The Worst Tiling Job You've Done

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Dan

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Just wondering what the worst job you've every done? Maybe the plaster was falling off all over the place, maybe the customer was standing watching you the whole time, maybe you had to cut on the wet cutter in the rain outside when the customer had a garage but they didn't want you to use it, maybe you were just on a really tight budget and did what you could for good old Mrs Smith on her pension?

This should spark some conversation. 🙂
 
i am doing a job now started it last tuesday tiling a bathroom about 20 square meters and they are having porcelain 45cmx45cm on the walls (wat a nightmare )he bought the tiles from b+q i pulled 2 tiles out of the same pack the other day and there was 2mm difference in the size so grout lines are starting to look terreble these tiles are 10mm thick so my rubi wont cut them so have to wet cut everything starting the window reveals in the next couple of days still dont know how the tiles are going to stay on i cant wait to finish i will probably have to rip tiles off the walls today as they are sliding down the walls through the weight of the tiles s**t its demorolising
 
I had a job recently where Mr Smith agreed to the quote. Then when I turned up on the job, he changed the complete layout of his bathroom, changed the tile type and was trying to turn me into the handyman around the house.

Not to mention every2 minutes he was asking why he could see a 1mm gap on internal corners and getting the spirit level out.

I told him to shove the job 1/4 way through it......
 
L&R asked for this thread to be started but he hasn't had any say yet. Where's his worst job ever posts?
 
The weirdest job i've ever had was tiling a bathroom about 4 months ago. When i went round to do my estimate i was checking to see what the walls were made of, it turned out to be STRAW! they were compact straw about 150mm thick finished with a paper type coat like you get on plasterboard. To say i was a bit stumped is an understatement.
 
my worst job was a bathroom, women didnt want plastic trim i showed her and her husband, with trim and without, and they didnt want it, finished the bathroom got paid and they where really happy with it, few days later she was on the phone saying i had ruined her bathroom by not using trim, as everybody commented on it, and she said if i been a proper tiler i would have put it up anyway.... whats that all about
 
New build last year - one house. 5 bathrooms & 170 sq meters of downstairs floor to tile - every room. Constantly chasing builder as things weren't ready - kept turning up & had to go home again, despite running through list of things for him to do - ie first fixing, pipework boxing in, make good of dodgy boarding & the likes. No staircase - so up ladders every day with tools & back down at end of day.
The floors were worst - there were a constant stream other trades getting in the way - Plumbers turning off the water whilst I was grouting. Joiners leaving sawdust in between the tiles before I had grouted. People unplugging my transformer to use themselves ) whilst I was cutting or plunging me into darkness ( my 110V halogens were plugged in also ). General people tramping all over the floor whilst I was trying to work.
Absolute bloody nightmare.
:icon9:
 
The weirdest job i've ever had was tiling a bathroom about 4 months ago. When i went round to do my estimate i was checking to see what the walls were made of, it turned out to be STRAW! they were compact straw about 150mm thick finished with a paper type coat like you get on plasterboard. To say i was a bit stumped is an understatement.

I thought all the houses in Welwyn Garden City were built of Mud & Straw ?
 
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Did a job today for a builder i do alot of work for, hallway floor got there at 7am, set out floor, did all my cuts, loads of them around doors, electric box etc, just about to start laying at 10, women arrived home and said it was ment to be on the diamond pattern....********. builder forgot to tell me....
 
I went to a job 8 yrs ago it was 10 x 10 kitchen walls 6 different colours.When I arrived the customers dressed in full papar csi suits had just finished laying out the tiles on the dining room floor as per the walls, every colour in every place,including little paper cardboard cutouts of the socket positions,they'd been up all night and promptly,went to bed asking me not to switch on my sacred digital radio and leave all the electric cutting until they got up.BIZZARE OR WHAT?l
 
Very nice people as it turned out,got lots of good work through them.I listened to my walkman ,marked all my wet cuts and took them home to cut at dinnertime.It later occured to me that if I'd known ,I could have dropped adhesive with them the night before,and they could have stuck them on the walls where they wanted them for me.I'd have had my cuts on in rapid by elevenses,grouted up weighed in and been in the snooker hall for afternoon tea!
 
The worst job i have ever done is to tile a sluice room (Mentley disabled washroom). Walkt into this one blind! bumpy white tiles (b&q) 4x4 25 mtrs wall tiling.
Had to cut round everything sinks taps shelfing etc. very dirty job.Staff coming in & out to wash the dirty pans! Then waited 3 months to get paid as it was a charity.
That was rockbottom for me! Live & learn though.🙂
 
YAK. I worked 4 a kitchen firm as a teenager,tosser plumber forgot to connect waste under the floor in this bungalow.Bloody sink had a waste disposer in it ,in the height of summer they called us coz of the smell .Guess who had to don a dry suit get under floor ( bout 24 inches high) clean it all up and disinfect,lowest in the pecking order me.Got the MD back though stuffed some big spuds up the exhaust of his prize Mazda ,just after I jacked. I know I'm bad
 
Mine has to be a shop re-fit I did a few weeks back.

Disabled toilet, so it was quite big for a bog, just grouted up a full wall and a joiner started to hammer and chisel out a door lock in the frame work, only flimsy stud walls, shattering my nice clean grout lines :angry_smile:
 
Done a kitchen splash back for a couple in their 60's last week. Turned up to do the job and there were holes all over the place where the kitchen fitters had chased the sockets into the walls. Told the guy he'd need to sort it as the tiles were only small 4 x 4's. He disapeared to get some bonding and came back 5 mins later with a neighbour who was pissed and had no top on. It was freezing outside as well. Guy turned out to be a half decent plasterer but was one annoying b*stard. He left and the old guy sat at the kitchen table the whole time I was there just watching me and talking ****e. He wasn't watching me as such, just wanting to chat but by god he was a pain in the arse. It was a Sat as well and never got finished till 6.45. Got home and got grief from the Mrs as we were meant to be going out. Wished I'd never taken the job in the first place :icon8:
 
Worst job was last month, did a kitchen floor to ceiling in the cheapest tiles in the world. Every single tile through the wet cutter cause the pressure of the manual shattered the tiles into a hundred bits they were that fragile. Never again.
 
I guess it's the job i am on at the moment for a property developer almost every tiles is warped and ther are 2 mm differences on some tiles got 3 bathrooms to do with these i must be mad but can't turn it down as it could lead to more work.
 
Worst job - doing it now, main contractor has left the tiling until the last possible second and now wants 10 wet rooms doing by Friday. Does any one no where i can get a gun?
 
as an apprentice raking out and epoxy grouting to pub urinals, imagine years and years of p##s leaking out as you raked out the old grout
 
yuk! i once read a quote on here............. DON'T TOUCH PUBLIC TOILETS! guess thats why!!!!!!!!:icon13:
 
Not really my fault........but

Was doing a kitchen floor for this "flash love herself" kind of woman.........and was grouting in the dreaded Black grout. Told her to stay out as this stuff stains everything, and she had beige carpets.

Kids came in from school in mid grout, dog (Forgot to mention they had a dog) was going mental in excitment. Well then the kitchen door shot open and the kids tried to come in for some snacks......I had to stop them........but the dog shot past them and me.........slide over in the black grout, jumped up and bolted out......up the hall and beige carpet. Black pawprints all the way to the front door, and a dog covered in black grout🙁

Women went mental..........at the kids and then I heard the dog yelp.

Nothing I could do...........except snigger under my breath.........and carry on grouting.

I did hear she changed the carpet the week after🙂
 
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first job i did was for a friend ...he said practice on my bathroom...so i checked it out ...walls were all over the place...and he didn't want to spend money putting the walls right,,, so of i started ....you can imagine the trouble i spent trying to get all the walls level with my addy..back butttering and putting addy on the wall...(i was doing it after work ...and was really really knackard)....seeing it was my first job i decided to get some epoxy grout after i spent christ knows how many hours tiling after work..(thought it was a good idea) ....opened the tub smelt like pisss started mixing it ...my arms felt like jelly...then a started putting it on the walls,,, honest i think i nearly started crying ..it was like fighting mike tyson ...god was i knackard ....but i held back the tears and got on with it!!!

but when i finnished i realised i wasn't gettting paid

thats when i broke down crying

to say i was fooked would be an under statement..

i don't care if i don't have any friends now to be honest

steve
 
as an apprentice raking out and epoxy grouting to pub urinals, imagine years and years of p##s leaking out as you raked out the old grout

lol.

I was in our bogs in work and noticed some fresh navy tiles and fresh white grout between two pi$$ bowls on Sunday, and I was wondering the very same, what poor sod had to take off the cracked tiles that have been there for 20 odd years :icon9: .
 

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