Two different tiles laid down-who’s at fault and whats a fair outcome?

[Trigger]

Just for the record, if I had noticed the colour difference while laying them I would 100% of raised the issue with customer before proceeding. Sometimes you don't notice it until its grouted, cleaned up and you stand back and look at it.

I once laid a floor all done grouted, stood back and thought WTF. There was one tile slap bang in the middle of the floor that stood out like a sore thumb, it was a different shade.

However, if a customer is supplying materials I expect them to check that everything is present and correct prior to my arrival. If I turn up and something is missing or incorrect and I can't carry out the work the customer requested on the day they requested it is going to start costing me money. It means I have to allocate another day to that job (which a customer never wants to pay for) and also has a knock on effect for my schedule.

 

[Mismatch]

Just for the record, if I had noticed the colour difference while laying them I would 100% of raised the issue with customer before proceeding. Sometimes you don't notice it until its grouted, cleaned up and you stand back and look at it.

I once laid a floor all done grouted, stood back and thought WTF. There was one tile slap bang in the middle of the floor that stood out like a sore thumb, it was a different shade.

However, if a customer is supplying materials I expect them to check that everything is present and correct prior to my arrival. If I turn up and something is missing or incorrect and I can't carry out the work the customer requested on the day they requested it is going to start costing me money. It means I have to allocate another day to that job (which a customer never wants to pay for) and also has a knock on effect for my schedule.

Absolutely take your points on this also. It is completely unfair on a tiler to arrive to a job expecting the materials to be ready to do the job and to find that what's needed isn't there. No one should have a day's wages lost or have the hassle of having to negotiate this with the customer. I agree completely.

FWIW, as a random bloke who ordered tiles just expecting them to be as ordered, you're all probably well on top of this already but please warn your customers who say they are sourcing the tiles about this kind of thing and tell them to check the codes. I could have easily done this if I knew that there were numbers on the boxes I could have checked.

I completely take your point that it might only be when you've done the job that you notice. The one additional annoying part is that I live just down the road from the tile shop so could have easily nipped out to get the needed tiles when he spotted the differences before laying them down. Anyway, what's done is done.

I absolutely take a calm and pleasant approach to this kind of stuff - no-one messes up on purpose generally - and as an update, the supplier is offering a 50% refund on the cost of the tiles. It pays to pleasant about it.

Cheers for all the input - helped me to see the issue primarily lay with my own need to check the materials supplied in future.