Slate job pricing and sealing

[sranners]

Hi all, iv be asked to lay 25msq of slate, iv fixed it before but have not charged as i just wanted to get my experience up. Also what sealer do you recomend and how many coats?

[wetdec]

Generally I would say £25/m2 and sealed with lithofin slate seal 1 possibly 2 coats depending on the look the customer wants.


tiler

[sranners]

Thats cheep!!!?

[bal]

Did a job yesterday used Lithofin slate seal gloss finish, sealed them before i layed them then left customer with rest of tin so he could do second coat saved me travelling back to job .

[sranners]

ya iv told the customer to clean and put the fist coat on as this will save me a lot of time. there has been a set back on the job so might get them to put the second on to.

[Highlander]

Generally I would say £25/m2 and sealed with lithofin slate seal 1 possibly 2 coats depending on the look the customer wants.


tiler

I would stick to wetdecs mate if you are charging £25m2 or was that labour only not including materials and time in sealing etc otherwise if you are including everything in £25m2 stick to wet decs.

With any natural stone scanners there is more work. Some advise seal before laying but I always work clean and have a sponge and bucket of clean water to wash any smudges of. You will need to wet cut everything and also when wet cutting I always wipe tiles with sponge and clean water. This keeps them clean and not drying out dirty.

As for sealing I use Aqua Mix enrich n seal it gives a really first class finish and nine times out of ten you will not need two coats, the big advantage with Enrich n seal is there is not much fumes of it, other sealers are hard on your lungs and for the customers as they have to put up with the stink. I have used HG, Lithofin, LTP and various others but the Enrich n seal is the best I have used.

As for pricing each job is different depends on cutting and what pattern customer wants how much traveling etc sometimes you are better charging day rate plus materials or sometimes M2 rate.

I would say 75% of my work is natural stone and each tiler has their own way of laying it, most guys I know dont stick to what is written in the book as the job would take twice as long.


Highlander