INSTALL, the International Standards and Training Alliance, is marking its 25th anniversary with a new strategic priority: performance assurance. The move is aimed at bringing documented training and installer qualifications to the commercial flooring procurement process “so contractors, specifiers and owners know exactly who will install their floors before a project goes out to bid,” according to INSTALL.
In commercial construction, the absence of a credentialed standard at the procurement stage represents a systemic risk, INSTALL added. “Installation failures rarely trace back to the flooring itself,” said David Gross, INSTALL exec dir. “They stem from jobsite variables: substrate issues, jobsite management due to tight schedules and lack of sufficiently trained installers—both in number and competence—for the tasks at hand.”
Since its founding in 2001, INSTALL has trained tens of thousands of floorcovering professionals across 250 training centers in the U.S. and Canada, with roughly 11,000 installer members working in the industry. INSTALL’s Warranty on Labor—the only free, extended third-party labor warranty in floorcovering—has underwritten more than $2 billion in installations by INSTALL Warranty Contractors, with no claims filed.
“For 25 years, INSTALL has built its credibility through training, apprenticeship and certification,” Gross noted. “Our next goal is leveraging that quality assurance and establishing a procurement infrastructure where installer qualification is defined before the bid, mitigating variance and reducing risk.”
The new performance assurance priority builds off a Memorandum of Understanding INSTALL signed in 2017 with nine substrate and underlayment manufacturers—a collective, cross-industry agreement recognizing INSTALL Substrate Preparation training and certification as equal to their own. Installers who carry this certification are backed by a $25,000 INSTALL warranty covering the scope of work.
“The memorandum was early proof that specification language backed by manufacturer incentives can move the market toward credentialed labor,” Gross stated. “The goal now is to scale that model.”
Recruitment and retention remain a central priority for INSTALL. Alongside the United Brotherhood of Carpenters which invests roughly $250 million annually in training, INSTALL continues to produce highly trained installers who build careers in the trade through competitive pay, benefits and opportunities for advancement.
INSTALL’s Alliance Partners—comprising more than 130 mills, manufacturers and industry bodies—are also critical to the effort, Gross said. These partners participate in curriculum development, train-the-trainer events and standards-setting work alongside ASTM and institutional partners.
“Our manufacturing partners produce some of the finest flooring products in the world, but the customer doesn’t experience that value until a trained professional arrives on the jobsite,” Gross added. “It’s the INSTALL-certified installer who opens that packaging and transforms those materials into a finished floor. The next 25 years are about making that standard of performance not just preferred in commercial flooring—but expected.”
