B&Q verses CTD

[cornish_crofter]

Last week I contacted B&Q and spoke to their tile section to ask about floor tiles in porcelain to use for the wetroom I'm doing.

Prices from about £8 per square meter up to over £20 psm. But the guy couldn't tell me how deep the glazing/colour is. Previous experience of cutting B&Q tiles for a wetroom former taught me that the depth of glaze is important, especially if it's lacking. I had to be quite inventive with my grouting to hide the problem.

This time as I was asked to source the tiles I thought I would look into this properly.

It seems that CTD can offer me a porcelein tile at a good price (£22 retail, trade less ) that is coloured all the way through. Hence cutting is not an issue.

Having said that I may have to seal them. I will need to ask CTD.

[faithhealer]

search for b&q porcies Hugo and you will only read bad news

[kilty55]

ctd would be my choice

[Stewart]

CTD for me too.......

[cornish_crofter]

CTD used to sponser this forum. That is how I found out about them.

The Plymouth shop is good. The same 3 people have been there for a good two years at least, which says a lot. I think the Topps in Plymouth has a higher turnover than that.

The only issue I had with them once is when the manager recommended BAL Mosaic Fix for 6x6 trade white tiles I can only assume he was told to push the product. I just smiled and bought the shower proof bagged addy at a fraction of the price.

These tiles aren't in their catalogue but are available. They do a non slip version for wetrooms. Would you use them on the former only or all over the wetroom. The former will occupy about a 3rd of the room.

[cornish_crofter]

search for b&q porcies Hugo and you will only read bad news

yup -read a couple of threads on the subject this afternoon

[Mouldy]

B&Q stuff normally means trouble. Wont touch any of their sanitary ware, if the customer supplies and its come from B&Q I dont do the job!

[poynton phil]

I have only had the pleasure of B&Q tiles three time, problems each time, so now i wont fit them.

[cornish_crofter]

I have to be honest, the only problem I've had with their bathrooms is most recently when I bought a steel bath with feet to replace a customer's bath.

Went to fit it the next day only to find that the feet didn't fit. Phoned them up to be told by them that the feet had been incorrectly supplied by their supplier. It's funny how it's always someone elses fault.

I nearly stopped using them altogether after the way the treated me over that. I must have fallen out with pretty much every member of staff I spoke to that day. I had to source another bath locally then more annoyingly I had to do another 40 mile round trip to return the bath and get my money back!

So much wasted time because someone didn't do their job properly. I eventually got a steel bath from Jewsons about 15 mins from me. It only cost me £15 more and erm - fitted!

The B&Q porcelain tiles I put on the floor for this customer were ok in most respects. It's just the glazing was very shallow. The ceramic tiles 13 x 10, were terrible to the extent that they were basically unfit for purpose. Most of them were bowed. Some actually cracked when I fitted them as they were under that much stress.

What I like about this job is that the customer has left me to source ranges of tiles from people I trust to put products in front of me that are fit for purpose.

If I refused to fit B&Q tiles I would probably not get as much work as I do. I do however advise customers not to go to B&Q or Focus, who also do banana shaped tiles.