Natural stone tiling

[Tiler Blackpool]

Hi all,
Ive not posted on here for a while but wanted to ask a couple of things. i allways nip on for peoples views and wonder why the hell
i dont come on more often!!
Ive been tiling for 6 years now but i did my first Limestone job a couple of weeks ago. it was 26m2 wall 500 x 300 and 6 m2 floor(700 x 400). trav mosaic border, trav mosaic feature in shower area (top to bottom) and shower area base also in trav mosaic with a rim around the edges, and also tiled the boxing arount the bath. All in all it took me 9 and half days.Is this acceptable??? as i had an arguement with my customer as he thought i was taking too long! as well as this the walls were terrible so had to accomodate this.

Also, im doing a slate kitchen, diner, backroom next week (20m2) in uncalibrated slate. i have done calibrated slate a few times which looks great but this is uncalibrated in a kitchen.......is it going to be a nightmare? any advice more that welcome. and hes asked me if you can steam clean them once theyve been sealed?

Thanks in advance all.

im off to work now but will nip back on tonight.

 

[cam_low]

That looks (from afar) a very neat and tidy job. Mosaics are time consuming as well as the fact you are working with a natural stone which as you know involves sealing cleaning sealing etc.

is the customer happy with the result ?

Tell me more about this 'argument', I always tell the customer it will take longer than I know it will and also have a trusted plasterer to do my wall prep, if its not boarding with Marmox etc.

 

[Mr T]

it really is stunning... how did you make the lip on the outer edge of the shower tray?

 

[Rookery]

I tell my customers it takes as long as it takes though I will give an estimate. All my jobs are to a fixed price so my customers know that even if I do over run by a day it wont cost them any more. I use that as a positive so they're happy.
Re the uncalibrated slate, the best advice I can give is to grade them into thickness and fix the thickest first, bedding up as you get to the thinner ones. I use Weber Thick Bed with slate. Take extra care when grouting & cleaning up.

 

[Peter]

Looks like a great job. no problem with taking longer as long as the customer isn't being charged a dragged out day rate to compensate for it.

 

[Tiler Blackpool]

thanks all for your replies.
Cam_low - The pair of them were extremley happy with the finished result. Told me it looked fantastic, as too did their visitors that came in on the final day to be nosey.
the argument started around day 7 when they told me they had booked bank holiday monday off to sort out the plumbing as they thought i had said it would only take a week, which was a blatent lie. i originally told them it would take 1 1\2 to 2 weeks depending on how bad the walls were etc. so i told them i didnt think it would be finished by then and they both laid into me (verbally!) in the bathroom. i was really offended!and annoyed so i told them they could either have a quick job or a good job and i wasnt going to rush it. the annoying thing was the lady went in to check up on me every hour and kept telling me how great it was! as soon as her husband came home she turned! Anyway, to keep the peace i did a couple of late nighters at the end so they could get in on the Monday. and all ended well. The End.
So that begged the question, was 9 and a half days too long or perfectly acceptable?

Mr Tiler,Thanks! i literally just bed the mosaics in top of the first layer of mosaics (after priming them first)

Rookery, thanks for the advice, will take it on board.

And Peter, most of my work is done on price so it didnt cost them any more or less than my original quote.

Thanks again guys

 

[Mr T]

no way looking closely i can see it now lol... well tbh im no pro at all but a full bathroom at my guess should roughly take about a week i would say but then again i suppoose it all depends on the issues you come across... was there any issues?

 

[Dougs Third Go]

moving on to your next job, assuming your floor is flat. Grade your slate and start with the thickest so that you can "bed up" the thinner ones to keep your floor as flat and level as possible,

 

[Pebbs]

Good clean work, I looked at this earlier, you took your time to get it right, if you had rushed it then you would have compromised on the final finish. These customers of yours sound ungrateful ignorant pieces of work, and I say this for the following reasons, firstly you quoted on a fixed price, and not day works, fixed price allows you to achieve a higher standard of workmanship, but the downside is that time is money for you, certainly not for them. Secondly they got a very lovely bathroom, if you had rushed it through, then it would have looked exactly that rushed...without due care and attention. Stone and certainly with mosaic combined cannot ever be compared to the speed that ceramics can be installed. Stop beating yourself up, and questioning yourself about the length of time it took. It was your first limestone job, and you should be proud of the results. Dont let these imbeciles rain on your parade. You will speed up over time, because you have gone through it once, the next one will be easier, trust me.

Pebbs

 

[Dougs Third Go]

Good clean work, I looked at this earlier, you took your time to get it right, if you had rushed it then you would have compromised on the final finish. These customers of yours sound ungrateful ignorant pieces of work, and I say this for the following reasons, firstly you quoted on a fixed price, and not day works, fixed price allows you to achieve a higher standard of workmanship, but the downside is that time is money for you, certainly not for them. Secondly they got a very lovely bathroom, if you had rushed it through, then it would have looked exactly that rushed...without due care and attention. Stone and certainly with mosaic combined cannot ever be compared to the speed that ceramics can be installed. Stop beating yourself up, and questioning yourself about the length of time it took. It was your first limestone job, and you should be proud of the results. Dont let these imbeciles rain on your parade. You will speed up over time, because you have gone through it once, the next one will be easier, trust me.

Pebbs

you know Lynn, whenever I read your posts, I get the "feel good factor", no no bull, shoot from the lip, tell it how it is....god bless ya

 

[Tiler Blackpool]

yeah, a normal bathroom done in ceramics/porcelain would usually take me a week but this had a lot more involved. obviously its limestone so takes longer anyway and the walls were like bananas! then theres boxing in the bath and shower area feature etc

 

[Tiler Blackpool]

Thanks Pebbs.much appreciated. will post the end results of the slate on here next weekend! ive priced this one for five days including ripping up his laminate aand prepping the floors.......hes already asked me to try and do it in 4 days as he cant get anymore days off work!! should be fun!

 

[John Benton]

Thanks Pebbs.much appreciated. will post the end results of the slate on here next weekend! ive priced this one for five days including ripping up his laminate aand prepping the floors.......hes already asked me to try and do it in 4 days as he cant get anymore days off work!! should be fun!

Lovely work there for your first time.

Is it not possible for them to leave a key for you and work in the house alone? Or are they breathing down your neck at every opportunity?

 

[widler]

Sound like the nightmare customers.
Taking time off work so they can be in the house.
Christ,paranoid.
Looks nice though !

 

[Martyn Leeds]

I always allow a bit of extra time with slate for cleaning and sealing. No matter how long I think it will take me - it always takes me twice as long with slate.

 

[Tiler Blackpool]

No...i did sugest in an email that he left me a key after he mentioned taking time off work but he ignored it. I wont be rushing this one either so we'll see how he is!! Although dont get me wrong i'll do what i can to keep the customer happy.

 

[Tiler Blackpool]

Any idea of wether he can use a steam mop on the slate after its been sealed?
Im going to start coming on here more often. was on until 1am this morning looking at some posts. more addictive that candy crush!!

 

[aytiling]

To be honest 9 days sounds excessive for a seasoned stone fixer, but you had to get it right and not knowing the product well probably didn't help. I would have been looking at no more than 4 days tops, even if the walls were bad, but then I have been doing stone for 40 years and I work 8-10 hours a day without a break

 

[Tiler Blackpool]

Hi All.

Just wanted to thank you all again for the advice. sorry i havent put the slate pics on sooner. the guy wanted me to wait before taking pics so he could have his doors rehung and his kickboards trimming down. Il put them on now....if i can work out how to......
There we go!
Uncalibrated Modular Slate from Topps. First time laying it. Had fun but wouldnt do another one in a hurry!!

Thanks Again

 

[thompsonbrown]

Looks great
I used the same tiles from topps and found them a nightmare. Had to use 9m2 to do a 5m2 bathroom floor. Most packs had at least 1 tile that was either bent, fell apart or was so heavely stained with rust it was unusable.

Your other bathroom that took 9 1/2 days should have left you feeling proud, not left questioning your tiling speed.
Without knowing the problems you faced with the state of the walls, it would be hard to estimate how long it should have taken.
Being your first time fitting limestone tiles, problems encountered with the walls and a customer constantally "clock watching", its credit to you that they got the finish they did.

Taking your limestone tiles around corner of walls and mosaic's against ceiling, could not have been have been done any better in my opinion.
I feel sorry that this thread is not listed as "how to tile correctly using stone"

 

[gamma38]

Like the other guys are saying, nice work there.

 

[widler]

Yup ive done the same tiles, about 50m2, bad bad tiles,but the end product looks the dogs .
Great job

 

[Ajax123]

If you're on a day rate then I guess the customer has a right to expect you to work to a good standard at a reasonable speed. If you are on a job job price what does it really matter how long it takes. Tricky jobs take time to do properly either way IMO.

 

[Tiler Blackpool]

Looks great
I used the same tiles from topps and found them a nightmare. Had to use 9m2 to do a 5m2 bathroom floor. Most packs had at least 1 tile that was either bent, fell apart or was so heavely stained with rust it was unusable.

Your other bathroom that took 9 1/2 days should have left you feeling proud, not left questioning your tiling speed.
Without knowing the problems you faced with the state of the walls, it would be hard to estimate how long it should have taken.
Being your first time fitting limestone tiles, problems encountered with the walls and a customer constantally "clock watching", its credit to you that they got the finish they did.

Taking your limestone tiles around corner of walls and mosaic's against ceiling, could not have been have been done any better in my opinion.
I feel sorry that this thread is not listed as "how to tile correctly using stone"

Thanks a lot for that. The tiles WERE an absolute nightmare. Although the customer wanted me to use all the tiles in the packs so i even had to lay the bent ones! and as you can see on the pics, there are all sorts of white blob like marks on them.some natural marks look great on natural stone but these look a bit ugly. Never the less the finished job as a whole looked great.:hurray: