Here is an interesting situation that we were confronted with the other day. Lately, it seems we get these types of situations on a regular basis. A flooring contractor was storing, before installation, the gross amount of carpet material ordered for a project. His client was questioning why he had to pay for all of the material storage if he was only going to be installing some of it.

The sizes of the cuts to be installed were 10X10-1/4-ft. The size of the material necessary to achieve these cuts is 12X10-1/4-ft. The gross size of this product would have to be 12 feet by whatever length the roll came in and however much material is necessary to cover the total square yardage needed.

The client didn’t think he should have to pay for storing more carpet than he was actually going to use. The dealer asked us if there was a published industry standard for storage of material. He was told there is no standard and I thought his client’s request was ridiculous. Who does this kind of thing? I thought I’d share this since many of you may have gotten the same kind of goofy request.

Carpet comes in standard widths of 6-, 12-, 13-1/6-, 13-1/2-, 15-ft., or anywhere in between if necessary depending on your custom desires. Most common is 12-ft. wide. Regardless of what you need for a job you have to order the standard size. As a result, there is always going to be overage, waste and scrap material. The same would be true of wallpaper, lumber or any type of yard goods.

The customer gets charged for what is ordered not just what is installed or used. When you see a new house being built, you also see scraps of lumber, brick, roofing material and so on. The homeowner has to pay for it all; you don’t walk around picking up the scrap and asking for a credit on it. The same is true of paying for what is ordered with flooring material and storing it, if applicable.

There is waste in packaged flooring material as well, such as vinyl tile, ceramic, stone, wood and laminate. The customer pays for what is in the box. If they order volumes of it and it’s stored prior to installation and storage fees are part of the sale, they pay for storing all the material, not just what will ultimately be used.

All of this is standard practice in the industry. It is not a set guideline and there are no established standards but it is a common, everyday, reasonably understood business practice. In this case, the dealer’s client wanted proof this was standard practice so we wrote a letter that describes how the industry functions relative to paying for what is ordered for the installation and thus what would be stored for the order if it was sizeable and to be undertaken over a period of time or the job had to wait for whatever reason.

If customers are going to be this picky and absurd just think what they could be like when the product actually gets installed. It might be a nightmare you don’t want to have. This may be more of an issue to most of you relative to waste on a job as opposed to material storage for a job. Most flooring dealers don’t charge for storing materials, unless you’re involved in commercial type work or large projects.

At that point you may include storage just to get the job or it may be standard practice to charge storage because you do so much of this type of work. We’d be more apt to see a customer complain or question material waste on a job. This is one of the reasons so many dealers try to measure the job as close as possible.

I’d rather have more waste with a better layout and less seaming, if possible, and then explain to the customer why it was done this way and what the alternative would have been. Most people will accept and understand if you explain your actions and reasoning, especially if it’s ultimately to their benefit.

People can sometimes be very unreasonable and question what you may think is unquestionable or common thought for you. One thing I’ve always tried to be conscious of is, explaining what’s going on instead of assuming a customer knows. They only buy floor covering on occasion or have a problem on occasion or may be new to the whole process, so you have to be flexible in dealing with them, almost like starting over with each new client.