Know all builders!

[charlie1]

That's the point though. How is the builder supposed to know? His normal tiler tells him all is good so he takes that knowledge and passes it on to the HO. It's incorrect but it's came from a 'tiler' first.

You'll be suprised at some of the things i was told by tilers when I was looking and all of them would bleat on about how long they've been in the game, I don't care how long you've been doing it, you've been doing it wrong. If I didn't decided to educate myself which of course some of it is down to this very forum and the info i've read and put in to practice over the years has been invaluable! But if I was your run of the mill builder who doesn't seek further education and relied on tradesmen around me then i'd be stuffed!

what suprised you about things the average tilers said....??

 

[White Room]

That's the point though. How is the builder supposed to know? His normal tiler tells him all is good so he takes that knowledge and passes it on to the HO. It's incorrect but it's came from a 'tiler' first.

You'll be suprised at some of the things i was told by tilers when I was looking and all of them would bleat on about how long they've been in the game, I don't care how long you've been doing it, you've been doing it wrong. If I didn't decided to educate myself which of course some of it is down to this very forum and the info i've read and put in to practice over the years has been invaluable! But if I was your run of the mill builder who doesn't seek further education and relied on tradesmen around me then i'd be stuffed!

I agree Rob, Things are changing so fast I would'nt want to be coming into the building game now.....before long you'll need a degree in astro physics to put a floor down......

 

[Rizzle from the Portizzle]

ok a builder told me this is green chip board tongh and groved and srewed down now fix on it i told him i need to over board this he said this will be ok i said ok put that in writing and date it so he did well i new what was going to happen and thought well some times there only way to teach a lesson as i had also told the client what would happen but he argreed with the builder so i tiled it heating came on this was a new build every join cracked in line with the joins on the floor this was a marble 20m2 well had to take it all up and lay again the whole bathroom had to come out cost over £8000 to put right in all .the client made sure i got paid and apoligised for not taking my advise in the first place .

 

[Protilers]

my favorite saying......wait for it....."builders work in feet and inches...tilers work in milimeters".....

 

[Colour Republic]

what suprised you about things the average tilers said....??

All sorts of things.

Some wanting to quote over the phone.
Some wanting to tile over contracting flooring, even when offered tile backer boards as a solution said no it would be fine.
Asked if they were confident with stone and being told they where specialists then tried to convince me a nice big fat 20mm trim would look lovely in the trav and slate bathrooms, some even told me it was impossible to bull nose stone.
Adhesive selections was wrong.
No offer of tanking in the showers.
One of the companies that I did think were all right I got to come out and see the job, I wasn't on site but once I got their price I knew it was far too cheap for them to make any sort of decent job of it, the timescale they had allowed themselves would have meant rushing. I wouldn't be surprised if after I knocked them back they thought 'Typical builder doesn't want to pay even though we went in cheap' Truth is my budget was twice what they quoted.
The guy who was recommended and I got to start the job then sent out a subbie who refused to check the slate before laying, saying it was an unreasonable request, when challenged by the HO on some chipped edges on the honed slate he just cut, turned round and said 'It's stone mate, what do you expect?" He even complained that the slate was so thick that he was going to have to wet cut them all and he didn’t have time for that. WTF did he expect?

These are typical of the responses I got when ringing around so I never even let most of them through the door to quote and believe me I gave them detailed descriptions of the tiles and the conditions on site.

We all know as I’ve said there are some bad tradesmen out there, we all know there are builders out there who only look at the bottom line. That can't be disputed. But sometimes I think builders can be forgiven for their lack of knowledge and not wanting to go along with what tilers suggest when they've been working with some of the 'tilers' I rang around. It wasn't just the odd one who didn't know what they were doing it was a lot of them! I even gave them the opportunity to give a decent price, all of them were told don't quote on price, quote on quality because that's what I want. I've no doubt that some of the tilers I rang produce nice looking work, if they had a website I looked at the pictures. But we all know getting the tiles straight and level is only a tiny part of it and it's what is underneath them that is just as important.

I'm not having a dig at tilers here, you wouldn't be here if you didn't care or want to do the job correctly. But spare a thought for some of the builders that have been educated by poor tilers, even when like me, they weren't asking for cheap rush jobs.

Normally all tiling is done in-house but boy was I shocked when I went looking for someone new.

 

[Colour Republic]

my favorite saying......wait for it....."builders work in feet and inches...tilers work in milimeters".....

Milimeters???? Ha! you cowboy

No room for error here Lee

rrr: rrr: rrr:

:smilewinkgrin:

 

[afright]

If that,s what the builder want,s then so be it ,but tell him it,s on his head if anything goes wrong all you can do is point them in the right direction and if they dont listen well its his problem,I always ask them to put it in writing before I start sometimes they end up taking your advice.not that Ive had many, I find a lot of builders do have some tiling knowledge

 

[John Benton]

my favorite saying......wait for it....."builders work in feet and inches...tilers work in milimeters".....

And that is why we the economy is in the state it is in.....................wait for it.


Many years ago two separate teams of rocket scientists at two locations in America wanted two rockets/space stations to physically meet up in space. Anyway all the calculations were made but they never met up.

Reason being, one of the teams was working in miles and the other was working in kilometres. :mad2:

Years later these rocket scientists were asked to do all the calculations for the big banks for lending money for all these sub-prime mortgages that were being given to customers, which obviously had a world-wide effect as America generally take the lead in most things. And we all know what happened next.

So when somebody say's it isn't rocket science, they are probably right - It's a lot more complicated than that!!!!!

 

[prceramics]

I always tell the customer to do there own research to back up what i tell them .

 

[Bubblecraft]

This is why I do everything myself. Never needed to tile on a substrate that has been prep'd by someone else. Kinda lucky that way but can understand why this can totally mess you guys around.