Customers, when buying tiles - Tile Advice

Discuss Customers, when buying tiles in the Canada area at TilersForums. The USA and UK Tiling Forum (Also now Aus, Canada, ROI, and more)

M

Mike Mike

Calculate exactly how big your room is in square metres. Then add 10% to cater for breakages, or chipped or blemished tiles as they come out of the box. Then stop and THINK about what happens if you break a tile in 5 years, or decide to fit a new shower and need to take off all the tiles from one wall, or maybe change bath tub and need to remove and replace the first row of tiles around the bath.

I know it sounds silly contemplating making changes to your bathroom when you haven't even installed it yet, but seriously, given the number of people I see posting on here saying "I need to get hold of 20 x, y, z, tiles and they don't make them any more!" I would say that ordering an extra 'n' boxes and keeping them in a safe place may save you a lot of hassle in the future.
 
John Benton

John Benton

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Come on Mike I'm waiting for it. :lol:

I agree, just done a kitchen splashback, told them to keep 1.5m2 (150 tiles) under units behind plinth. They thought it was a lot, but I said they're easier to find under there, than searching the whole country for them.
 
Dan

Dan

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I always used to tell the customer to keep a box under the bath and take the rest back to the shop.

I know a couple of tilers who keep them in their own shed marked with their customers name on them so that if they customer has problems in the future, they call the tiler, and he gets the job to repair whatever has happened. Clever way to go about it I suppose.

When I worked for a tile shop we used to get customers bringing back even just 3 or 4 tiles. Shocking really as they should at least keep those. Saw quite a few come back when we'd got non of them left. Saw a lass in tears once because of it.

Silly really for the sake of like 8 quid.

I'll sticky this thread.
 
M

Mac3769

I wish a 'Mike' had advised me to do this many years ago when I tiled my bathroom.

I have recently had to replace 4 tiles with the only 4 tiles I had left. However, due the the problem in the shower area, more tiles may need to be replaced in the future. The shop where I purchased the tiles ceased trading early last year so I am now on a nationwide tile hunt to save me retiling the entire bathroom unnecessarily at some stage in the future!
 
M

Mac

Hi guys. I'm Replying to say mike's post, Is extremely good advice. I work for a hotel in maintenance. They have to special order everything including tile, Usually because of the "designers" or the brand standards. They renovated the bathrooms 4 years ago, and guess what? They ordered just the right amount to do the job. Save the company money at the time.. Good yeah? Well not anymore! we have a couple rooms that have cracked tiles. I would love to replace them, because I would like my hotel to look the best it can! But can't special order the tile now and it was never made for the public. So I have to report to the GM either you keep it looking bad as it does or you buy new tiles for the entire bathroom. Well after the gm recovers from his stroke, he says it's too costly. So every once in a while I have to walk into a room and look at cracked tiles that bug the crap out of me. All because I can't replace them... Moral of the story BUY MORE THEN WHAT YOU NEED.
 
C

cam_low

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I would never return to a hotel that had cracked tiles. I would have a heart attack if a hotel replaced a tiled with a different one to fix it up. If I wanted to pay for looking at bad tiles I would stay at home in my rented flat in london! just saying like!
 
Dan

Dan

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Not sure if topps tiles still do their single tile buy back service? So what used to happen is they'd buy back every single tile, even individual ones. So the customers is left with nothing if they didn't think ahead like this and save some.

Then when one breaks they go to topps, topps discontinued them and sold the last lot in a £1 job lot, and the customers needs a new bathroom now. And topps probably gets the sale.

Very clever.
 
I

Ian

Topps only take full boxes back now, they stopped taking individuals back a couple of years ago.
 
Dan

Dan

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That's one saving grace!

Do they only sell by the box too now then?
 
Dan

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Oh. So they have a pile of them right there, you just can't put yours in that pile.

They have an individual price for each tile on their system, for a sale, just not for a refund.

I hate corporate policies.
 
I

Ian

So long as you've got 2 full tiles left and a decent box, just fill in between them with off cuts, hot glue gun on the box, hey presto, a full box! :D
 

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