What we need on site: power, water, access, timing
Last updated:
What we need on site is five things: power, water, a way to get the machines to the floor, somewhere to put the waste, and a few hours where the floor belongs to us and nobody else. That is the entire list. None of it is exotic, and every one of them turns into money when it gets discovered on the morning of instead of settled on the phone weeks ahead.
Here is what each one actually means, and what it costs when it is missing.
Power the crew can tie into
More than a household outlet, less than most people fear. Small jobs generally run off 2 dedicated circuits, or panel access so the crew can tie in. When a building has no dedicated service, we carry gear that bridges 2 ordinary circuits into 1 heavier feed, which covers most older houses without an electrician ever getting involved.
Large commercial floors are a different conversation. Several machines run at once, some of it heavier 3-phase equipment, and the tie-in point needs to sit reasonably close to the work.
Exact voltage and amperage depend on which machines your job calls for, so we confirm it for your specific site rather than quoting a number off a spec sheet. If you would rather not stand in the middle of it, tell us your electrician’s number and we will settle it with them directly. The first contractor we put that offer to in writing took us up on it the next morning.
No power on site is a real cost
When a site cannot supply power, the crew brings a generator and fuel, and that lands on your invoice as its own line. One phone call weeks ahead tells you whether temporary power will be live in time.
Water within hose reach
A working spigot the crew can reach with a hose. An exterior tap is fine. Wet grinding and honing use water continuously, but there is no exotic volume requirement and no special hookup.
No water at all is the problem. On 1 logged job the crew hauled it in 35 gallons at a time, and every one of those hours came out of the floor instead of going into it. On another project the customer could not supply water and made the call to drop 2 exterior areas from the scope rather than pay to haul it. That was the right decision. It would just have been a better one three weeks earlier.
Getting the machines to the floor
A truck and trailer have to reach the work, and the path from the trailer to the floor cannot include stairs. We unload machines that run 600 pounds and more off a trailer. They need a flat path to the floor, because there is not enough muscle on any crew to carry that up a flight. Stairs are a hard stop.
On commercial work there is a second half to access: getting in and out. A key or an entry code for early and late hours changes what the crew can accomplish in a week. The building also has to lock, because the equipment stays on site between working days.
Somewhere for the slurry and the waste
Wet polishing makes mud. That is not a defect, it is the process. The crew suspends the slurry in a fiber-sieve bag so water filters out during production, then drops the bag into the waste container once it dries. One logged session produced 25 gallons of mud.
So the site supplies a dumpster, sitting on concrete, as close to a roll-up door as the layout allows. Every extra step between the machine and the container is a step somebody takes fifty times a day.
One warning outranks the rest of this section. Coating material that reaches a floor drain cures inside the line and does not flush out. Protecting drains and penetrations before work starts is a standing instruction for our crews, and skipping it turns a mop-up into a plumber’s invoice.
What the floor looks like when we pull up
We send commercial clients a short readiness list before the crew rolls, so nothing on it arrives as a surprise:
- Equipment, supplies, tools, and trash out of the work area, and out by 1300 the afternoon before rather than the morning of.
- Loose items off the floor entirely. Wall-mounted plumbing fixtures can stay right where they are.
- Control joints and cracks DRY before joint fill goes in. We write it in capitals, and we mean it.
- Door braces, shims, and temporary steel bracing welded, grouted, and removed, so heavy machines can move between rooms.
Rain stops exterior work. We treat that as part of the schedule from the start, not as an excuse added afterward.
The most common problem is none of the above. It is extension cords and tools left scattered by whoever worked last, which turns clean full-length passes into short broken ones all day long.
Where the floor belongs in your build schedule
The ideal window opens once the structure is dried in: framed, roof on, windows in, insulation installed, electrical and plumbing rough-in complete, drywall not yet up. Coming in after drywall works too, and we settle that with the builder around everybody else’s dates.
The hard deadline is trim. We have to reach the wall edge before cabinets and trim go in, or you lose the clean reveal at the floor and there is no getting it back later. A typical residential job runs about 2 weeks start to finish, so that is the block to find in the calendar.
When the floor is finished, it gets covered for the rest of the build with cardboard, Ram Board, or heavy construction paper.
If you are a builder sorting this out for the first time, how we fit into a build lays out the whole handoff. If your client has not picked a finish yet, send them how to choose a concrete floor before the selections meeting rather than after it.
Can other trades work while we are working?
During some stages, yes, with no real problem. During others the floor is ours, and sealing is the clearest example. Limited foot traffic during wet stages is fine as long as nobody is tracking in mud, gravel, or sand and other trades’ tools are off the floor. The stages that need an empty floor are short, often 3 to 4 hours rather than days, and we name them for your specific job so they get scheduled instead of discovered.
Here is the builder version of it. Imagine your plumber trying to rough in pex lines while the drywall guys hang rock ahead of him. It slows the plumber down. THEN the drywall guy has to come back and re-hang drywall. Now repeat that 5 times. It costs EVERYBODY time and money. You don’t do that, right?
A roofer can work on the roof while electricians pull wire. A plumber can set fixtures while trim guys install cabs. Not cozy. But possible. A floor guy can’t put sealer down while plumbers track back and forth across the floor, the same way your painters couldn’t paint the walls while the customer hung pictures.
Put real numbers on it. An 8,000 square foot floor needing 2 coats of sealer: we have the people and the equipment to finish that in 1 day if the floor is ours for the day. Now load cabinets into half the building and start electricians setting fixtures in the back. We work partials for 3 days instead.
The floor’s in-service date slips at least 2 days and probably 3. Cabinet install stretches. Every trade on site works partial, inefficient days. Total project time typically grows 3 to 4 days, and nobody bought anything with that time.
Who eats the cost when the schedule slips
This is the first of our pro tips for a reason: do not call and ask for the best scheduling for efficiency, then do something different, and then complain about the loss of efficiency.
The principle is simple. Whoever made the scheduling decision owns the cost of it, not the floor crew. In practice we absorb a fair amount of that slack instead of billing for lost time, because that is how you stay on somebody’s call list for the next building.
What changes the math is getting blamed for a delay we did not cause. That is why the crew keeps daily time logs, photos, and documentation on every job. Not to build a case. To have one if somebody else starts building theirs.
So let’s be friends.
Five questions to have ready when you call
- What power is available, and when does it go live?
- Is there a working water spigot within hose reach?
- Can a truck and trailer reach the floor without stairs or a tight interior corridor?
- Where does a dumpster sit?
- Which trades are scheduled around the floor work, and who controls that schedule?
Answer those five and we can tell you where the floor belongs in your build, what it takes to get it right, and what it costs to put it there.
