A second opinion request

[John & Mary]

We just want some advice as to whetheror not the job our tiler did is satisfactory, he argues it is, we areless sure but would value a second opinion.


We used the tiler recommended by theshop. He laid expensive Welsh Slate tiles which had been diamond cutone side so were all virtually 9mm. The bathroom floor had beenconcreted and was flat according to the spirit level prior tostarting. We had Dukkaboard laid across the floor and three strips ofunderfloor heating near the middle of the room (the shop suggested – and we agreed - it waspointless to heat under the bath, shower, sink, toilet and bidet).


He laid the board, heating, and tilesbetween 8:30 and 1:30, and came back the next day to grout and polishwhich took a couple of hours. He didn't use any leveller. There was no heating in the room.


The display in the shop had the tilesthat were at the same level. We expected this but got lippage acrossalmost half the floor (the green arrows in the overview picture showwhere we thought there is lippage, the remaining pictures are examples) – and were told this was to beexpected with these types of tiles. Is he right?

[suave]

welcome!

[northstar]

Hi and welcome, what area do you live in ?

[peteablard]

The aren't lips they look more like steps!!! In my opinion it looks totally unacceptable. Quite often with slate you do get some lippage however a professional tiler would dress them with a chisel and reduce it to a minimum. If you are having no luck with the tiler I would get someone from the tile shop who recommended him to come and have a look at it. Please keep us informed of your progress and good luck with sorting it.

[Del W]

What he has done is unacceptable.A decent tiler would not be happy with that finish.

[JLM Tiling]

Also was the bond supposed to be that random? As in the grout lines?

[nybor62]

not good at all, they could have been dressed as comment above stated, there also seems to be quite a bit of grout residue left on the tiles

[nybor62]

oh and welcome to the forum

[wrighty]

Those slates don't look riven enough to warrant needing to be dressed,they are just badly laid! Could i suggest because he didn't use SLC the lippage could be caused by not using a big enough notched trowel to get over the height differences from cabled to non cabled areas of the floor.

[Fliselege]

That's not lippage, it's very poor work. Have you paid him? If not, don't. Maybe take these pictures to the tile shop and show the salesman what a cowboy he recomended.

[NZ_Tiler]

When laying a brickstyled pattern or staggered grout joints like this, extra care needs to be taken getting the tiles/stone straight. A straight edge or long level should be placed across the surface of the first row laid. If there is a hump or hollow this will inevitable cause lippage, on the following courses to be laid.

[Dan]

The shop need a bit of a telling off there. They shouldn't be recommending guys that tile like that.

I just looked at the pictures and didn't read your full post, I was about to reply and say 'you should have got a tiler who came recommended' then I read 'Fliselege' above saying take the pictures to the shop so read your post.

Shocking.

If you sourced the tiler yourself I was going to say you've cut the wrong corner trying to get a better price by the looks of it. But if the shop has sent the tiler then I'd be taking it up with the tiler AND the shop.

It's a shame to see that, as it's nearly alright. I've seen a lot worse. It wouldn't have taken any longer to do it perfectly (that said I'd have spent extra time using SLC personally as it just gives a really nice floor to tile to and makes all that side of things quicker).

Love the arrows on the floor Careful you down get planes landing there.

[John & Mary]

Thanks very much to everyone who has replied - we are very grateful for your responses.

The tiler has been around again and relaid/replaced some of the tiles, and also added extra grout in a number of areas to reduce the trip hazard (although there is still a height difference between tiles). He has also chipped the corners on some tiles which were protruding but they now look odd. Finally, the width of the grout now varies between tiles. He said that if he relaid the entire floor we would still not get a better finish (even though as mentioned above the floor was professionally re-concreted and was flat and level prior to laying tiles).

We've been back to the shop in Bristol but they are reluctant to get involved citing a potential conflict of interest. We are extremely disappointed as we used a local shop as we try to support our local community. We were not trying to do this on the cheap and the shop certainly was not the cheapest.

We don't know what to do next - we can't afford to rip it out and start again, but although less dangerous it is still not right and each time we go into the bathroom we are reminded of the unhappy situation we find ourselves in.

We would be grateful for any advice on what to do next. Do we insist that the shop gets involved? Do we request another tile to review the floor?

Once again many thanks to everyone for your help.

[charlie1]

5 hre to fit slate, the board and the heating says it all. looks about 7m2 to me? I wonder what he charged you for that mess? Thats crap J&M

[jay]

Slate is a natural product and if you were expecting a mirror Finnish its not going to happen ,but the lippage you have may of been avoidable ,

question 1 Did the tiler view the slate before fixing and tell you what the quality of it is. this should of been discussed as the tiler was sorting the slate (thicknes graded bowed or twisted ones placed to one pile to be used as cuts or out of main walk areas )

the look of the job is disappointing but what was the quality of the slate

this pic shows poor quality slate bowed
The sad part is the tile shops (normally) place the better quality ones on the display (because crap is harder to sell)

Question 2 did you agree with the pattern the slate is fixed ////

[Dave]

The pattern is 2 sizes of tile,how else would it be laid.

As to the floor, unless the slate is a perfect honed tile and fully calibrated then this small lippage is acceptable.

Slate is clefted and does bow slightly if not machine finished both sides.

Let's not hang this tiler when no one but the tiler knows the grading of the stone.

And as for chiseling slate edges that finish of surface is crazy. It will ruin the look.

The backs are machined to get them as flat as possible on that type of calibrated slate and the surface isn't heavily clefted like hand split slate.

As with jay , careful selection can minimise lipping but not 100% avoidable.

If you have spares, then stand a few edge on and check for slight bowing and thickness variation end to end.

But I had to sort of stick up for the tiler here a bit, when we do not know the grading of the slate and I have laid enough of it over the years to know the finish you can get.

What will also say is , a wider joint would have helped if the calibration wasn't the best.

[jay]

Take it you mean one 800x400 to one 400x400 thought it was meant to be all one size 400x800 (guestanent on sizes)

[timeless john]

I'am with Dave on this tiler - sometimes the materials dictate the finished surface and as it's not 'honed' a riven texture will give this result.
If you take the tile marked in front of the wc pan - the corners are alternate high which would show a bend in the tile.

[Topshop]

That floor could be ground in place to minimize the lippage or cut it all down flat but you would loose the cleft look.

Many of the slate floors I have seen here in the US are lipped like that but let's face it we may not have as well trained tile setters as you do in the UK. Slate is just a poor material to work with all together.

[NZ_Tiler]

If you take the tile marked in front of the wc pan - the corners are alternate high which would show a bend in the tile.

That is a good point, but if he had spares, he could have left that piece out, or used it for a cut on along the wall.

But yeah thats the nature of slate.

I think this tilers biggest problem was communicating with the customer. If he had explained these things beforehand, this theard may not exist

[charlie1]

take back my earlier opinion, didnt realise it was natural slate! considering that, its not bad tbh

[NZ_Tiler]

John & Mary, did the tiler explain to you both, how to maintain and seal the slate? Has he already applied a sealer?

[John & Mary]

Thanks all for your comments - It is very much appreciated. To answer the question on the quality of the slate, then if was nearly £45.00 per meter squared and we were assured by the shop that it was the best quality that you could get which at that price I would expect to be top grade. The slate was machined on one side and looking at the couple that are spare there is no variation, bowing or anything else. I.e they are absolutely bang on.

Where I am still a little confused with the comments in the thread is that as mentioned in the first post, we had the floor relayed with concrete and it was bang on flat and level across the whole floor. So as the floor was flat and level before the tiles were laid and then when the tiler had finished it was not flat or level - slopes by nearly 10cm to the side where the underfloor heating was not laid (cos this is the side that the shower and toilet etc were placed) how can the tiles not be lipped/different heights? I'm not a tiler but this seems common sense - I'd be grateful for an opinion from any experienced tiler to help me understand where my logic is flawed.

[John & Mary]

Sorry previous thread advised slopes by 10cm, I meant of course 10mm

[jay]

Guessing here that the tiler did not lay a self leveling compound over the floor heating ,could be a reason why your floor is out of wack,as for the slate place two pieces face to face (finished side to finished side )and view remember every piece is different

[Rich]

This isnt an easy one to call just by looking at the pics to be honest. Slate is not completely flat or square (or at least very very rarely) and I dont mean to sound horrid but the guy in the tile shop is hardly going to tell you that its poor quality. The price is nothing to go on as I have seen some horrendous slate sold for a huge price. If the slate was of different thickness/sizes (as most slate is) then you have to expect lips.

That said, the fact that it shoots down where the UFH stops doesnt bode well as it sounds like he has not tried to level the floor at all.

[James3]

I personally think this looks a very poor job! Even with the rough uncalibrated slate a good tiler would grade the slate before tiling and start with thicker tiles in the middle and build up the thinner slate accordingly to acheive a level finish, so there should be no excuses in this case. This just looks as tho the tiler has gone in and tried to claim his/her prize in the least amount of time possible!!!! Like some of the other members have said he/she sould of used SLC after the UFH had been laid, this would of made laying the slate level a doddle!!! This is why Professional tilers charge more for working with natural stone as the prep, laying/cutting and aftercare takes a lot longer compared to using ceramic etc . I would be interested if they have charged you top doller for laying this? my bet is Yes!!

[John & Mary]

Thanks again for all your comments. They have been really helpful. Below is an update of our situation.

To recap the tiler came round and replaced some of the tiles with extreme lippage, at this time he said that with these tiles the finish we have would be as good as it can get, even if he started again therefore relaying the floor would not lead to a better finish. (And in response to Jay there was no self levelling compound laid.) Thus we went back to the shop, they said they are only responsible for supplying tiles and whilst they recommended the tiler they do not wish to get involved. However, they repeated these tiles would give us a floor which would be virtually flat (as it is a natural material it will never be totally flat due to the top layer), and they reiterated they were top quality calibrated tiles diamond cut on one side. This means there would be no trip hazards or protruding corners - which could be an issue as the bathroom will be used by young children with bare feet. As these opinions contradict (the fact that it would be virtually flat and we would always have a noticeable lippage) we insisted the shop and the tiler come round to our property to agree who is correct and the way forward. We have been promised they will be in touch on Monday and we will keep you posted.

(In response to NZ_Tiler he applied a sealant after the first visit. But when leaving after his second visit in which he did the repairs he felt necessary, said he would come again once the bath, sink etc had been plumbed in and reseal the whole floor again. I am assuming that the fact it hasn't been sealed explains the difference in grout colour between the two visits.)

As a final aside, we are attaching a picture of the original tile (the corner in question is the one immediately to the left of the triangular tile and by the corner with the arrows pointing to it) and that which replaced it. There seems to be a corner missing (the pen is to give an idea of scale) and we don't know whether or not to raise this as an issue, it doesn't look good to us, but we aren't tilers.

Attachment 38603Attachment 38604

[Discount Tile Supplies]

Hi John and Mary, £45 for real WELSH slate seems cheap, as a decent chinese one would sell for that looking at the sizes.

Not sure How a shop can say un honed slate can be laid FLAT its not really possible, in my opinion. Natural slate is reven'd so how can you get all the edges flat? (i know some tillers are good but come on guys, ur not miracle workers)

If you wanted a perfect flat floor you should have looked at a decent porcelain or a honed slate. Im not saying that the tiller made the best job in the world but you using stanley blade, 5cm long, to show uneven SLATE tile edges is unfair.

Like i said going by the pics it doesn't look a great job but another pro should make an unbiased visit and be prepared to put in writing his views. With that go back to the shop you purchased them from and speak to the owner and get him to have a look. You should also let him know that he is part of the contract as his shop recommended the tiller. Also get the manufacturer/supplier to come and look and let them say if it could have been laid flat with no LIPS.

Did you also point out to the tiller you wanted it PERFECTLY flat? As silly as it sounds perhaps he thought you wanted that natural slate look? And regardless of the time it took to do it would it had made a difference if it took a week but still looked the same?

Im not trying to get the guy who done the job out of a hole but none of us know the ins and outs of this project/contract 100% except you and the tiller.

On a good note he has tried to put it right, that does show he is bothered.

Sorry but dont all shoot me for this comment!!

[Discount Tile Supplies]

Slate is a natural product and if you were expecting a mirror Finnish its not going to happen ,but the lippage you have may of been avoidable ,

question 1 Did the tiler view the slate before fixing and tell you what the quality of it is. this should of been discussed as the tiler was sorting the slate (thicknes graded bowed or twisted ones placed to one pile to be used as cuts or out of main walk areas )

the look of the job is disappointing but what was the quality of the slate

this pic shows poor quality slate bowed
The sad part is the tile shops (normally) place the better quality ones on the display (because crap is harder to sell)

Question 2 did you agree with the pattern the slate is fixed ////

it does look bowed but not all shops con the public!