What's in a (bathroom) tile? And how do tradesmen price up?

JustAnotherSaver

To kick start with the important one...


Short & sweet we're looking at tiling the bathroom as part of a re-do. We know roughly a few colour schemes we're interested in so went to a couple tile shops today to price up. The range in pricing was incredible. £19m2 up to just over £60m2 for what we were interested in. If i've measured right then we're looking at nearly 17m2 on a 2mtr-x-2mtr room.


There didn't appear to be a whole hell of a lot of difference in the £19m2 tile from the £60m2 tile on face value. Nothing that my uneducated eye could spot anyway.


£44.98m2 https://www.toppstiles.co.uk/tprod44953/inara-cloud.html
£41.94m2 https://www.toppstiles.co.uk/tprod47133/durba-stone-tile.html (actually looks different on the website to in person that one)
£19.92m2 https://www.toppstiles.co.uk/tprod46922/deema-tile.html


There were some others there that we liked and some more from a bathroom place round the corner at £25m2


They all looked much the same though. Ok i spot there's a bit of a size difference per tile but the m2 ... why are some just over double the price? What are you getting?


Different material? (though they felt the same)
Last longer? (But why would they?)


I just don't get it.








As for the second question regards tradesmen - how would you expect someone to price something up if they told you to go and get a quote for all the parts, forward that to them & they'll factor in labour for a total price?


I imagine since they're in the game & especially since they said if we go here, there or there then drop their name that they'll get trade discount.
Say a new bath costs £500 to me and they get it for £250 with discount (purely for examples sake). Would you expect them to charge the full £500 to the customer?



I know where i work on some categories, trade discount can be massive. 50-70% off. Say an item is £100 and the worker gets it for £30, i always imagined they'd charge their customer say £80. Worker is making a profit, customer is getting a bonus save, win-win.
Maybe i'm too green :rotfl:

Doozergirl

The more expensive ones are porcelain. The cheaper is ceramic.

https://sebringdesignbuild.com/porcelain-vs-ceramic-tile-which-one-is-better/

The one thing that makes a difference to me is that porcelain tiles can sometimes be through-coloured which makes them look much more natural. Some tiles, when you go up close, look like they've been printed badly with a dot matrix printer and I can't bear it as it makes my eyes go funny. The price usually makes a difference.

Topps Tiles are expensive. Googling the ones you like and checking similar images can often result in finding the exact tiles for a lot less money.

I had a client specifiy some tiles from Topps that were £40 a metre. I found them for £13 online.

Talking about trade discounts, they certainly aren't usually at the levels you're talking about (could be anywhere from 5-35%) but I will add a flat margin to products. Margin depends on the size of the project. Depending on the discount and the margin, that might result in a client paying less than RRP, sometimes around RRP. The internet does change things as items are available online for a lot less than RRP already.

I'll certainly look for things at the best price to start with, so although it would pay me to just buy from one supplier, I don't. eg. I'd have put the same % margin on the £13 I paid for the tiles that were £40 in Topps. The client paid way less than they were expecting to, but I did some extra work.

andyhop

Porcelain is the tile of gods! It will outlast any ceramic tile though the commercial grades are tuff to drill

Did you know a ceramic tile can absorb up to 20% moisture ? Hardly fit for purpose!

Avoid British brands, British ceramic and Johnson’s make some of the worst sized tiles , the crazing once fitted can be quite bad too

I would say the average trade discount is around 30% on tiles from local outlets, on branded suites it can be anything from 15-60%

tacpot12

The more expensive tiles are thicker, are suitable for outdoors (irrelevant to you, but it is one reason why they are more expensive) and have a higher slip rating (more textured surface). I would be wary of a low slip rated tile. Generally a tile that a tile shop rates as "High Slip Resistance" will actually only be an R10 rating. My view is that R11 is necessary for bathrooms. Low slip resistance will be R9 and is basically like skating on ice when the tile is wet.

JustAnotherSaver

Doozergirl: Thanks very much for the post. Very helpful. I figured there must be a reason behind it, i just didn't know what it was. On face value the ones we were looking at were pretty much the same, though the more expensive ones if i had to choose did look a bit better, just a question of whether they looked double-the-price better.



With that said, in Topps there were some for £50m2 at half price down to £25m2. Decent deal. Whether they'll still be there when we come to do our bathroom is debatable but there'll no doubt be something.


Out of interest, what tile site or sites do you use if you don't mind me asking?

andyhop wrote: »

Did you know a ceramic tile can absorb up to 20% moisture ? Hardly fit for purpose!

Nope i wasn't aware of this at all.




Regards the drilling in to it, there shouldn't be a great deal but obviously there'll need to be some.

Radiator will need drilling in to the wall, shower screen or curtain rail, bathroom cabinet, sink & toilet. It'll need it somewhere eventually.

JustAnotherSaver

Oh and rather than start a new thread, what's your take on bathroom ventilation?


I know some say "open a window". We do. I just wonder whether a vent system would be advisable or whether it's overkill & doesn't really gain you anything for the work that'd be required.


We can't vent above the ceiling and we've no room to lower the ceiling so i guess it'd be out through the wall if so.


The bathroom salesman mentioned some iCon vents which they didn't actually have in stock. This was after we mentioned our concerns over the vent rattling like mad (noisy) and being draughty. We've no experience of vents other than very old systems which were - draughty and noisy.

andyhop

You want a fan that works, high flowing centrifugal fans

Inline xid100, on wall DX200 or similar

If it’s silent it’s not moving any air!

JustAnotherSaver

andyhop wrote: »

You want a fan that works, high flowing centrifugal fans

Inline xid100, on wall DX200 or similar

If it’s silent it’s not moving any air!

There's noisy, quiet & silent. I'd prefer a fan that doesn't sound like we have a helicopter in the house.


And then there's the issue of it rattling when not in use.

Doozergirl

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

There's noisy, quiet & silent. I'd prefer a fan that doesn't sound like we have a helicopter in the house.


And then there's the issue of it rattling when not in use.

Yours is old. They're not like that anymore.

You definitely need one.

JustAnotherSaver

Doozergirl wrote: »

Yours is old. They're not like that anymore.

You definitely need one.

That's what i'm saying - our experience of them IS old. Mine is back from being a child at my grandmother's house in the 80s or very very early 90s. My wife is similar timeframe & they were noisy.


Also when they say they pull X-litres per unit (second, minute, whatever) it's pretty useless to me.
So gizmo 1 pulls 10 litres per second, gizmo 2 pulls 20, gizmo 3 pulled 40 let's say & gizmo 4 pulls 75 litres per second.


That's great and i can see that some extract more than others, therefore they're better (in terms of extraction), but let's take gizmo 1 in this example pulling 10 litres per second - is 10 even worth it or for the cost might you as well simply not bother installing one?


That's the thing - i don't know what the minimum is that becomes worthwhile.








And Doozergirl - care to share that tile site you mentioned? If you prefer not to put on the public forum then care to send via PM?

andyhop

I would not fit anything that’s under 100m3/h

The noise often comes from the duct. Avoid anything flexible or small section. Solid soil pipe works best