January 30/February 6, 2017: Volume 31, Number 17
By Nicole Murray
Las Vegas—Schönox announced the winners of its 3rd annual Schönox Worst Subfloor Contest at TISE 2017, reporting the highest number of entries received since the inception of the competition.
First-place winner Carpets Direct of Walton, Ky., took on a 70-year-old building with an engineered hardwood floor that would be glued in place. The major challenge was the massive amount of subflooring that existed underneath. “A combination of Schönox products were used to level the subfloor allowing the client’s chosen flooring specification to be installed successfully,” said AJ Roberto, territory sales manager, CDC Distributors.
Sprague Floor Covering, based in Dover, N.H., earned second place by attacking severe moisture issues that were originally addressed with patching and VCT. By using Schönox’s moisture fail-mitigation systems, the subfloor conditions were able to be restored.
Third place was awarded to Greer’s Flooring America from Evansville, Ind., for a 5,500-square-foot commercial real estate project in which installers had to contend with loose quarry tile, lightweight concrete and trenches. However, with Schönox’s self-leveling compound, a strong and smooth subfloor was able to provide a strong base for the new project.
The goal of the program, according to the company, is to bring awareness to what horrible subfloors can do to the product installed on top of a poor substrate. “We want to bring awareness to everyone in the market of what we are putting underneath because everyone’s first instinct is to simply put a patch down when there is an issue,” said Karen Bellinger, business development manager, Schönox. “It is important to have a nice and new subfloor that can support the gorgeous LVT that goes on top.”
Two second-time judges participated and rated each project impartially by not being told who completed which entries but by solely being educated on the facts of the before and after of each project. First-, second- and third-place winners were awarded Schönox dollars and their corresponding installation teams won Dewalt tools, Yeti coolers and weekend trips to Las Vegas.