Minding The Gap
Read Video Transcript and Main Points Addressed Below
You’re never going to hear me stop talking about gapping. It’s really important. Our panels are made from a polymeric material, it’s plastic. They expand, and they contract. Now, you can offset expansion, and we do. With different fillers, and different additives that we put in. But, these additives get expensive, and we try to make a product that would hardly expand at all, you folks wouldn’t want to buy it because it’s going to be way too expensive. We do the very, very best we can, so we’re trying to balance it.
Gapping Is Never Going Away – Gap According to Temperatures When Installing
But, all this can be taken care of if you just install it properly. You’ll notice now that when we send out our pallets, there’s a sheet on here, both in English and in Spanish, that talks about the installation and warning you that you’ve got to think about the gapping side. I mean, it’s real simple. When it’s hot, you gap it a little less. When it’s cold, you’ve got to gap it full bore. We explain all this, because if you don’t, you will have a problem with the panels wanting to lift. When they expand, they have nowhere to go, especially with a Champion Panel. Now, when installed properly, it doesn’t happen. I don’t want you to walk away saying, “Well, it’s a flawed product.” Completely opposite. It is a great product. It works extremely well. I could take you to a 70,000 square foot field right down the street that’s here in the summer in Florida at 98 degrees, and it’s as flat as a billiard table. Why? Because they installed it properly. They left the proper gappings in the winter when they installed it in anticipation.
You’ve got to pay attention to this. I know it’s hard, especially in the big areas. You’ve got workers out there. Some of them, you may not know. They might be day laborers, it might be volunteers. But, you as the owner, you as the foreman, the customer, have to make sure that the gapping procedures are being followed. We don’t want you to have problems. You may not believe us. It sickens me when I see it, because I know it’s not necessary, and we don’t want you to have to go back and fix something because as soon as you go in and then fix it, it’s done, it’s solved. Why do it the second time around? Let’s concentrate our efforts on installing properly, get the panels positioned where they need to be, and all this is a moot point.
We’re Here to Help – Call Us If You Need More Clarity or Have Issues
But, we are going to, we’re reiterating this not only on the pallets, but on your invoices, your purchase orders. Everything that’s coming to you as far as from our office, it’s going to be mentioning about the importance of gapping. Please, if you have any questions about it, you’re still not sure, call us. I’ve got guys now who thought that they were doing it right, and they finally called and said, “Oh, I didn’t realize I had to do this.” Well, please, that’s what Scott Ford, and myself, and my team, we’re here to help you. Let’s get this done right the first time, because none of us want to go back again and fix a project, and I don’t want to hear about it, and you don’t want to hear about it. Let’s get it done right the first time, and we’re all going to be in great shape.
