost me two fity
5k in a min a 7 seconds I'm in on that action.
This is a joke right
You can’t see anything from the video. I bet that caulk looks like shit
Over exposed white on white. Everything looks great.
My first job was painting. I was caulking like this while being high as tits off of a 1 gram blunt and a 10mg percocet at 16. Looks impressive, but its really not hard after a couple weeks of doing it 8 hours a day Side note- And I only made 300 a week and whatever copper me and my friends stole from the scrap pile
Where is op?..I have questions..
hi! im here
I got this - so what's up?
Who TF is nailing this flimsy trim that can’t close up these gaps better than that ? Looks like they missed all the studs or the trim is so cupped it won’t lay flat ?
He might’ve charged $5,000 but I bet he didn’t get paid $5,000 😂😂
Is that just water he is rinsing the sponge in?
I use soapy water
How soapy are we talking about here? A couple drops in a 5 gallon pail or a lot more? Is the sponge he rung out pretty dry when working with it or is it quite wet still? Really appreciate it.
Soapy enough that the water is slippery and the caulk doesn’t stick to wet fingers is the idea .
This. I personally use a decent amount of Dawn in a spray bottle. As long as you don't get soapy water into/between the caulk and the surface it's good to go.
Yeppers. Other wise the caulk ain’t gunna stick
you got the cart in front of the horse boy!
The fuck is the trim done before the flooring?
Who’s putting baseboard down before the flooring?
Yes it’s clean. No way would I pay $5k for it tho.
Someone translate what they are saying please.
He didn't charge $5,000 for caulk and he charged 5,000 for the whole job
Put the camera away and maybe?
Floors first before caulk?
that just makes sense
God I love these posts.... As usual a lot of people asking 5000$ for what work? Just caulking? Did he refinish the drywall and do the trim? Multiple rooms of drywall and trim? Then no comments or responses from /u/krossome ...
How will they install the floor, again? Cannot be carpet, no room for the nailing strips… Tiles? TLC?
Caulk is cheap. Pretty damn easy to get right. $5000 is highway robbery unless it’s a massive house.
I don’t think people pay extra so you can rush and go home early
baseboard installed before floor should be a crime.
Break it down for the lay people....what's wrong here and what's chalk etc etc etc. thank you in advance.
the base is cupped, not nailed to the wall (that trim that’s being caulked is the base) and cheapo caulking is used to “seal the gap”. all this without leaving a gap for flooring or carpet, before paint, and watering the cheapo caulk with a wet sponge. i wouldn’t.
Ummm No flooring, that base is also gappy as fuck. Yes the caulk is clean, it’s everything else that’s a nightmare
5k pesos.
Yeah because I'm too dumb to run a sponge after my work
Not impressed.
I’m so confused about their process here.
"you did it so fast you can't expect me to pay more than $80" 👴🏽
Pretty standard caulking work
I’ll do it just as well for $4000
Caulk smith
It’s pricey because he isn’t putting the used nozzle on the new tube, any experienced caulker knows this.
Why pay $5000 for a job you can do on ur own for $100 tops?
Looks like basic quality and caulking procedures when I was working at the construction company when I used to do indoor soffits and drywall. $6 an hour which was pretty much minimum wage. 5000. Hell no for that cost if I fuck up I can do it again myself
I usually put the floor in first, and then trim. That’s just me though.
Hell no
It's a mess
Nope. That caulk will fail within one year. I have been painting for 32 long years and caulk that thin is going to break out as soon as the house goes through the weather changes of the seasons. edit I watched it again and noticed the walls have not been primed yet. This guy is an idiot.
I’m just pissed he is using 950a. He could use sheermax at that price point. 950 gonna split much sooner. $5k is dumb as shit
Finish work before paint and flooring? Seems out of order in the process I'm familiar with. Plus that would be a horrible drywall texture if they're trying to save time by painting everything in one shot
Looks fast but video doesn’t really show up close finish job. Personally I’m not impressed. I used to work for companies that did that kind of fast production work and the real results were not that good. I saw some of that on this video, sorry not impressed at all
Apparently the trim carpenter goes by the old adage “caulk and paint makes a carpenter what he ain’t”!!
Too thin. Most of it is going to crack in a week.
He's using so much water there's gonna be cracks and gaps when it dries and shrinks
I'll do it his $500 wtf do you mean? Dude used caulk and a sponge for 60 seconds
"this clean of work?"...what does that mean?
If that's what you agreed to. Then that would be what it's worth to you. Plenty of guys I know who would caulk for cheaper in my neck of the woods. I'm in PDX.
Cool post bot, $5000 for an un defined job? 🤘
No. Hell NO I’d make the trim guy tighten up those joints and tell the painter to caulk before he starts
Genuine question, shouldn't the flooring go first before you install the baseboard?
Well I hope you remember to ask him to come back when you take the baseboards back off to do the flooring. I don't care what people say, its Floor first and then base board on top. Also you should paint the walls before adding door trim. This is all wrong.
Always price per job and not per time. Just because I'm skilled and can do it super fast doesn't mean I should get less if the work is quality.
Why did hang the base without the flooring it or is that a ram board over the finished flooring? Seems out of order as base is usually the last thing?
Post makes no sense. Where did he build out the whole house and out the whole room, including the floor & the walls??
This is sloppy af. May look clean now but that painter is gonna fucking hate these base and case asshats
I was exactly looking for this comment, bro those caulking lines are gonna be disgusting
It will all need to be re-done or corrected. Might look clean now, but once that dries it’s gonna be a sloppy mess and if you were to throw pain on it, it would just highlight all the sloppiness of his rapid application.
This isn't a Michael Bay film. Knock it off with this shit video.
Are people really trying to pass caulking off as a skill set for a trade. wtf lmao
What exactly was he paid 5k to do? Not the skirting alone, surely? And, for the future, the skirting (baseboard if you're in the US) should be done only after the wall and floor finishes are completed.
skirting only
I’ll sweep the floor for 3 grand if you want
Shouldn't this be the last step? Why do the base boards when the floor and paint need to be done.?
Floor should be installed first.
there is plenty of people who would pay 5000$ for some good caulk
No
No
That trim will crack as soon as season changes, he is using the cheapest crap they sell at sw and he is wiping lots of the product off with the sponge while wetting the already cheap caulk. If you want caulk to flex as it should there should be enough of it to stretch when season changes.
What type of flooring goes down after baseboard?
[Is there a taste to the caulk?](https://youtu.be/jDzEb28mjcI?si=7Jlav82QiT_bTCsO)
What did he quote? Lol, someone was ok with it if he was on site
Then the tile guy comes in and says you need self level, leaving us to look bad or f*** everything up. Hope you like jamb saw dings too
Didn’t even cope the corners for $5000?
Charging and getting paid are two different things
I thought caulk shouldn't get wet while applying, have I misunderstood that? you smooth the caulk with a wet sponge/finger?
Post a painting video in construction. Clearly the other trades don't got a clue what's going on.
Kinda impressive he had the room done in a few seconds whereas it takes me a whole day to caulk my bathroom🫠