Do you bother to travel for products

[scrubmuncher]

Now an interesting one if people will be truthful.
I work in a smallish area and use Topps (bal) and North Easts(mapei) at Cramlington. I know people who may travel 30 miles to pick up and use thier favourite products, I wont, I go where ever is on my way. I don't keep bags and bags of crap in the garage as I did acumulate quite a little stash that never got used.
Now I love Mapei grout and realy notice the difference but wouldnt do them extra miles as I feel the difference is not gunna dictate a difference to the job.
ANYONE NOT ABLE YO WORK WITH OR CAN ONLY WORK WITH A CERTAIN PRODUCT?

[Fekin]

I don't know yet really.

Where I live the closest propper tile company is Topps and Tile giant and I get everything I need from Topps and goto Tile giant for anything I can't get at Topps.

[devonmark]

luckily for me I have 3 good suppliers within 3 mins of my house..topps, tile giant (mapei_ and an independant called tile world (granfix and tilemaster) then a couple of mins further there's another independant dealer (dunlop and bal). Guess I'm spoilt...lol

[scrubmuncher]

but do you notice any difference that would make a huge difference? Maybe I'm getting back to the thread the other day about a bloke I went to work for who tiled his bathroom with a hand scribe, pancil and a hand saw, the tiles solid as any the work amazing and all this 20 year ago.

Do we make to much of modern techniques? are we as skilled as the oldschool boys?
I dont reckon we are.

If you've been in the business for more than 20odd year. I reckon you can live without things we couldnt. Adhesives? I wanna get to the bottom of the whole Adhesive and grout swindle.
Not that I'm callingit that, but hey, what could this guy have been using and it looked F*****g fantastic!

[Dave]

I used ardex X7 alot in them days..great gear and dries like bell metal......and when i did site work there was no power so every socket and window had to be cut round with nibblers........dave..

[sc24]

The thing is 20 years ago the biggest tile you would probably come across was a 8x6 or at a push 8x8, the only good adhesive was bal wall or ctf which both needed battens, we were still laying floors in semi-dry screeds, so the demand for tools and adhesives have grown with the industry, as for adhesives and grouts i think for most straight forward tiling jobs they all stand up well, its when you start pushing the boundries with slate/stone and porcelain that some of the lesser known brands come up short, the experience I had a few years ago with laying a slate floor with howtex rapid+admix is that the slate debonded clean from the adhesive bed, called the rep in he layed a slate down himself came back 2 days and we just lifted it clean of the floor, the upshot was we changed to bal rapidset flex and never had a problem, the reason for the debonding was a high mineral oil content in the slate which the howtex just couldn't cope with, but getting back to the last question, you can do the best tiling job and rush the grouting and ruin it so this guy probably just took his time, its all in the finish.

[CLAYS TILES]

i've only got to travel 10 mins to TOPPS & few units away is TILE MAZE but i prefer TOPPS TILES as they allow you to return tiles etc.

[grumpygrouter]

I have little choice, my closest main town is Inverness about 20mins away without traffic, so that is where I have to go, fortunately I now have credit accounts with 2 suppliers and discount with 2 others (inc Topps Gaz!) on a cash basis.

As for the advance in tools and adhesives, Ihave a bit of a theory here. I feel that a lot of the advancement is driven by the way the British build houses. In Spain and France for instance, everything seems to be built out of concrete or block work. Here in Britain, most of the modern houses in the last few decades have gone more and more toward timber frame with partition walls. I think this is where the adhesive and grout technology has developed from.

May be good subject for a separate thread!

Grumpy

[Dan]

I only trusted BAL for ages then due to their prices I tried a few brands and found the odd product made by a different company was on a parr in many cases to the similar brand in the BAL range. Its just then I was getting this from here and that from there and it's obviously a maul that way.

Topps's BAL discount can earn you a few quid when selling onto customers I found, so it's not always bad thing.

[enduro]

I have a tile supplier who delivers to my house, or where I'm working on a daily basis, great bunch of guys at pentagon tiles.

[GazTech]

[quote=sc24;25974]The thing is 20 years ago the biggest tile you would probably come across was a 8x6 or at a push 8x8, the only good adhesive was bal wall or ctf which both needed battens, we were still laying floors in semi-dry screeds, so the demand for tools and adhesives have grown with the industry, as for adhesives and grouts i think for most straight forward tiling jobs they all stand up well, its when you start pushing the boundries with slate/stone and porcelain that some of the lesser known brands come up short, the experience I had a few years ago with laying a slate floor with howtex rapid+admix is that the slate debonded clean from the adhesive bed, called the rep in he layed a slate down himself came back 2 days and we just lifted it clean of the floor, the upshot was we changed to bal rapidset flex and never had a problem, the reason for the debonding was a high mineral oil content in the slate which the howtex just couldn't cope with, but getting back to the last question, you can do the best tiling job and rush the grouting and ruin it so this guy probably just took his time, its all in the finish.[/quote]when in doubt BAL it out
----
Live in city never had a problem..Only ever used Bal , Palace and Ardex....if you struggle hand the problem over to your punter....get the job without pricing materials..then have them get you your'e prefferred gear...easy really..its called proffessional delegation...lol....don't try this as a newbie..you wont get any work !!