OK i have found some great mosaic tilers from Melbourne now
Thanks David. I don't know what happened to my last post - it disappeared! Alas I am a 4 hour drive from Melbourne in a town of 20,000pop so I think I might be limited to local tilers only.
I have spoken to the local
Italian tiler (as we all know how much
Italians love their mosaics) and he is so busy he referred me to his former apprentice whom, I since found out, is subbing for one of the other tilers and is in the middle of 4 months of solid tiling work. There is one other experienced tiler whom I've spoken to and he will hopefully come and quote on the job next week. The tiler whom the builder used has 5 years experience in tiling and quit tiling full-time 8 months ago. So desperate times here. The
Italian told me the guy who did my tiling is still considered a "good tiler" and he probably used too much adhesive and rushed what must have been difficult tiles. Still doesn't explain the excessive use of spacers to me. Except maybe he was trying to jack up the tiles because too much adhesive was causing them to slip.
Anyway, so my choice of tiler is limited here. None of you want to migrate do you? Plenty of work it seems.
Have researched adhesive. BAL is a subsidiary of Ardex. Have spoken to the Ardex technical rep in
Australia and he recommended some products. Ardex also own Dunlop which is a very well know adhesive company and readily available in
Australian hardwares. One is clearly stamped suitable for Mosaics. Not sure whether it matches BAL in quality. Posted question about adhesive on
Aussie forum, so far no response, unlike yourselves who responded within the first couple of hours!
Thank you all for the very sound, professional advice and suggestions on what went wrong. Think I have one of life's difficult conversations ahead next week. Will keep you posted.