Poor laying of Victorian tiles?

[Dave79]

Hi,
I’m having somevictorian tiles laid down our front path and up the front door and have seen that the tiles don’t go flush with the wall. I would say there between a 10 to 20mm gap between wall and tiles. The builder says that the wall isn’t straight which it probably isn’t but I’ve raised the point that even if it isn’t straight, why is there such a gap (>10mm) between the wall and tiles when against the opposite wall, the tiles are fully butted up. Am I complaining about nothing? The spacer is probably 20mm in length for scale. They haven’t started grouting but he’s said it will look better when grouted and that it can’t be perfect as it’s an old house.

Thanks!

 

[Time's Ran Out]

What’s happening under the mat?

 

[Dave79]

Nothing it was there to clean my feet

 

[Balloo]

From what i can see the tiler has to make a silk purse of a sowrs ear.
What is the problem you can see

 

[Dave79]

ah I see your question... it’s a step and there was a tile under it. Here you go. Mat removed.

 

[Dave79]

The problem is the gap between the white wall and the tiles. It’s 10mm minimum. I would have liked 5mm at least. He butted up on the other side no problem so assumed he could cut tiles to fit better?

 

[Bill]

A couple of things .... victorian path tiling is not an inexpensive job.

That said - the tiler could have set it out differently and cut the field tiles larger.

Out of square walls do not look good with the design that has been chosen/fitted - which you have got.

 

[One Day]

Usually with this type of tiling, the tiles and border dictate everything.
To scribe a larger field tile into the rather uneven brickwork would take as long, maybe longer than the actual main tiling.

Lack of communication and your expectations possibly not being fully explained or understood.
Victorian geometric tiling is not usually carried out by a builder. It's a specialism and usually the specialist tiler will as a matter of course, check everything - including your expectations.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

But he’s lost the pattern and the line!!

 

[Dave79]

Hi,
I don’t expect it to be perfect against a slightly bent wall, however the 10mm gaps seems larger than I would expect? Is my expectation too big. If tiles were cut 5mm larger the gap would be reduced and there would no issue. Is my expectation unreasonable? If so then that’s fine, but when I raised it with the tiler, the response was that the walls aren’t straight. That being said they are fine on the other side, presumably where the tile laying started.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

@Dave79 - you seem he’ll bent on this gap on one side, yet you’ve not shown a distance view of the whole path!
He has been lazy in not cutting to the shape of the wall but if the cut on the other side is the same size I can understand why he has left it short.
My points are - a distance picture from the gate up the path will show just how bad this job is.

 

[Dave79]

The other side is set against a new concrete border alongside the path and the other side of the porch wall. That gap is consistently 2mm as defined by the tile spacers.

 

[Bill]

Your border tile is not helping matters in the set out. Because of the out of square walls, you should have used a wider fill-in piece set next to the perimeter walls.


A bit like this......

 

[Bill]

View attachment 106158
But he’s lost the pattern and the line!!

Is that an optical illusion because of the step?

 

[Andy Rhodes]

in your last picture Dave is that of the overall panoramic of your pathway,because if it is so wheres the border tile on the right hand side or is it just the picture