upset w/thomsons sealer

D

Don Yates

New member
I cleaned a new garage slab floor for a customer(which is out in the open,new const.) anyway when it came time for sealing the job out comes the customer with 2 gallons of Thomsons all purpose sealer:eek: so anyway I try explaining how I feel thay should use a 'cure and seal" type sealer,but thay don't want to spend anymore money since thay already have the thomsons and insist on using it...:rolleyes: so I apply the thomsons crap...and wouldn't you know it 2 weeks go buy and the phone rings...seems the sealer never really dried and left the surface oilly with a tacky film,and thay want me to "fix the problem"....so anyone have any ideas how to get this crap off...will it require hot water? I only have a cold water unit as I mainly focus on wood. any help would nice..thanks in advance.
 
Don, I had the same thing happen a few years back on a tile porch with the same sealer. The way we removed it was with a degreaser and hot water. Try a good degreaser first and if that will not remove it I would rent a hot unit this time.You were right about the cure & seal. We use a pure acrylic sealer for this type concrete. Feel free to call me for more details. We have a product that can be applied with the Deckhand. Let me know how you handle this situation. I only used the product you used twice and had the same results both times.
 
You need to make sure the next time you're in that situation that your customer learns who the professional cleaner is and who the uninformed customer is. You let the customer run the show in this situation and it ended up costing you money having to fix it in the end. At minimum you should have had the customer write out a waiver in his own handwriting and sign it saying that he demanded you use inferior products to seal his garage and that any results were HIS responsibility not yours. He just spent a few hundred thousand on a house and he's trying to save a few pennies on sealer? We don't even do these kinds of jobs, we just walk away from them.

Last year we ran into customers on 7 different occasions that demanded we use crap like Thompsons on their decks and as a sealer on their cement to "save money". I refused and told them to either put it on themselves or find somebody who would be willing to ruin their decks or driveway with it. I actually walked out of each deal and politely told them to call us when they wanted it done by a professional company using professional products. One guy stopped me as I pulled out of his driveway and apologized for thinking he knew more than us. Three others called us back after they screwed their decks up and we ended up charging them double to fix what they did and redo it the right way. We would have had another guy, but his pride got in the way and he about lost his mind when I doubled the cost to fix what he screwed up and his wife started yelling at him in the back yard. It was pretty comical to watch.

Just remember, you are the professional. Your customer just got through watching Bob Villa on HGTV or was talking with the "experts" at Home Depot and now he thinks he's an expert. Don't let them push you to do things that go against what you know is the proper way to do something.
 
Lance, Your right, Home Depot generates a lot of business for us that way. They will tell anyone how easy it is when they haven't got a clue. We too redo a lot of jobs homeowners or the fly by night guys do. You always get what you pay for.
 
Don,
I would charge that customer a good penny to fix that problem and if he said no then he can worry about it. You told him that he should not have that product put down and he still demanded it.
And now he has the audacity to tell you to "Fix IT". Yea no problem but I told you the stuff is crap and now its going to cost XXX amount of dollars to fix it and I want the money up front. End of story.

Its a shame that you put on that stuff after you told the guy its crap. Thats a lesson to be learned here. Don't put on anything that you don't believe in and walk away from the job if the potential customer demands it. The headache is just not worth it.
 
I dont see it as your responsibility to fix the job.........

I have had similar experiences to Lance.........I just won't use products like that.



Does this guy feel you are responsible for this problem?? If so, I guess you will have to try your best to fix it for him........if not, tell him to go somewhere else...........he'll probably be one problem after another.
 
Call thompson up and explain what happen to there product and let them tell you what to do, Insist to them that they send you the proper products to remove the product. After you are done removing it. Tell the customer to do it themself. They might want there money back. It is your call on how you want to handle that part. Good luck. When someone wants to use there product and I want to do the job I make them sign a wavier saying that I am not responsiable on the performanc of the product.


Charlie
 
well, I called Thomsons and thay say that it was basicly my problem by saying i probaly put it down wrong or whatever..bottom line thay were no help,also I wasn't the one that purchased the product so that didn't help , so I decieded to just refund the sealing part of the money and considerate a lesson learned although I already knew of this lesson..so much for mr. nice guy. I agree with lance and mike as I will never use something I don't recommend anymore.
 
Last edited:
That's typical of a company like Thompsons, make a crappy product and put a guarantee on your bottles but make it so tough to prove that it was the product that nobody can ever use the warranty. They just blame you that you didn't apply it right. That's why we use the best products we can find. I know that even if a product fails, the manufacturer is only going to replace the product, not the labor. You can rest assured that I won't be out there redoing a job simply because the damn product failed because the customer wanted to go cheap. We've only had to redo 2 jobs in the time we've been in business, but both times it was a result of using products that we thought were good, but learned later that they weren't up to our standards. So now we use the top of the line products, charge our customers more money and everybody's happy with the result.
 
We have all been through it. Seems like you have a good attitude toward that situation. Good Luck.

Charlie
 
thanks for everyones input,I first considered cleaning with a degreaser and resealing but after giving it some thought on everyones input I felt the best bet was to refund and move on..no sense in opening up a can of worms.
 
What products do you guys recommend? And who wants to seal concrete anyway? Is this common practice..(i am new to the biz, so ...any comments would be appreciatted.)
 
Alot of people seal concrete............but it depends on what part of the coutry you're in.............here, it is not as common............

One of the best concrete sealers is V-Seal.
 
Here the big "thing" now is dyed and stamped and sealed concrete. The true color of the dye doesn't release until it is sealed.

reed
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top