Dodgy tricks...

[John Benton]

As soon as you lift a tile to cut it then its taking you longer to fix that tile so you charge for it.
I'm the same as you Andy,
Measure room at 20m2 + 10% wastage = 22m2, that's what gets invoiced...
Seemples.

Like I said previously, it's easy to tile flat walls, It's when you come to the cuts that's where the skills are, and they need paying for.

We've seen all too many times on here what bad cuts look like and they make or break a job. If you choose not to charge in that manner then you are missing an opportunity that's staring you in the face.

 

[Saltire69]

Just give price for doing the job and that's it. Price doesn't change. Don't really do a metre rate now.

 

[Brian the Tile]

and do you all tell your customers that you will be charging for the exta meterage that you are not fixing?

 

[John Benton]

and do you all tell your customers that you will be charging for the exta meterage that you are not fixing?

i just ask the tile suppliers to deliver them pre-cut to the exact sizes required, saves me taking the cutter to the job so I only need addy and spacers. Easy.

 

[Stef]

and do you all tell your customers that you will be charging for the exta meterage that you are not fixing?

It is not extra meterage that you are not fixing.
How many tiles would you order for a 20m2 bathroom?

 

[afright]

The company I worked for in the 70s would send out the estimator at the finish and he would measure all the cuts even around sockets and the holes and this would all be charged for.

 

[Brian the Tile]

if i measured a bathroom at twenty mts i would tell the customer to get twenty mts ,if i price for twenty mts thats what i want paying for ,regardless of how many cuts i have to do,if any tiles are damaged or simlar that is different,or am i missing something here,i know carpet shops charge for the extra bits but thats on a roll i just dont get it at all why would you want paying for 22 mts,may be im being a bit thick here eh

 

[Stef]

Brian, if you go & measure up a bathroom & you measure that bathroom at 20m2 then you must add on 10% ie 2m2 to cover your cuts.
If you measure the bathroom at 18m2 then you would get 20m2, should be 1.8m2, if we are getting picky.

 

[John Benton]

if i measured a bathroom at twenty mts i would tell the customer to get twenty mts ,if i price for twenty mts thats what i want paying for ,regardless of how many cuts i have to do,if any tiles are damaged or simlar that is different,or am i missing something here,i know carpet shops charge for the extra bits but thats on a roll i just dont get it at all why would you want paying for 22 mts,may be im being a bit thick here eh

Question then for you Brian

What do you do with all the waste cuts of your tiles?

 

[Brian the Tile]

John i dont want to get bitchy here ,but i put em wherever the customer wants me to put them,now as we all know here tiles are tiles ,where as you dont need to buy a full 3mts of worktop to get one and a half mts out of it as you will know, would you pay for something that you are not getting ,i for one won,t ,so for my next job i,ve got to tell my customer that the job is twenty mts but im going to charge them for 22mts ,ok ill try it

 

[Brian the Tile]

and while we are on the subject do you charge for the extra adhesive and grout also?

 

[Brian the Tile]

im outta this forum for better places as this forum i am sorry to say has gone down hill very quickly ,i can not agee with a lot that is said on here,after all i have only been doing the job 44 years,so i will leave it to you vey experienced folk out there who know what they are doing ha ha :mad2: good luck to all the proper tilers out there,sorry but it has to be said,Now Dan can you please remove my account and good luck with the forum

 

[Stef]

The 1st basics of measuring a job is to add 10% for wastage.
I just can't understand how you can go & measure up a job & not add the 10%.
It has got absolutely nothing to do with ripping off a customer. You must buy or tell the customer to buy an extra 10% of tiles or you are going to be short of tiles.
You don't use 10% more addy or grout as the 10% is wastage, (cut tiles that cannot be used).
Some jobs you might be lucky & you can take a box or 2 back as the tiles have been fitted with very little cuts (wastage)
Then it's up to you if you knock the price down or the customer asks you to take that off the final bill, that's if you charged a m2 rate or gave them a price for overall job.

 

[Ian]

I always used to tell the customer that my fixing charge was 10% less than the total meterage needed, so I'd tell them they needed 22m and my labour charge was 20m. We discussed this a couple of years ago on here and many people pointed out that the 22m was still being handled and cut so it should be charged for. Ok so adhesive and grout is still 20m worth but, how many times have we all used a bit more because a wall isn't 100% true? It's all swings and roundabouts, the extra 10% covers us for using a bit extra or any unforeseen difficulties. At the end of the day, if a customer has accepted a price it's irrelevant really, I'd rather add that bit extra and then if I use an extra bag of adhesive I'm not out of pocket.

 

[John Benton]

John i dont want to get bitchy here ,but i put em wherever the customer wants me to put them,now as we all know here tiles are tiles ,where as you dont need to buy a full 3mts of worktop to get one and a half mts out of it as you will know, would you pay for something that you are not getting ,i for one won,t ,so for my next job i,ve got to tell my customer that the job is twenty mts but im going to charge them for 22mts ,ok ill try it

What I meant was if for example you are asked to tile a room that is 2.5m x 2.5m and the ceiling is 2.5m high. The customer has selected a 60x60 tile then you are clearly going to have waste.

If you have purchased 25m2 of tiles (actual area of 4 walls), minus the size of the window(s) and door, you will be short of tiles. Do you tell the customer after they have budgeted for the tiles that you are short, or is it better to have the 10% allowed for waste and cuts sat there in the room so you can fix them?