Advice needed with a very difficult tiler! :(

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Hello all.

We have employed a tiler to do our bathroom and floor tiles. We bought the tiles ourselves from a tile supplier. We measured the room prior to getting the tiles. When the tiler turned up we asked him if there were enough tiles. He looked briefly at the boxes and said yes.

When the day came to starting the job, he said that there were not enough tiles for the floor. Frustratingly, we went and bought 3 more packs on his advice (£50 each). The tiler delayed until the extra tiles came. He has since put the tiles down and he is due to come back to grout and put the units in to the bathroom.

Once the cement had set, we went into the bathroom and discovered a pretty horrific sight. Please see photos. 5 or 6 of the tiles are way off and at least half of the tiles are not level. (Confirmed with spirit level and some quite bad). This is despite him putting down ply wood and putting the orange plastic mesh down prior to tiling.

This is where things get interesting... When we sent the pictures to the tiler, he called us and said that 'tiling that floor broke my heart'. When we asked him why, he said that the tiles were not rectified. He went on to say that the size of the tiles were different (0.5mm or 5mm we cannot remember) and that he made the decision to continue trying to lay them despite knowing that they were not the right size. He did not bring this up with us despite being in the house at the time and he would never have brought it up if we had not.

As far as I can tell, if there is a defect with the tiles, then we have lost our right to return since all of the tiles have been laid and to remove them would mean damaging them. The tiler has also admitted that he continued the job despite knowing from the start that they were different sizes . We are now in the position where the tiler is telling us once the grout goes in then it will look fine and we won't notice it since the grout is a similar colour.

To add insult to injury, we did not need the extra boxes. We needed one extra box as there are 6 full tiles left over without the box. (£100)

My questions for the experts are the following;


1. Would the tiles being different sizes cause these amount of defects in the tiler's workmanship or is this an excuse to a rushed job?

2. Do we have a legal right to request that the tiler take up all of the tiles, pay for the replacements and start again?


3. If the tiles are off in size (which from looking and measuring, I think they are) do I have a come back with the tile company? Are they ultimately responsible despite the tiler's inexcusable decision to not bring this issue up with us prior to tiling and allow us to go back to the tile company right away?

The tiler has agreed to come back and to remove the 5 or 6 tiles that are not correct however it is being made clear by the tiler that as far as he is concerned, the tile company is responsible and so we need to buy the extra tiles to put down as he will not cover this cost. The extra 2 boxes left over, according to him, are the wrong size.

If it is any help, the tiles are Inara™ Cloud Porcelain Tiles 60.5cm x 60.5 cm.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read and to respond. We're really needing some direction here as you can imagine.
 

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Are the tiles centralised in the roomor do they start along one wall with a full tile.

How did you find the tiler - online trade website or was it a local recommendation
 
Can you get a tape measure and actually measure the tiles yourself, rather than just take his words that are being used in defense of what looks like a poor job.

Also, what has the size of the tiles got to do with them being level/same height?

Something smells to me.
 
I have attached more photos, hopefully this helps regarding question about layout.
 

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Are the tiles centralised in the roomor do they start along one wall with a full tile.

How did you find the tiler - online trade website or was it a local recommendation

Hopefully this helps. Someone local took on the job.
 

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Can you get a tape measure and actually measure the tiles yourself, rather than just take his words that are being used in defense of what looks like a poor job.

Also, what has the size of the tiles got to do with them being level/same height?

Something smells to me.
I am going to arrange to pay another very reputable tiler to come out and access this job to get a clear understand whether it is the tiles of the workmanship.
 
If tiles are different sizes ( had this problem with a bathroom) then all the grout lines have to be increased to accommodate which results in the tiles not being directly in line. Grout will improve appearance but doesn’t look to be a great job.
 
Different batch tiles can be slightly different size.
I had that a couple of times.
In any case, that's a poor job.
 
Poor, looks like he started on right hand top corner and didn't allow for wall run out.

If tiles are different sizes then he should have measured them before fitting to verify a good finish.
 
We had exactly the same problem with our bathroom floor tiles. Luckily for us, we knew the tiler and he checked and noticed it before he started and gave us the choice of taking them back or, in his words, "I can feck about with the grout lines and you won’t notice it unless you really look for it”. We chose the latter and he was right, you can’t notice it but those tiles in the picture really have been badly laid.
 
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The person who laid these tiles is not a tiler! He does not appear to have a wet wheel tile cutter and he is unable to drill holes for pipes to go through the tiles. I suspect he wanted extra tiles because he knew he was bad and would have a high level of wasted tiles. Phrases like "it broke my heart laying these tiles" are well rehearsed to appeal to your compassion, I hope you didn't pay him in full because the only way to get a nice job from that is to break up what is down and start again
 
All of the tiles in the right of your picture should have had about 1/3 cut off. As well as allowing a cut edge to the wall (because the room will not have exact 90 degree angles like the tiles will) this would have allowed the same size of cut tile to the left of the room. This would allow for a 2/3rds of a tile down each side. I suspect your "tiler" laid his first tiles along the wall then the next row along that, compounding the bad grout lines as he went!
 
If you look at the 2nd batch of pics you posted (11.02pm) specifically the 2nd and 3rd pic, if I'm right the tile top right is at the corner of the room i.e. last in the run? So why not just move it to the right slightly to make the size difference less obvious. It's the last in the run, he could have aligned the edge to adjacent tiles better even if they are slightly different sizes. If he's a professional tiler and if the tiles are varied in size, he's not made the best job of finding a happy medium. All that aside, if he's a pro, why didn't he mention this to you pre starting the work? If you'd then elected to say 'bash on' then fair enough.
 
No, not acceptable. Had a kitchen tiled with handmade tiles (= inconsistent sizing) fortunately the tiler was very experienced and was able to balance the gaps so everything appeared consistent.
 
he put the short cuts in the direct eyeline of people walking through the door:LOL:.
bit of a shocker that is as a whole , but agree with the point about it looking better grouted.
tiles that vary in size? at £50 a box? don’t think so.
 

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