Buying Marble tiles from a Quarry

anitha

Hi,

I like the idea of marble tiles but they are exorbatant in price.
Does anybody know how to go about buying from a quarry in europe ?

thnax

shammyjack

The reason they are so expensive is transport costs.
Marble is a very dense material and so its weight to volume ratio is very high .

I installed some cranes in a firm at Huddersfield who manufacture fireplaces etc and was able to get offcuts and pieces of broken slabs cut to my requirments by one of the workers in his own time. The cost of the marble was peanuts as it was useless for anything else but the labour costs were still high.

Try finding a local company such as I have described and make enquiries. If you look at the cost of packing and transporting say 100 kilos from Italy ( which would not be many tiles ) you will probably understand better the cost in the UK .

shammy

weekendwarrior

I got some here and they were very cheap

http://www.atstone.co.uk/

click on the specials

Alan_M_2

A.T. Stone is my business it's very kind of weekendwarrior to recommend us. I came here out of curiosity after my website stats showed a link from this forum, which was a little unusual.

I've known about Martins site for a while from listening to the Jeremy Vine show.

Anyway Shammy's explanation of importing is the the biggest reason it's impractical for individuals to bring in their own products. There's nothing stopping you from doing so of course, especially if it's an EU country without the restrictions of customs and import requirements it's actually quite easy.

However what you consider a large amount and what a manufacturer will consider a large amount are often two different things.

We import mainly from Spain or Portugal, the most effecient way for us to bring the product in is by seafreight in a container.

One 20ft container will hold betweem 400 sq/m (20mm thick) and 800sq/m (10mm thick) of stone. This costs us around about £1000 + vat to transport door to door including having the container unpacked onto a flat bed truck. A full truck will hold about the same weight as a container, approx 23,000kg. A truck direct is usually around £1500+vat, depending on the time of year.

We then have to have fork lift facilities to unload this truck when it arrives at our warehouse. This goes someway towards expalining where the costs are incurred, you may find you save a substantial amount oer sq/m buying from abroad, but once you've considered the transportation costs back to the UK, the fact you can't insure marble in transit, and the handling requirments you start to understand where the costs are in the product.

We often deal with entire continer orders for businesses here in the UK that don't want the hassle of find a quarry they trust, getting sent the product they were shown at the price they were quoted, making sure it's packed well and being able to handle it once it arrives. They could buy direct and save some money, but in this case the hassle outweighs the savings, so they leave us to it knowing they will get a quality product at a reasonable price.

However, we do offer a low cost range of Limestone which is on our site on the link above. We are a wholesaler, we supply shops and other retailers as well as dealing with larger orders, we'll happily sell to anyone who cares to buy from us, you're effectively cutting out a retail mark up.

Feel free to call us with an enquiry, we have prices clearly shown on our site for orders up to 100sq/m, if you require more than that, talk to us and we'll price the order for you.

Alan M

anitha

THANK YOU guys for all the info.
will definitely take a look at the website, already have and need a few answers to the commercial limestone as it is within our price range.
No specials at present but i will keep checking.

ericthekidstoner

I would be very interested in getting commercial limestone like yourself in the near future.

Could you please post your findings. Thnx

Alan_M_2

anitha wrote:

THANK YOU guys for all the info.
will definitely take a look at the website, already have and need a few answers to the commercial limestone as it is within our price range.
No specials at present but i will keep checking.

Any questions feel free to ask, specials are an ocassionaly a thing we have if we happen to buy some bankrupt stock or if I'm getting rid of an end of batch stone.

The commercial stone has taken over as a permanent 'Special'.

Email me off list with any questions you may have (I don't want to upset the powers that be on this site by transacting business on a forum - not good form), we're happy to send photographs of commercial stock, or you are more than welcome to visit us.

weekendwarrior

I checked out all of my local tile shops and Marble specialists and then I found a link to http://www.atstone.co.uk/ on a diy website that I regularly go on. I was surprised that they could beat all the other quotes that I had received.

Their service and advice is second to none, I would recommend them to anyone.

anitha

did u check out ebay ?

weekendwarrior

I checked out most places and A.T. Stone kept cropping up!

They sell on ebay- http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZat_stoneQQhtZ-1

For me it is not all about price (although they beat all my local Marble tile stockists), I e-mailed them through their website and then eventually gave Alan a call, he is a nice guy and very genuine. I would definately use them again!