poor work

[garyrayne]

tiler has being doing my en-suite today and i have to say i' am fairly disappointed. it's not finished and it's not grouted and the bottom course isn't in, however the joints are not uniform and not all the tiles are flush.

i'm going to have a word with him tomorrow, but by this time the adhesive would of gone off, meaning the tiles won't come off easy and the walls are plasterboard which means this is likely come away also.

tiles are 600x300x9mm porcelain and are heavy so not easy to lay on walls. what do i do.

a. agree a reduced price and let him finish. ( grouted may not look as bad

b. pay him a day rate and some one else in to finish.

c. start again which means i need to buy new tiles.

advice please.

p.s he also scuffed my nice new wall papered wall in the bedroom.

the guy has apparently got 35 years experience!

 

[planemad]

Can you post up pics?

 

[roughcaster]

Removed

Wrong!! He said the wallpaper in the BEDROOM!! No need to be rude to the poster either.

Roughcaster.

 

[garyrayne]

erm not really don't think i'd get a good photo. I am worried i may be being a little precious about it, but he was tiling on a flat wall and some tiles are kicking out, which they shouldn't. i think i will let him finish the job, but he will have to sort out the areas i cannot live with, especially when its kicking out 6mm.

Why does it seem difficult to get good tradesmen who take pride in their work.

when i had my drive done a few year ago they laid the drive prior to bricking up an existing side gate. got mortar all over my new block paved drive. it set and never cleaned off properly.

(i'm ranting i know)

i have been doing more diy projects myself, but i wanted a pro tiler as i didn't want to spoil it. will do it myself next time i think .

 

[garyrayne]

Why would you put wallpaper up before the room was tiled? And why would you wallpaper in a bathroom anyway. ****!

I should of said en-suite. he piled all the cut tiles against bedroom wall.

i cleared the bedroom out, but decorated so when he finished the carpet fitters could follow behind and we can move back into the bedroom.

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Gary Rayne:

I own a small apartment block in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and I have done the ceramic wall tiling on all the bathrooms myself.

Two things I can tell you is:

a) the larger the wall tile you use, the flatter the wall needs to be for the tiling to be flat. In you're case, you're using HUGE wall tiles, and that is most of the reason for the tile corners not to be lining up. Who chose to use such large tiles on the wall?

b) prior to grouting, the tiles on a wall will look like a mouthful of crooked teeth. Once you grout, then your eyes play a trick on your brain. The eyes see straight horizontal and vertical grout lines, and your brain interprets that to mean that the tiles are in a flat plane unless they eyes see any evidence to the contrary. So, your brain considers the tiling to be flat, until proven crooked.

I'd wait until the tiling is grouted before passing judgement. I've seen my own tiling and had concerns about how it was going to turn out until I grouted, and the grouting seemed to make all the difference. Before grouting, you're seeing gaps between the tiles that look to be of different widths. After grouting, your eye sees straight horizontal and vertical lines, and grout width variations between tiles is something that you just never notice.

The reason why you're concerned about your tiling is that you're noticing all these minor defects. Even the best tiled walls you've seen had those same minor defects, but they went un-noticed because you weren't looking for them on those walls as you are your own wall.

 

[garyrayne]

The walls are good, but i understand what you are saying. to be honest, I wasn't that keen on using such a big tile, but she who must be obeyed wanted them. I've had chat with him this morning and the tiles that are kicking out he is going to try and sort.

I was just worried that once they are grouted, it will be harder to rectify if I'm still unhappy

 

[garyrayne]

sorry... off topic, but I accidentally put someone on the ignore list. It wasn't deliberate, how do I take them off the ignore list. I'm not sure who it was though.

 

[Richard C]

Large tiles look very good on full tiled walls & fewer grout lines in wet areas means less likelihood of problems with damp penetration but the walls must be nice & flat, as has already been pointed out, & the tiler meticulous with the tile allignment. You say the walls are plasterboard; this is probably the best surface for large tiles (weight permitting) & being flat & level should not have been a problem unless whoever put it up didn’t level it properly. Is it stud or dot & dab? I also hope the PB was tanked in the wet areas!

If corners of tiles are kicking out 6mm, there is no point in grouting & hoping it will be disguised, you may as well pull them off now. Minor imperfections & small misalignments may be OK (depends how fussy you are) but a 6mm difference is never going fade or look right what ever you do with it.