tile shops pricing jobs for us now?

**garretridge** · 03-01-2009

went last nite to price a splashback measured up looked at tiles he had bought 4" teracotta glazed tiles different coloured 2m square approx. priced it at £165 with addy and grout a day and a half work for me he said to dear a well known tile shop assistant said a days work and £100 quid without even looking at the job were do these shops get off telling the customer are job

.(nicely)i said i cant do it at that price get the guy in the shop to come and do it and well in the end i got the job but with no help from balmoral tiles stick to what you are good at selling tiles!

**devonmark** · 03-01-2009

Originally Posted by garretridge

went last nite to price a splashback measured up looked at tiles he had bought 4" teracotta glazed tiles different coloured 2m square approx. priced it at £165 with addy and grout a day and a half work for me he said to dear a well known tile shop assistant said a days work and £100 quid without even looking at the job were do these shops get off telling the customer are job

.(nicely)i said i cant do it at that price get the guy in the shop to come and do it and well in the end i got the job but with no help from balmoral tiles stick to what you are good at selling tiles!

I would go and have a word with the people in the shop.....

**sWe** · 03-01-2009

Had a similar incident over here. I went to size up a bathroom, and the customer said "the tile shop said it'd cost x for labour", and the sum he said was basically ridiculous. I replied "so the tile shop are competing for the job as well then? I can't see them making a profit working so cheaply", and he said "no, they said that's what a tiler should charge"... I sighed, and simply said "I wasn't aware that particular tile shop controlled my pricing, or that they had any qualified or competent fitters working there at all". "What do you mean?", he asked, and I explained that "their exhibition is really sloppy, the materials they sell are little better than landfill, and they over price everything atleast 30%, so that they can give every customer a 10-15% rebate and still make a killing." His face turned red and said "I recieved a 15% rebate..."

Haven't heard from him. He's probably ashamed

**davy_G** · 03-01-2009

Im with devonmark here garret, next time your in Balmoral, pop by and have a quiet word. You dont tell clients they have paid too much for their tiles!

**cornish_crofter** · 03-01-2009

My BIL (wife's brother) is one such person who gets a price in his head and is a danger to himself and those around him from that moment on.

Just to set the scene:

I called by a couple of years ago, just as they were complementing their new kitchen with tiled splashbacks. My BIL went away overnight so I stayed with his wife and kids.

Their kitchen looked great. It had been fitted well but he had got one of his mates from work to come and do the splashbacks for £100 (what the tile shop suggested he should pay). The job was in the preparation stage, the windowsill (plasterboard) had 4 inch holes in it, and matey had done a 'great' job repairing one of the walls underneath the wall cabinets. Now, bearing in mind this was a modern 4 bed detached built around 1999 with stud walls, matey had managed to put a curve in the wall using thistle bonding coat in trying to repair the holes. What was wrong with keeping the wall straight I don't know!

His wife begged me to do the tiling whilst I was up there, she knew what sort of job was to be expected, but he seemed oblivious. I explained that I didn't have my tools with me, besides I didn't want to get involved. She offered to go out and buy the tools, then pay me for doing it! She really didn't want this guy to do the job, but I didn't want to spend the time putting right his mess. I like her a lot and really regretted not doing this.

The next time I visited them was to redo their bathrooms a few months later. Matey had returned and finished the job, and what a complete mess he'd made of it! Visible tile spacers, Tiles all over the place, the tiles were not sitting at all flush. He must have struggled with the windowsill because that was one of the worst areas. Bearing in mind that they were only 6 inch tiles he seemed incapable of fixing them properly. A few of the tiles were cracked, where he had tried to cut them around a socket and just given up, so he stuck both bits on and grouted the cracks!

Then BIL had the cheek to question why I wanted what I did to do the bathrooms, suites and all, when he seemed to think that he could get them both done for £700 including tiling! Again, more prices he'd got from a shop.

I was so close to telling him where to stick his bathrooms.

It was only when he decided to 'help' by assembing the bath. It took him ages. at that point he started to realise why I wanted more than £700!

I wouldn't have put up with that attitude from anyone who was not related. I found it easy as I could just put it down to him being stubborn.

His wife was way ahead of him in realising that he can't go on paying what he paid that cowboy and hope to get a better job.

Although he did fix some of the uncut tiles under my instruction and help rip out the old suites etc, I spent a huge amount of time in preparing the walls. In both bathrooms whole sheets of plasterboard got removed and replaced to save time on preparation.

**garretridge** · 06-01-2009

took your advice called in to the tile shop and had a word about them quoting on a job without them seeing it. they said client asked how much it would be and give rough estimate only so i asked them to let the tiler tell the customer a price so not a lot i could do but glad i got it of my chest