Hi guys. Am I a ****? Bumped into a builder in my local and he sees I do tiling so asks me to price up to tile 7 showers in a local hotel he's refurbing. Tells me they're 800 quadrants, all new stud work, moisture resistant plasterboard yada yada. 250x325 bumpy white ceramics cheap as chips from Wickes. So breaking a cardinal rule I price it unseen. Turn up on the Monday to start and first thing I see is they're not quadrants they're alcoves so there's half as much tiling again. Having a look round I see in several of the showers the plasterboard is 25mm shy of the top of the tray and there's a gap down the back of the trays. Also in four of them, for some reason two of the walls are all bonding plaster, and whoever did it must have used a guaging trowel to apply it! At this point I should have turned around and effed off but no! Like a mug and thinking I may get more work from him I cracked on. I even mentioned the gaps above the trays to him and he said...."just tile down onto the tray and Silicon"....I said "do you really want to rely on one bead of Silicon?"....and his answer was..."you're not gonna get all anal on me are you?".
Long story short, pissed and bumpy walls, two of which I tried to flatten with rapid set, no light in the cubicles, trying to work around the other trades etc etc and the end result is as you can imagine, not the most fantastic bit of tiling I've ever done. He's pulled me up on it and when I challenged him on the state of the walls he's come back with "My tiling is rubbish hot and if you were any good as a tiler you'd have got over all that I would have". Suffice to say I picked up my tools and walked away. £900 down.
I only recently started my business and although I haven't got years of experience, I've been in the building trade doing renovations for 20 years but decided to concentrate on tiling and I've done plenty of jobs with no comeback. To be honest this has knocked my confidence a bit so just wanted to get your views on it. Like I say I think I should have turned around and walked away on day one. So, am I a ****?
Long story short, pissed and bumpy walls, two of which I tried to flatten with rapid set, no light in the cubicles, trying to work around the other trades etc etc and the end result is as you can imagine, not the most fantastic bit of tiling I've ever done. He's pulled me up on it and when I challenged him on the state of the walls he's come back with "My tiling is rubbish hot and if you were any good as a tiler you'd have got over all that I would have". Suffice to say I picked up my tools and walked away. £900 down.
I only recently started my business and although I haven't got years of experience, I've been in the building trade doing renovations for 20 years but decided to concentrate on tiling and I've done plenty of jobs with no comeback. To be honest this has knocked my confidence a bit so just wanted to get your views on it. Like I say I think I should have turned around and walked away on day one. So, am I a ****?
