New Industrial Concrete Floor Warranties: Who Provides Them?

Guarantees and warranties are pretty similar. In fact, a guarantee is defined as “a formal promise or assurance (typically in writing) that certain conditions will be fulfilled, especially that a product will be repaired or replaced if not of a specified quality and durability.” Sounds like a warranty to us.

The only question is, who provides the warranty? Who deals with warranty issues? When it comes to industrial concrete floors, it’s usually the floor contractor. Floor contractors want to build trust with their customers and do so by backing up their work via a warranty. To truly understand the guaranteed aspect of warranties, it’s helpful to delve deeper into learning about who provides them.

Who Owns Your Warranty?

There are floor contractors that own the warranty of the industrial concrete floor, because they do all the work with employees on their staff. Then there are floor contractors that use subcontractors — for laying of the rebar, pouring of the concrete, etc. — in order to complete a job and may or may not take responsibility for the warranty. This can be problematic if you run into any warranty issues, as we’ll discuss later.

Basically, you want to deal directly with the floor contractor who owns your warranty, not a subcontractor. For more insight on this, read what Susan Linden McGreevy, an attorney specialized in construction law, had to say in an article for the American Bar Association (ABA):

“It would be a rare situation indeed to find a subcontract that was drafted with the terms of a specific prime contract in mind. Subcontracts are generally ‘canned’ documents (whether a standard form or custom drafted for the contractor) and contain some type of warranty clause. As a result, the odds that the warranties in the subcontract and the prime contract will fit together are lower than the odds of being hit by a meteor. In those cases in which the owner does not shorten the warranty obligation of the general contractor, the general contractor, in its zeal to make its subcontract language crystal clear, will often bind the subcontractor to a one-year warranty, ‘notwithstanding any other term to the contrary in the Prime Contract.’”

Who Deals with Warranty Issues?

Since you want the floor contractor to own your warranty, you obviously want them to deal with any warranty issues as well. If there is a subcontractor involved, the floor contractor can blame the subcontractor and finger pointing ensues, causing frustration and a longer resolution time.

Ideally, your facility manager should be the one that maintains communication about the warranty with the floor contractor. If there are any warranty repairs involved, however, that’s when you should get involved as the building owner.

Why Warranties Build Trust

Obviously, warranties build trust if the contractor feels confident enough in their work to stand behind it with a warranty. But they also give the contractor an opportunity to build trust in other ways. For example, a reputable floor contractor may delay the construction schedule for a project if there are any potential problems with the slab to ensure quality installation. No one likes delays, but it shows the contractor is serious about perfecting the floor and avoiding any potential warranty issues. 

As you can see, knowing who provides the warranty for your new industrial concrete floor gives you peace of mind and builds trust. When choosing a floor contractor for your facility, be sure they own the warranty and will deal with any issues. Then you can enjoy a trusting business relationship and a worry-free warranty.