A work acquaintance gave us a quote of £200 to lay approx 7-8sq metres of solid oak flooring - we'll say 10sq metres to be generous, I may be underestimating.
[EDIT 27/03: I think I have underestimated slightly and in actual fact it's approx 9-10sq metres he would have laid.]
We have a moisture issue in the floor as our cottage is 350 years old. Needless to say when he came, he did say he didn't know whether he could just lay on top of what was there, or whether he'd need to screed a layer of self-levelling compound first.
We have oak on top of a parquet floor which itself is on to of plastic tiles. He and mate had to pull up the 5sq metres of parquet floor and plastic tiles (simple) and screed a layer of self-levelling compound. Although he arrived at approx 9:00am he didn't start until approx 9:30am and left approx 11:30am.
The floorer wanted to glue the solid oak to the floor in the lounge and the kitchen (which had also incidentally been screed with self-levelling compound 12 months ago). The floorer asked us to buy the glue and told us to go to B&Q and ask for flexible glue - to paraphrase slightly "there's only one and they'll know exactly which one you're talking about".
The local wood yard who sold us the oak advised "I know the glue you want and the only way to describe it is it's like snot. It's very expensive and it comes in a big tin but we don't sell it."
So we called the floorer back and he directed us to a timber merchants in town. The floorer sent us to the wrong branch of two branches in town - the non-flooring branch. When we got to the correct branch the floorer was asking the guy at the timber merchants over the phone for his advice as to what glue he had, how flexible the glue he had was, and what the moisture tolerance was. As a colleague of mine at work pointed out - "You would have thought the floorer would have known exactly the glue he would have wanted and asked for it by name. The bloke in the wood shop isn't a floorer and you would expect the floorer to know the exact glue he wanted."
We bought Laybond L16 (as directed to buy the floorer) - I had not looked at the label myself and blindly put my faith in the guy at the timber merchants and the floorer. It was pointed out to me on this forum by mointainwalker that Laybond L16 is not flexible but is in fact Rigid - I then looked at the label which confirmed this. I pointed this out to the floorer who cam around t the house and after spending 30 seconds reading the label turned to me and said where does it say rigid - I pointed with my finger to the word RIGID. Ahhh says the floorer "but it depends on what they mean by rigid, I mean how rigid is rigid?" - well it's rigid I said.
In the meantime I'd come up with alternatives myself like Laybond L19 and Sikabond T54 and also Elastilon, which I personally wanted to use. So we agreed he would use Elastilon because he had used Laybond L19 and Sikabond T54 before and also Elastilon (why he did not tell us this originally we do not know).
Unfortunately the self-levelling compound didn't dry as quickly as everyone thought including the floorer and I asked for a delay in work to start. Over a number of weeks he came 3 or 4 times to read the floor, however there were times when he said he would come and he didn't. Sometimes he had a prior engagement like his daughter's birthday party which he had forgotten about. Sometimes he said he would call to read the floor and then did not, but he did not call to say why or apologise. Although he did say his daughter had fallen and was at A&E for a short time.
Time was dragging on and when he agreed he would come he said "next week", but when that week arrived he did not come and he did not return two of my wife's calls. When she saw him he said he had been "very busy" and he said he would come "next week" again. However based on past history of unreliability we could not believe this, as he had agreed with me that he would order the Elastilon himself, and then call me so that I could call the firm and pay for it. This call never came so a promise of Monday work would seem to be bull as he didn't have the materials as far as we knew. I felt we had to move the job on and get someone else - at the end of the day we felt we had missed out slot with him so to speak and that he was busy with other work, and he only felt obligated to continue just because my wife worked with his wife.
On the Sunday this guy phoned about 10 times, obviously agitated that he had missed our call and the accompanying message telling him he was now not on the job. When we did eventually speak he said he had intended to come on the Monday anyway (yesterday) - too little, too late.
His invoice has now turned up at £150 for 2 hours work of laying approx 5sq metres of self-levelling compound, £50 of which is for 3 visits (he believes 7) to inspect the floor to ascertain if it was ready (it wasn't).
What does anyone think with regards to the invoice price please? Your comments would be welcomed.....
[EDIT 27/03: I think I have underestimated slightly and in actual fact it's approx 9-10sq metres he would have laid.]
We have a moisture issue in the floor as our cottage is 350 years old. Needless to say when he came, he did say he didn't know whether he could just lay on top of what was there, or whether he'd need to screed a layer of self-levelling compound first.
We have oak on top of a parquet floor which itself is on to of plastic tiles. He and mate had to pull up the 5sq metres of parquet floor and plastic tiles (simple) and screed a layer of self-levelling compound. Although he arrived at approx 9:00am he didn't start until approx 9:30am and left approx 11:30am.
The floorer wanted to glue the solid oak to the floor in the lounge and the kitchen (which had also incidentally been screed with self-levelling compound 12 months ago). The floorer asked us to buy the glue and told us to go to B&Q and ask for flexible glue - to paraphrase slightly "there's only one and they'll know exactly which one you're talking about".
The local wood yard who sold us the oak advised "I know the glue you want and the only way to describe it is it's like snot. It's very expensive and it comes in a big tin but we don't sell it."
So we called the floorer back and he directed us to a timber merchants in town. The floorer sent us to the wrong branch of two branches in town - the non-flooring branch. When we got to the correct branch the floorer was asking the guy at the timber merchants over the phone for his advice as to what glue he had, how flexible the glue he had was, and what the moisture tolerance was. As a colleague of mine at work pointed out - "You would have thought the floorer would have known exactly the glue he would have wanted and asked for it by name. The bloke in the wood shop isn't a floorer and you would expect the floorer to know the exact glue he wanted."
We bought Laybond L16 (as directed to buy the floorer) - I had not looked at the label myself and blindly put my faith in the guy at the timber merchants and the floorer. It was pointed out to me on this forum by mointainwalker that Laybond L16 is not flexible but is in fact Rigid - I then looked at the label which confirmed this. I pointed this out to the floorer who cam around t the house and after spending 30 seconds reading the label turned to me and said where does it say rigid - I pointed with my finger to the word RIGID. Ahhh says the floorer "but it depends on what they mean by rigid, I mean how rigid is rigid?" - well it's rigid I said.
In the meantime I'd come up with alternatives myself like Laybond L19 and Sikabond T54 and also Elastilon, which I personally wanted to use. So we agreed he would use Elastilon because he had used Laybond L19 and Sikabond T54 before and also Elastilon (why he did not tell us this originally we do not know).
Unfortunately the self-levelling compound didn't dry as quickly as everyone thought including the floorer and I asked for a delay in work to start. Over a number of weeks he came 3 or 4 times to read the floor, however there were times when he said he would come and he didn't. Sometimes he had a prior engagement like his daughter's birthday party which he had forgotten about. Sometimes he said he would call to read the floor and then did not, but he did not call to say why or apologise. Although he did say his daughter had fallen and was at A&E for a short time.
Time was dragging on and when he agreed he would come he said "next week", but when that week arrived he did not come and he did not return two of my wife's calls. When she saw him he said he had been "very busy" and he said he would come "next week" again. However based on past history of unreliability we could not believe this, as he had agreed with me that he would order the Elastilon himself, and then call me so that I could call the firm and pay for it. This call never came so a promise of Monday work would seem to be bull as he didn't have the materials as far as we knew. I felt we had to move the job on and get someone else - at the end of the day we felt we had missed out slot with him so to speak and that he was busy with other work, and he only felt obligated to continue just because my wife worked with his wife.
On the Sunday this guy phoned about 10 times, obviously agitated that he had missed our call and the accompanying message telling him he was now not on the job. When we did eventually speak he said he had intended to come on the Monday anyway (yesterday) - too little, too late.
His invoice has now turned up at £150 for 2 hours work of laying approx 5sq metres of self-levelling compound, £50 of which is for 3 visits (he believes 7) to inspect the floor to ascertain if it was ready (it wasn't).
What does anyone think with regards to the invoice price please? Your comments would be welcomed.....
