The Flooring Delivery and Staging SOP

Purpose

The material on site is the right product, from one production lot, undamaged, in the quantity ordered, and stored where it can reach the conditions it will live in. A flooring job that goes wrong at delivery goes wrong quietly: a second lot with a slightly different shade is spread across the main room, a wet carton is installed because nobody opened it, a pallet sits in a cold garage for a week. Each of those shows up after the install, when it costs a tear-out instead of a phone call. This SOP spends twenty minutes at the truck to avoid that.

Scope

Covers receiving and staging flooring, underlayment, adhesives, mortar, grout, trim and transitions delivered to a residential or light commercial site, whether by a supplier's truck, a freight carrier or the shop's own van. Bringing the staged material to its in-service moisture condition is acclimation, which belongs to How to Acclimate Flooring and Confirm It Is Ready. Protecting the path the material travels is The Flooring Job Site Protection SOP, which must be set up before the first carton comes in.

Roles and the handoffs

The receiver is a named person who is on site when the truck arrives. A delivery accepted by the customer alone is not checked, and the office treats it as unreceived until someone from the shop has done steps 2 through 5.

The delivery check slip

DELIVERY CHECK            JOB: 24-0402   DATE: 11/06
Supplier: ____________    PO: 7731   Driver: ______
PRODUCT  COLOR/STYLE  ORDERED  RECEIVED  LOT/RUN
eng oak  Harbor 5in      43       43     A:35 C:8
underlay roll            4        4      -
Count by lot matches order: NO -> HOLD, see notes
Damage: 1 ctn crushed corner, lot A, photo 3
Wet or stained cartons: none
Noted on carrier receipt before signing: YES
Stored at: living room, interior wall, flat
Air at staging: 70 F / 41% RH
Received by: ________   Customer told: YES

The procedure

1. Confirm the order and the room before the truck comes. The office sends the receiver the order sheet: product name, color, style, size, carton count with waste, accessories, and the room where it will be stored. That room is inside the conditioned envelope, with the HVAC running at the temperature and humidity the house will live at. Acceptance: order sheet in hand, storage room named, HVAC confirmed running. Wrong looks like "put it in the garage for now." Stop rule: if the storage room is not ready or the house has no running HVAC yet, reschedule the delivery rather than stage it somewhere it cannot acclimate. Hazard: none.

2. Count cartons against the order before the driver leaves. Count every carton by product, then compare to the order and to the packing list. Acceptance: received equals ordered for every line. Wrong looks like a short count that the driver says is "on the next truck". Stop rule: record the short count on the carrier's receipt and the slip before signing, and phone the office from the driveway. Hazard: a pallet coming off a lift gate can tip; stand clear of the gate's path and do not steady a moving load by hand.

3. Read the label on every carton, not just the top one. Check product, color, style, width and thickness against the order on each carton. Acceptance: every carton matches the order. Wrong looks like one carton of a neighboring color in the middle of a stack, which is easy to install unnoticed and impossible to blend. Stop rule: a wrong carton is refused or set aside, labeled, and recorded. Hazard: lift cartons from the stack with a straight back and get help with anything heavy; flooring cartons are dense and an awkward reach from a pallet hurts backs.

4. Record every lot or run number and check they agree. Write each lot, run or dye-lot number and how many cartons carry it. Acceptance: one lot for the whole job, or, where the order allows more than one, a plan that keeps each lot to its own rooms. Wrong looks like two lots mixed through the stack. Stop rule: more than one lot on a job that has no lot plan is a hold. The office asks the supplier for a single lot; failing that, the owner decides where each lot goes, on a doorway or other natural break, and the customer agrees in writing before install. Hazard: none.

5. Inspect for damage and wet, and write it down before you sign. Look for crushed corners, torn cartons, broken pallets, water staining and soft cartons. Open any damaged carton and look at the product: chipped edges, crushed tongues, broken locking profiles. Photograph each, with the carton label in the shot. Acceptance: every damage instance photographed and written on both the slip and the carrier's receipt. Wrong looks like a clean signature on a receipt for a pallet with a crushed corner. Stop rule: wet product is refused outright; damaged product is refused or accepted with notation as the office directs. What a notation does for a later claim is set by the supplier's and carrier's terms, not by this SOP, so the office reports it within whatever window those terms give. Hazard: cut carton banding away from your face; steel and plastic straps spring.

6. Move the material into the storage room without damaging the house or the product. Carry cartons flat on the protected path, two people for anything heavy, dollies on the flat and hand carry on stairs. Acceptance: no carton dropped on an end, no new marks on the path. Wrong looks like cartons stood on end in the corner, which can break locking profiles and bow planks. Stop rule: a carton dropped on an end is opened and its ends checked before it joins the stack. Hazard: carry on stairs one carton at a time per person, nobody below the load, and keep the path clear of banding and wrap.

7. Stage it flat, dry and where the air reaches it. Stack cartons flat, to no more than the height the maker allows, away from exterior walls, heating vents and windows in direct sun, and off a slab that is not yet tested. Keep each lot in its own stack and label it. Store adhesives, mortar and grout where they will not freeze or overheat, per the maker's label, and keep solvent-based adhesives and finishes outside the living space in closed containers. Acceptance: stacks flat and labeled by lot, nothing against an exterior wall, a thermometer-hygrometer reading at the stack recorded. Wrong looks like latex adhesive left overnight in an unheated garage. Stop rule: frozen water-based adhesive, grout or mortar admix is not used; set it aside and report it. Hazard: a flammable adhesive never rides or sits in a vehicle cab.

8. Hand off to acclimation and close the slip. Record the storage location and the air reading, tell the customer what was delivered, what is on hold and why, and that the stacks stay where they are. Acceptance: slip complete, photos in the job file, customer told. Wrong looks like the customer moving the stacks to vacuum. Stop rule: none at this step; any open hold from steps 2 through 5 stays open until the office closes it in writing. Hazard: none.

The record this produces

The delivery check slip, the photos, and the carrier's receipt with its notations, filed with the job the same day. The slip is read by the office the same afternoon to chase holds, by the crew lead on install morning to confirm which stacks go in which rooms, and by whoever handles a later shade or defect claim, who will need the lot numbers and the delivery-day photos, because the cartons are long gone by then.

Worked pass: engineered oak for a main floor

The order: 43 cartons of 5-inch engineered oak at 20 square feet per carton, 860 square feet, for a main area of 510 square feet, bedroom 1 at 120 and bedroom 2 at 130. That is 760 square feet; 10 percent waste makes 836, rounded up to 42 cartons, plus one spare. Four rolls of underlayment. Storage in the living room, HVAC running.

Step 1 passed. Step 2 passed: 43 cartons and 4 rolls, matching the order. Step 3 passed: every label read Harbor, 5 inch.

Step 4 failed its acceptance. Thirty-five cartons carried lot A and eight carried lot C, with no lot plan on the order. The stop rule triggered: hold, office called from the driveway. The supplier could not swap eight cartons of lot A before the install date. The owner looked at the split: lot A's 35 cartons are 700 square feet, and the main area plus bedroom 1 at 630 square feet with 10 percent waste needs 693. Lot C's 8 cartons are 160 square feet against bedroom 2's 130 plus 10 percent, 143. Bedroom 2 is behind a door with its own threshold, so the lot change falls at a natural break. The customer saw a board from each lot side by side and agreed in writing that lot C goes in bedroom 2 only.

Step 5: one lot A carton had a crushed corner. Opened, two boards had crushed tongues; they were marked as cut stock for row ends, photographed, and noted on the carrier receipt before signing. Nothing was wet.

Steps 6 and 7: carried flat on the runners, stacked by lot along the interior wall, labeled A and C. Air at the stacks read 70 F and 41 percent. Step 8: the customer was told the stacks stay put and why, and the slip went to the office with the lot plan attached.

With two lot A boards now cut stock, the margin above 693 square feet is thin, so the crew lead was told to cut the main area first and save bedroom 1 for last.

References

• The flooring maker's storage, handling and lot-mixing instructions printed on or inside the carton
• The adhesive, mortar and grout makers' labels for storage temperature limits
• The supplier's and carrier's terms for reporting shortages and damage
• See related: How to Acclimate Flooring and Confirm It Is Ready; Measuring Rooms and Ordering Hard-Surface Flooring; The Flooring Job Site Protection SOP