Your opinion needed! Job's a good 'un? Or not so much.

[Scotgirl]

Hi all!
I've had an en-suite shower tiled by a builder who's done a major house renovation for us. I've been happy with the other work (plastering/electrics etc), but are hung up on the job done on this shower. I feel that it doesn't LOOK like the best tiling job, and beyond that it's had a leak since being fitted, which the builder is blaming incorrect installation of the door by his plumber on. I brought this up with the builder, who disagreed with me that there was any problem with the job, so I'm looking for some professional feedback! His explanations for my issues range from "it's an old house (it is), the walls aren't flat (some of them aren't to be fair)", "the tiles are bowed", "the tiles aren't exactly the same size", "you're using floor tiles on the wall (I'm not)", "you'll never get a perfect line". The tile is the ivory version of this: Dolomite Brown Wall Tile
I've attached pics of some of the problem areas (in my mind), can you guys give feedback? Am I being too picky? Is it worth getting redone?
Thanks so much in advance!
--Ok, I can't work out how to attach the pics here, so I uploaded them to photobucket here: Scotgirl2's Library | Photobucket

 

[peteablard]

it does look like the tiles might be slightly different sizes, it's not always easy to tell on a picture. If the walls aren't level then they should be sorted out prior to tiling it. It looks like he's used tubbed adhesive on timber, did that tile fall off on it's own or did you take it off? Oh and welcome to the forum!

 

[kilty55]

hi scotsgirl ,your right imo its not a good job and yes its definately worth getting redone imo

 

[Bubblecraft]

Hi & welcome. As above. It's a pretty poor finish tbh

 

[Scotgirl]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback
I've had a professional local tiler in to give me his opinion too and he pointed out numerous places where the sealing was done incorrectly and that the tiles hadn't been stuck down properly either. He said that there should be a layer of adhesive covering the entire back of the tile with no gaps and the tile should come away with a complete layer of adhesive on it. All this before any comment on misaligned tiles and bad grouting. He pointed out that the place where the gaps between tiles aren't even, that one tile placed unevenly has knocked all the other tiles out. (You can see this join in one of my pics). I want to get him to redo the whole thing, mostly now because I don't have confidence my builder can even seal it correctly, let alone for the wonky-looking tiles. How much is reasonable to expect the builder to compromise on in terms of the price? I have to buy all new tiles, pay a new tiler the entire fee to do the job, in theory pay the builder for the tiling he's done (which I don't want to do because it's being ripped out), and I've now been without a shower for 2 months.
Another aspect is that the shower tray is about 10cm short of the sides of the walls too (1200 shower tray in a 1300 width room) - so, the builder had made little ledges to extend the edge of the tray to the wall which were they tiled with slices of tile. My new tiler says that having tiled edges to a shower tray is a ledge that water will just sit on and not the best way to do it. He recommends building fake walls to bring the sides of the wall in to meet the tray, so the shower enclosure is two walls straight up from the tray and a back wall. Is this all correct and a good idea? (I can upload pics if that description is rubbish). If I go the route of narrowing the room in the shower tray to avoid ledges, that's something else I'd have to pay for.
So, overall I have a shower with tiles I want to totally rip out and start again with new tiles and a new tiler, and possibly build in walls to give the shower the best chance of being watertight and a builder who as of now wants paid for his tiling job and a shower with leaks (that he's willing to fix). Can I ask the builder to make the walls FOC and pay for the new tiles, new tiler myself? And not pay him for his job I'm ripping out? What's fair?
Thanks again