Warning newbies !

[barriesheene]

Just a few warning's for newbies that i have just found out the hardway :sad_smile:
1) Do not give quote's give estimates !

2) Do not say you'll do the job untill you see the tiles to be fitted.

3) Do not leave an uneven gap on internal corner's/top of wall thinking the silicon will hide it cos it wont !!!!!

4) Get yourself a proper tile cutter before you start cos if you suddenly come up against a monster size tile your £50 tile cutter from wicks will tie itself up in knots.

5) Dont give to much discount just cos you really want the job. If something unexpected crops up and you've given too much discount you'll be left out of pocket !

6) if the walls havnt been preperd like you asked then walk away !!!!!!

7) Practise your siliconing on some scrap tiles first cos it's alot bloody harder than it look's and it wont cover a 1" gap. you could have tiled brilliantly put if the Silicon is poor it'll wreck the hole job !

8) Try not to get to dissharted after your first full bathroom like i have !! :sad_smile:

9) I'm off to have a cry now

 

[Dan]

Very informative post.

 

[barriesheene]

I new there would be a steep learning curve, but I didnt realise it was going to be very nearly vertical !:sad_smile: The customer now wants me to remove all the Silicon from the joint's,( which looked ok eventually :angel_smile: ) and grout ALL the expansion joint's including around the shower tray!!!!!! This means that because I was rushing and didn't line up my cut's correctly,(they should be covered by Silicon anyway ) I now have to remove the majority of all the corner tiles and replace them to give me a decent enough finish to grout !!! Are all my jobs going to be like this ???????

 

[Dan]

You should Silicon movement joints.

 

[barriesheene]

Wife rekons i should just remove the Silicon then grout and walk away putting it down to experience. On the Bal course I was told to leave at least a 6mm gap for expansion. That's a big gap to cover with Silicon ! Have I got my fact's wrong

 

[Dan]

I always thought it went a little something like this.....

http://www.tilersforums.com/Silicon.jpg

A zoomed in shot....

Although my 3mm might be 6mm. I think some Silicon doesn't hold at less than 6mm, or maybe it's something else i'm mixing the 6mm up with there.

I think the key is to practise and get good with Silicon. As you say it can let the job down.
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Not too sure if this is where the 6mm comes from maybe? Not even sure if that maths is right, I haven't got a tape measure to hand, maybe somebody can correct this?

One of those weber tiling guides would come in handy now lol

 

[barriesheene]

Cheer's Dan. To be honest if I had just taken more time with my cut's then even if the customer wanted grout instead of Silicon then it wouldnt have been such a problem. The fact that they want the expansion joints filled with grout kind of makes they're dimensions irrelivent. I think from now on if it's a full bathroom I might make sure that one wall/corner is finished,i.e grouted and siliconed, so the customer can see and decide on any changes BEFORE I finish the whole room.

 

[Paul Sh]

Why don't you tell the customer that expansion joints should be filled with Silicon, tell him the reason why, also tell him how much it will cost to correct the up and coming problem if grout is used, when he knows the cost of repair he may think twice.

 

[brian c]

sorry to hear of your woes m8,put it down to experience.If unsure of anything,come on the forums and ask,thats why they are here. keep your chin up,the next job will be spot on.

 

[Paul Sh]

The more i think about it, i would not do it for him, because when it all goes pear shaped the first thing he is going to tell people is...........Barrie the tiler did that..... something to think about i think.

 

[barriesheene]

Thank's guy's :shades_smile: I have explained why they are there and that they will crack ! It's a new build dormer ext.So basically new timber and plaster board so it hasn't even had chance to settle at all yet ! The problem is his bathroom down stairs that he had tiled some years ago is ok, but i explained to no avail that this is a stone built, old part of the house that has probably had 50 years to do all it's settling. I'm to go back on saturday and remove all the silicon,fit a skirting board,grout the corners and fit a plastic arcitrave around the top and around the shower tray. I'm only doing it really cos I work with the guy during the week. I'm just gutted cos the builder took some of my cards and I've been asked to price up more jobs for others in work, but I cant see any of them coming off now :icon9: I'll post some pics after saturday when it's finished for you all to see what i mean.
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It's funny cos I just remembered a conversation I had with the electrician while he was doing the shower :laugh: I was pointing out a few of the probs i was having and he said he get's similar types of problems to. People who have no training at all just go to price up a job and say " yeah no probs I can do that for you " but people who know what the hell they're talking about just see problems that could lose them the job !!!!!!!!

 

[Dan]

so the customer can see and decide on any changes BEFORE I finish the whole room.

I'd try not to do a demo each time on each job, I wouldn't even offer many customers options for joints. If you do need to demo though, take pictures of some practise shots at home with a few tiles and some plasterboard maybe?

Why don't you tell the customer that expansion joints should be filled with Silicon

You don't actually fill the joints. A bit like in that example picture above, you're trying to just stick a face on an open joint, to allow each wall to move a little and not upset the joint. But if you filled that with Silicon, which sets kinda hard, when you try and compress it or even squash a lump of it that's gone off between your fingers you find it looses it's rubbery characteristics.

Silicon has to be used a bit like an elastic band that you make. And even on flat walls or floors when you use Silicon or similar for an expansion joint, there are strips and beeding type affairs to fill the joint with that flex, and you Silicon over that, which keeps the Silicon in a stretchy form.

Thank's guy's :shades_smile: I have explained why they are there and that they will crack ! It's a new build dormer ext.So basically new timber and plaster board so it hasn't even had chance to settle at all yet ! The problem is his bathroom down stairs that he had tiled some years ago is ok, but i explained to no avail that this is a stone built, old part of the house that has probably had 50 years to do all it's settling. I'm to go back on saturday and remove all the silicon,fit a skirting board,grout the corners and fit a plastic arcitrave around the top and around the shower tray. I'm only doing it really cos I work with the guy during the week. I'm just gutted cos the builder took some of my cards and I've been asked to price up more jobs for others in work, but I cant see any of them coming off now :icon9: I'll post some pics after saturday when it's finished for you all to see what i mean.
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It's funny cos I just remembered a conversation I had with the electrician while he was doing the shower :laugh: I was pointing out a few of the probs i was having and he said he get's similar types of problems to. People who have no training at all just go to price up a job and say " yeah no probs I can do that for you " but people who know what the hell they're talking about just see problems that could lose them the job !!!!!!!!

It only sounds to me like you need to practise applying the Silicon a bit. And try not to bodge any of your cuts up, even the ones you're going to Silicon, just so you know the Silicon bead can be a neater thinner run.
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Moved the thread to the pro's room.

 

[tjsmiler]

Barrie what was the outcome of this job mate?

TJ

 

[barriesheene]

Tj,The customer said that he was happy with what I had done,but his personal preferance was grout in the corner's He paid me and then removed all the silicon and grouted the corner's with the grout that I had left him,including the shower base. To be honest it didn't look at all bad to the untrained eye cos my cut's weren't as bad as i thought. The wife rekon's they were fine and I'm just a bit too much of a perfectionist :wink_smile: .I learn't soo many lessons on that job tho that have already cropped up on job's that i've priced recently it has probably saved me a fortune and a lot of stress since.

 

[DHTiling]

he removed all the Silicon, wot a mug!!!. wait till it leaks and you will have last laugh...