Travertine not square.

[Sean Kelly]

Arrived at customers house this morning to find dots of lipstick on the tiles I set the previous day. Apparently the customer want’s the tiles changed because the tiles do not have sharp enough corners.
The tiles are Topps 30x30 honed and filled travertine @ £1.60 a tile.
There are only a handful of tiles that I would class as nearly perfect. The rest have chips, dents, holes, corners missing etc. A few of them just disintegrate when they are picked up, and a few just snapped while I was laying them. One of the tiles did have nice corners, but the pressure of grouting caused one of the corners to cave in (about 2mm). I grouted it and it looked fine to me.

I have just got a call from the builder and he wants me to replace the marked tiles.

To be honest I did a cut for a corner tile up by the ceiling. It was my 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] attempt and cutting it and the inner most corner just broke away again. I thought to myself that will be ok when it’s grouted, but this is one of the tiles I now have to replace!

I thought I would be out of this place tomorrow, but it seems I’ll be there at least another day.

Surely travertine should not be perfect, but what is acceptable?

p.s. I also had to replace a few tiles whilst setting, as they were out of true!

 

[gamma38]

Arrived at customers house this morning to find dots of lipstick on the tiles I set the previous day. Apparently the customer want’s the tiles changed because the tiles do not have sharp enough corners.
The tiles are Topps 30x30 honed and filled travertine @ £1.60 a tile.
There are only a handful of tiles that I would class as nearly perfect. The rest have chips, dents, holes, corners missing etc. A few of them just disintegrate when they are picked up, and a few just snapped while I was laying them. One of the tiles did have nice corners, but the pressure of grouting caused one of the corners to cave in (about 2mm). I grouted it and it looked fine to me.

I have just got a call from the builder and he wants me to replace the marked tiles.

To be honest I did a cut for a corner tile up by the ceiling. It was my 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] attempt and cutting it and the inner most corner just broke away again. I thought to myself that will be ok when it’s grouted, but this is one of the tiles I now have to replace!

I thought I would be out of this place tomorrow, but it seems I’ll be there at least another day.

Surely travertine should not be perfect, but what is acceptable?

p.s. I also had to replace a few tiles whilst setting, as they were out of true!

I have had problems with Topps trav in the past, but for me it was more different sizes and thicknesses, nothing as bad as your describing. I would go back to topps myself. Personally they have always been really good with me in situations like this. That said I have never gone in there shouting and screaming at them which helps I think. But give them a try.

 

[Andy Allen]

why did she use lipstick to mark the tiles?.....bit strange..lol

yes there is some right crap out there, i fitted some a couple of weeks ago, the back of the tile was full of holes, must have used a couple of bags of addy just filling them in, you had to be so carefull just picking them up....i allways piont it out to the customer, to cover myself..

just to add these were some rubbish she got off tinternet.....havnt used any topps stuff..

 

[EverDon Tiling]

i finished a bathroom with the same tiles from topps last week first and last time am buying trave from topps i only went there coz they had stock in and i forgot to order them from my normal place. They was a nightmare to work with very poor quality and alot of filler.

 

[turnip]

get yourself a pot of marble filler, straw colour, its a life saver, you can reform chipped corners in minutes

 

[bugs183]

Bugger eh, just one of those jobs.
Some people just want perfect floors and don't want to pay for decent quality stone.
Sometimes you just have to bite your tongue and do whats asked.
I try and avoid any Topps stone as much as possible.

 

[Sean Kelly]

I've not heard back from the woman or the builder, but I did change 2 tiles, and I sanded/polished a couple more! One of the tiles had filler on the very corner of it. It had obviously fallen off the tile when I was cleaning them ready for grouting. This woman must have been on her hands and knees checking every tile. She missed the one with another chipped corner! However, when I grouted it, it blended in with all the filler! I hate it when customers see tiles before they are grouted.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

To be honest you are lucky to be able to use Travertine at that price at all. You'd normally end up buying twice as much to get a half decent job and unless you put a focal display of something in it the plain tiles look just that - plain!

 

[AliGage]

Topps Wigig Travertine. I got in quite a bit of this recently for an en-suite and bathroom i'm doing. I found the occassional large hole in the back but nothing major. I posted these pictures a little while back, all of the brick bonded tiles were cut from the full tile supplied and the centre feature was also.

 

[cam_low]

for £1.60 a tile what does one expect !!!!

 

[brian c]

if they are not honed and filled its like laying digestive biscuits:mad2: