Joint Compound Under Carpet For Gaps.

mechanix

hi im new to this forum and i just got my very basic contractors license to do handyman work. im currently tearing up carpet in a house and im going to do an acid stain on the concrete. well heres my problemo...

I understand that the stain will take different on the tack holes from the carpet strip once i fill them in. but on this house that is only one year old there are 5 or 6 3 inch gouges in the floor that the home builder just filled in with freakin joint compound. it looks like they dropped some lumber when they where building the house and did the fastest thing possible to cover it up. my plan is obviously just to remove the joint compound and patch like i would the tack strips. ill just have to get creative with the stain to blend it as good as possible.

my customer understands but are there any standards for home builders with this sort of thing? and action that can be taken? i mean, thats kinda cheap. joint compound can mold for one thing... it does not belong under carpet. well anyways, any knowlodge of this issue would be helpful. thanks.
_Dustin in phoenix_

Glasshousebltr

Well Dustin ......... a year is a little too late to make anyone do crap about it. So disregard my advice on your other post. Your just going to have to deal with it.

__________________
Bob

mechanix

ok thanks bob. i thought so. its just so sleezy it makes me think if i buy a new house to get home inspections done before the walls go up and the carpet goes down.

thom

There are floor patch compounds that will look like joint compounds when installed.

Gouges in concrete slabs are quite common, if you had any significant experience you would have expected them. The problem is not the original contractor. The problem is you didn't know what to expect then communicated your erroneous expectations to the homeowner.

They could come from nails on lumber (like using a nailer and getting a nail in crooked), a plumber scraping his iron pipe, a ladder with worn legs, etc.

There are many other things that can screw this up. It is pretty common for there to be blobs of liquid nails on the slab. Though the blobs would be scraped prior to carpeting, the remaining glue will never stain properly. Could be tar scuffs from a roofer, white glue, pvc cement or cleaner, etc. If you had experience in construction, you would know that clean stainable slabs are the exception, not the rule.