The Flooring Job Site Protection SOP

Purpose

Protect the home from the job. A flooring crew carries heavy cartons through finished rooms, makes more dust than almost any other residential trade, moves every piece of furniture in the room, and works around appliances fed by gas and water. The damage claims that follow flooring jobs are rarely about the floor: a gouged stair rail, dust through every room from a running furnace, a dented refrigerator, a cracked ice line that leaked into the basement. Each one costs more than the protection that would have prevented it, and each one is what the customer tells the neighbors about.

Scope

Covers protecting paths, finished surfaces, HVAC, fixed items and contents, furniture and appliance moves, and daily cleanup on residential and occupied light commercial flooring jobs. General jobsite protection practice is in Job Site Setup and Floor Protection; this SOP adds what flooring work needs on top of it. Removing the old floor is The Old Floor Removal and Disposal SOP. Lead dust containment in pre-1978 homes is stricter and is The Lead-Safe Floor Work SOP, which governs where both apply.

Roles and the handoffs

The handoff that fails most: damage the crew causes is reported by the crew that day, before the customer finds it.

The procedure

1. Walk the path and photograph the house as you found it. With the customer, walk from the entry the crew will use to each work room, and photograph floors, stair treads and rails, door jambs, walls at corners and any existing damage, close enough to see it. Agree the furniture plan and what the crew will not move: pianos, safes, aquariums, gun cabinets, loaded china cabinets, and wired electronics usually go to the customer or a specialist. Acceptance: dated photos of every surface on the path and a written exclusion list. Wrong looks like a scratch on the hall floor nobody photographed, which becomes the crew's scratch. Stop rule: no setup until the customer has seen the photos and agreed the exclusion list. Hazard: none.

2. Protect the path to suit each surface. Lay breathable protection board or runners on finished floors along the path and tape only at the edges with a low-tack tape the surface can take, add stair tread covers, jamb guards on every door frame the material passes, and corner guards on outside wall corners. Acceptance: no bare finished surface between the entry and the work room, nothing that slides underfoot. Wrong looks like plastic sheeting on a wood floor, which traps moisture and is slippery, or tape on a freshly finished surface the maker says is not cured. Stop rule: if you do not know the cure state of a finish on the path, ask, and use a runner without tape. Hazard: protection on stairs has to be fixed so it cannot slide; a loose runner on a stair is a fall.

3. Shut down or seal the HVAC for dusty work. Before demo, sanding, tile cutting or grinding, turn the system off at the thermostat and cover the supply registers and returns in the work zone, or, where weather forces it to run, seal only the work-zone returns and leave every other return open. Acceptance: no open return in the dusty zone, system state written on the sheet. Wrong looks like the furnace running with every return taped, which starves it of air, or dust on a register two rooms away. Stop rule: a system that must run with the work zone's return as the only return is a call to the owner before any dusty work. Hazard: tape over a register in a zone where the system will run with the coil or burner on is a heat or freeze problem for the equipment, so record which registers are covered and remove the covers the same day the dust stops.

4. Build the dust walls and decide on air movement. Put up pole-and-plastic dust walls at each opening from the work zone, with a zipper door at the one the crew uses and a tacky mat outside it. A fan or air scrubber exhausting the zone to outdoors pulls the house negative, so before running one, look for fuel-burning appliances that draw their air from the house: a gas water heater or furnace with a draft hood, a fireplace. Acceptance: walls sealed at floor and ceiling, zipper closed when not passing, and either no exhaust fan or a confirmed absence of atmospheric appliances in that air. Wrong looks like an exhaust fan running beside a draft-hooded water heater, which can pull combustion gases back into the house. Stop rule: where an atmospheric appliance shares the air, no exhaust fan; use dust extraction at the tool and HEPA vacuuming instead (on tile, mortar or concrete the same tool-level controls are what OSHA 29 CFR 1926.1153 expects for silica), or have the appliance turned off by the customer or its service company and relit and checked by them after. Hazard: carbon monoxide; a CO alarm in the house should be confirmed present and working before any air movement starts.

5. Protect what stays in or near the room. Cover cabinet faces and toe kicks with protection board, mask fireplace hearths and tub faces, wrap stair rails and balusters when stairs are in scope, and take doors off their hinges, label them by room and hinge side, and store them flat. Acceptance: every fixed item a tool or carton could hit is covered. Wrong looks like a cabinet toe kick nicked by an edger or a jamb crushed by a dolly. Stop rule: a fixed item you cannot protect goes on the sheet with a photo, and the customer is told before work starts. Hazard: doors are heavy and awkward; one person lifts the pins, two carry.

6. Move furniture by the plan, never by improvising. The customer empties drawers, shelves and closets on the floor before the crew arrives. The crew moves furniture with two people, dollies and sliders, takes beds apart rather than dragging them, and stages pieces in the room the plan names, with felt or protection under them. Acceptance: every piece on the plan moved to its staging spot, nothing on the exclusion list touched. Wrong looks like a full dresser being walked across a room. Stop rule: anything not on the plan, or still loaded, waits for the customer. Hazard: lift with your legs, team-lift anything over the shop's single-person limit, and never carry a load down stairs with someone below it.

7. Disconnect appliances only as far as your license allows. Unplug electric appliances and move them on an appliance dolly. Gas ranges and dryers, ice lines, dishwasher supplies and toilets are disconnected by the licensed trade where your state or locality licenses that work, and reconnected and tested by the same trade. Acceptance: every disconnected line capped, a reconnect booked and recorded with its leak or function check. Wrong looks like a crew member pulling a range out by its gas line. Stop rule: a gas or water line that is not capped stops work in that room until the trade returns. Hazard: a gas odor at any time means everyone leaves the house without touching switches, and the call to the gas utility is made from outside.

8. End every day clean and safe. HEPA-vacuum the zone and path, empty debris to the container, coil cords, unplug and store tools, and put blades, knives, adhesives and finishes out of reach of children and pets. Flammable finishes and solvents leave the house in closed containers and are stored in a ventilated trailer or outdoor locker, never in a vehicle cab overnight. Close doors, set the thermostat as agreed, and tell the customer what is off. Acceptance: path clear and clean, no tool or chemical where a child could reach it, sheet updated. Wrong looks like an open adhesive pail in a house with a toddler. Stop rule: the crew lead walks the house before the last person leaves. Hazard: oily finish rags go into a water-filled, closed metal can, not the trash.

9. Take the protection down and restore the house. Remove protection from the far end of the path toward the exit, check every surface under it against the day-one photos, uncover registers and returns, replace the HVAC filter if dusty work loaded it, and restart the system and confirm it runs and heats or cools. Acceptance: every surface matches its day-one photo, system running. Wrong looks like a scratch under the runner. Stop rule: damage found is photographed and reported to the office before the crew leaves, not explained later. Hazard: confirm the system has a filter in place before restarting it, and that every register cover is off.

The record this produces

The protection sheet: day-one photos, the exclusion list, the furniture plan, which registers and returns were covered and when uncovered, the air movement decision and why, each disconnect with the trade who made it and the reconnect check, any damage found or caused with photos, and the day-end check signed by the crew lead. The office keeps it with the job. It answers the damage question at the walkthrough and months later, and it tells the next crew in that house what was excluded and why.

Worked pass: a kitchen tile tear-out

A 1988 two-story, kitchen and breakfast nook, ceramic tile out and new tile in. Path from the garage through the laundry.

Step 1 passed: twenty-two photos, a china cabinet and a fish tank on the exclusion list. Step 2 passed: runners through the laundry and hall, jamb guards on two doors, tape only on the runner edges.

Step 3 passed: system off at the thermostat, the kitchen's two supply registers and one return covered, written on the sheet.

Step 4 triggered its stop rule. The crew lead had planned to exhaust the kitchen with an air scrubber through the window. The laundry closet off the kitchen held a gas water heater with a draft hood, drawing its air from the same space. The stop rule triggered: no exhaust fan. The tile came out with a chipping tool under a shroud with extraction, HEPA vacuuming at every pause, and the dust walls sealed at the laundry and hall. The customer confirmed the hall CO alarm worked by pressing its test button.

Step 5: cabinet faces and toe kicks covered, pantry door off and labeled. Step 6: the table and chairs moved to the dining room, the china cabinet left for the customer. Step 7: the refrigerator ice line and dishwasher supply were disconnected by the customer's plumber, both capped, reconnect booked for the last day.

Step 8 ran each evening; thinset and the sealer stayed in the trailer. Step 9 on the last day: one jamb guard had slipped and the laundry jamb showed a fresh scuff against its photo. It was reported to the office before the crew left, and touched up the next morning with the customer's paint.

References

• The flooring, adhesive and finish makers' instructions for cure times before protection is laid on a new surface
• OSHA 29 CFR 1926.1153, respirable crystalline silica in construction, for the tool-level dust controls used in place of exhausting the zone
• See related: Job Site Setup and Floor Protection; The Old Floor Removal and Disposal SOP; The Lead-Safe Floor Work SOP; Silica Dust in Flooring Work