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About Us
Early Days
Konopka Floor Sanding was founded in 1986 by Larry Konopka. Larry followed in his father's footsteps, developing an appreciation and knack for floor refinishing at a young age. Before starting Konopka, Larry managed Benson and Tasker’s floor refinishing division. During this time, he acquired the skills and experience to own and operate a successful business.
Establishing Roots
Under Larry’s direction, the business experienced rapid growth and success, developing a reputation for outstanding craftsmanship and unparalleled customer service. As one of New Hampshire’s premier wood floor refinishing companies, Konopka established many long-term relationships with homeowners, businesses, institutions, and municipalities throughout the state.
A Time for Transition
In 2024, Larry sold Konopka Floor Sanding to Chris Wardell of Wardell and Harper, a design-build company. As he transitions into “partial retirement,” Larry continues to work at the business, providing new employee training and project management services. Chris now carries the torch, maintaining the same commitment to excellence that has fueled Konopka Floor Sanding for nearly 40 years.
Our Mission Statement
Our Mission Statement details how we work, what our clients can expect, and what sets us apart from others in our industry.
Konopka Floor Sanding’s mission is to provide our clients with the best possible floor refinishing experience as a package, but also in terms of the finished product. We do not aim to provide the fastest product or the most cost-efficient product, but the best possible outcome and experience that we can produce for our clients. The way we do this boils down to a few main tenets and strategies.
From the start, we will answer client’s inquiries in a timely manner. We will schedule a meeting with clients to look at and discuss their project, and then execute at the scheduled time. We will do our best to make sure our client understands the entire process so they know what to expect before deciding on the presented options. If we need to make changes, we will communicate. After seeing a client’s project we will provide a firm estimate in a timely manner. Although some projects may uncover unforeseen labor, any additional cost will be discussed thoroughly with the client as early as possible and prior to the work occurring. We also aim to not have this be the case as much as possible. Once a client has scheduled a job with us, we will keep the lines of communication open, following up some time before the job begins to go over all details and answer any further questions our client has. Once we are scheduled to start the job we continue to keep the lines of communication open. If a schedule change occurs due to unforeseen circumstances, or if a refinisher falls behind and the timeline of the job changes, our clients are looped in as soon as we find we are unable to troubleshoot.
Konopka Floor Sanding does not rush projects. We do our level-headed best to schedule the appropriate amount of time for each job and we are very cautious about adding work to our schedule which could overwhelm our capacity, leaving us with unhappy clients whose projects we were unable to start or complete within the communicated time frame. Of course, the unexpected is to be expected, so we also attempt to leave some room in our schedule for that as well. Shortly, we do our best to make sure our client’s projects are started and finished within the stated timeframes. This is a major part of their experience and we take it seriously.
Leading from the prior point, we also do not rush projects in terms of production. Every wood floor has a different character, size, layout, species of wood, level of wear, and geometry. Simply put, every project is different and differing projects take differing amounts of production time. While we do our best to estimate this as closely as possible, at the moment, doing an excellent job can often take more time. We do not rush our refinishers through projects or try to adhere to unrealistic timelines. This means our refinishers can take the time to properly condition the surface for finishing, leading to a better product. There is never a question of “Do we have time to do this correctly.” We do.
Another aspect of our approach is to hire and retain employees we can trust. Some of them have been here for over 25 years. We aim to retain the employees we hire with paid-for insurance, salaried, non-exempt, positions, and a supportive work environment focused on quality craftsmanship as opposed to production speed. Furthermore, we attempt to structure our company in a way that promotes proper division of labor, along with work-life balance. The way we achieve this is by hiring employees for specified roles, such as sales, project management, office support, or direct refinishing labor. This allows us to function in a more effective manner, with each employee having a designated set of tasks they deal with, structured so they can keep on top of the volume of work. This allows us to provide a better customer experience as opposed to a company that has a single-owner-operator fulfilling all the aforementioned functions. Specific tasks can be completed on time with an appropriate level of care for our clients, which gives us an edge in terms of client experience. Retaining employees also gives us another advantage: in-house expertise. An employee's skill set is further invested in and refined by the employer and employee each year they stay on staff. Companies with excessive turnover end up losing this investment to other companies inside or outside of their current industry and this can lead to degraded quality of craftsmanship. This is something we do our best to avoid.We sincerely hope you’ll consider us for current and future projects!
