Tiler has made mistakes - Advice required

[paul78]

The guy must be doing something right.... booked up for 3 mths!! oh he must be a charmer then at least.

 

[mz30]

Am i wrong in thinking that the ceiling is out of level,am i also right in thinking that if the o/p is checking work,shouldnt he have checked the ceiling earlier?It maybe bad setting out(i would never set off on a ceiling but know guys who do)but if your tiles are level shouldnt the ceiling be too?.(never are )
Goes to show we can all pull faults in peoples work but dont call people when that same(or similar thing)can happen to the most experienced tilers,we are pretty much a finishing trade so we have to deal with the crap that other trades leave before us.
Anyone who says they dont still make the odd mistake is lying like any job it goes with the territory.

 

[tonyfaestoney]

Hes long gone from this post

I think he was a bit slippery

Come on now swanman,"bit slippery" is somewhat jumping to conclusions. Just popped back onto this forum and noticed it had carried on quite a bit since I last looked.

Points I think I need to clarify as I don't think everyone has read comments from the beginning.

1. I am as far away from a DIY'er as you can get. I would not know a good tiling job from a bad one. I have being doing extensive work in the house for a numerous weeks with various tradesmen working. The first bathroom did look ok to me on first looks and I should have inspected closer to be fair. I still say that it is acceptable but the plumber stepped in to help with a few bits that needing sorting. Issues I am left with and no idea if these are bad are; grout in between mosaic tiles is all holed, lots of little holes. Grout in corner of sink vanity unit has large hole in it with the old white grout behind it visible. I can take pictures and post if it is necessary.

2. En-suite room which the pictures were of looks stunning with mix of red, black and chrome. There are temporary fixes in place around the window and decorator caulk filling the ceiling gaps. There are also areas where tiles are coming out of line and is visible with grout lines.

To summarise it is widely agreed the tiler has made a mistake. In my opinion it was fair to ask him to correct. This would obviously mean starting again. The Tiler agreed and HE said he would not charge for the whole job. He then advised he was not in a position to do the work again for some time (November).

This is the bit a lot of people are not getting, I asked him to come back and put up rest of tiles! This was because as I say we had moved into the house and not really had a day when work was not being done and we had the end in sight but it was now disappearing into the distance. The plumber was waiting to plumb in, so I asked if he could put the last 2 layers of tiles up...no big deal if you ask me and I feel some people are reading too much into this.

The cost to rip the tiles down, replace and fit again will be around about the cost of both bathrooms in my opinion. So I thing the TILERS DECISION is a fair one.

Lastly after questioning and in hindsight I should have done this prior to work. He is not very experienced and had done a tiling course. He kept saying that is the way he was shown on the course.

Now I really should not care in the slightest what people think of me, but I can assure you I am honest and hard working. We were looking forward to enjoying our time in new house with all new bathrooms etc. Put yourselves in the same position and take the tiler out of it, say a badly laid carpet, would you be saying "oh well everyone makes mistakes", no thought not!

He had the chance to re-do the work but he advised he did not have time for this and would not take payment. I am still left with the future disruption and now the added expense albeit this was my choice, to remove the plumbed in stuff and re-plumb, but we just wanted a functioning room for a while.

I hope this goes some way to explaining and reassuring people of my intentions.

 

[martin1c]

Although the setting out was bad, the tiling looked fairly good in that it was level at least. It's just a shame that the tiler didn't think of dropping the ceiling by an inch and skimming it. He could also have dot and dabbed a 12.5mm plasterboard onto the window head (looks like there's space) and continued to tile around the window and no one would have known. It would take a day to make those corrections and he may possibly have been paid for both bathrooms too.

 

[Martino]

So did this ever get resolved? very easy to put the job right in my opinion as i have said earlier in this post.....hopefully it got resolved and the tiler got paid for the 1st bathroom atleast!.....if not then the customer was set out to scam from the off!

 

[tonyfaestoney]

So did this ever get resolved? very easy to put the job right in my opinion as i have said earlier in this post.....hopefully it got resolved and the tiler got paid for the 1st bathroom atleast!.....if not then the customer was set out to scam from the off!

Getting a bit annoying now. Hey Martino, can you read? If so then you would have been able to answer your own question. I am not trying to scam anyone.

 

[Brian the Tile]

Question: Did you offer to pay the tiler when he had finished the bathroom that you was at first happy with or not,and if not why not did he say to you he would wait until it was all finished? i dont know many tilers that are loaded with cash i think most need paying or at least i would not have continued until payment from the first one came forward, no need to get annoyed im sure

 

[Brian the Tile]

and regarding bad carpet fitting i would have told him to go and take his carpet with him straight away ,not waited and let him carry on with the rest of the house,im not being off hand with my comments just being honest

 

[Spud]

it has been resloved, from what I have read tony knocked the tiler and is going to put up with the work he hasnt paid for but at some point in the future may change it but not now as he doesnt want any disruption

 

[widler]

Wow just read all this, the man come on for some advice,what on some of you like the tiling was not that good, bad setting out and tiled over paint as well, and you lot are sticking up for the tiler, talk about bloody double standards from some of you.
My advice tony, dont listen, its your house ,if you are not happy don't pay him,if the 'tiler' is happy then he knows its a crap job, simple

 

[Andy Allen]

Wow just read all this, the man come on for some advice,what on some of you like the tiling was not that good, bad setting out and tiled over paint as well, and you lot are sticking up for the tiler, talk about bloody double standards from some of you.
My advice tony, dont listen, its your house ,if you are not happy don't pay him,if the 'tiler' is happy then he knows its a crap job, simple

think you need to read it again...

has bathroom tiled, happy with it, then changes mind, not happy with it, still lets tiler start next bathroom, without paying for the first bathroom, that he's happy with, or maybe not, your guess is as good as mine, most folks would of stopped him half way through the first bathroom, anyway starts 2nd bathroom with a few issues (yes we all agree with that..) can be sorted , lots of advice have been given for this.

decides to stop him working to disscuss issues, comes on here for a moan, decides he aint happy with 1st and 2nd bathroom, wants him to finish the 2nd bathroom, so he can install the rest of the bathroom suite, then he may change it at some point, all of this without paying ANYTHING to the tiler....

and you think thats fair..??

 

[AliGage]

Agree with Andy, there are two sides to this and i'm sure a lot more information we are not hearing. Besides which we haven't heard the opinion of the tiler either.

I don't believe the tiler should not be paid for his time, certainly if the customer is leaving the bathrooms as they've been tiled/finished etc. But from the sounds of it the tiler admits he has made some errrors as well.

A middle ground needs to be found. I would agree the tiler perhaps should not recieve his full ammount for his efforts if he has made errors that the customer is not happy with. But if these errors are still accepted and the tiles left in situe then he deserves to be paid something. If the errors are something that the customer can't live with (don't believe from the sounds of it that is the case here) then the customer and the tiler needs to discuss a resolution where both parties are happy.

 

[Andy Allen]

spot on alli...

 

[widler]

maybe the bloke is being a bit harsh,maybe not,its his house,his his money.
have you never been to a job looked at then thought,that looks a good job(if you don't know what your looking at)been somewhere else and seen the same but looks a hell of a lot better or been back a few days later and thought that looks crap,this sounds like what this bloke has done.
maybe he has to keep the other bathroom because he has too,he has spent a lot of money on it so has to live with it cos he has no money left,you know and i know this country is buggered,only the filthy rich have money,so why pay for it again,if its not right the tiler either should put it all right and then maybe take a cut or just not go back and lose the money.
Personally i get shut of him,live with the other bathroom and get someone right to dp the rest :smilewinkgrin:

 

[tonyfaestoney]

spot on alli...

Ok ok. Last time I am posting. As I said I have had a massive amount of work being done on the house. At no point did the tiler say pay me for the first bathroom before I start the 2nd? It was a case of I asked the tiler to complete the 2 and never thought of paying half way through??? It was my own fault for not being observant enough on the first bathroom, he finished this and went onto second the same day. I am not saying there is anything majorly wrong with the first one, just poor finishing but I have not made too much of a fuss about this.

With regards to second bathroom it would be fair to say he laid out wrong. Along with the window problem, the ceiling line, there are also parts of bathroom where tiles don't line up. These issues I was not aware of until he got up to the window and the ceiling. The first wall looked perfect until he tiled the others and they didn't line up as best as they should. As I say never seen a tile laid in my life and as I also said the tiler is a really nice guy so I put my trust in him.

WHEN we both became aware of especially the window and ceiling situation we briefly discussed it was not right. He offered to knock £60 off! This was on friday and I came on here to seek advice. I then phoned him on the sunday before he returned on monday with the advice he needs to start second bathroom again. Before I mention this he said he had been thinking about it all weekend and HE WOULD not be charging me for EITHER bathroom. I said I would pay for first and he couldstart again on second at his expense. He said no it's ok, I don't want any payment as he had messed it up. He said he does not have time as he has other jobs to go to so could not start again until November.

Now at this point I am stuck, I know I can't get a local tiler for some time havung spoken to the plumber on this. So in order to have a functioning bathroom we had been waiting 3 months for, i asked if he could put up the remaining 2 rows of tiles on one wall and tiles arounf window. he agreed to this and this is what happended.

Now I did offer to pay for first bathroom but this was refused. I now feel this is the correct decision as I will need to pay a plumber to remove furniture again, tiler to remove all tiles and re-do the whole bathroom, then plumber to re-fit again. On my calculations this should amount to the around about the same amount if I had paid the tiler for both bathrooms.

So with this in mind what you are saying I should have paid the tiler for first and then I am out of pocket for re-doing the second???

I will remind you that it was the TILER who said he did not want paid for EITHER bathroom. I was happy and asked him to re-do bathroom and he would be apid for both. The TILER said he was too busy to do this so what am I supposed to do??? As somebody else on here said, he should have cancelled upcoming work, started again on second bathroom all at his expense. I would then be more than happy to pay for all work but this was not an option.

Now I have explained for the umteenth time, do you still think I should be paying him anything??? If I did it was going to leave me out of pocket for his own admission - poor workmanship, somehow I don't think so.