Can any tilers advise me? Serious issues with a tiler's work

cryton1

Hello all.

We have employed a tiler to do our bathroom and floor tiles. We bought the tiles ourselves from a tile supplier. We measured the room prior to getting the tiles. When the tiler turned up we asked him if there were enough tiles. He looked briefly at the boxes and said yes.

When the day came to starting the job, he said that there were not enough tiles for the floor. Frustratingly, we went and bought 3 more packs on his advice (£50 each). The tiler delayed until the extra tiles came. He has since put the tiles down and he is due to come back to grout and put the units in to the bathroom.

Once the cement had set, we went into the bathroom and discovered a pretty horrific sight. Please see photos. 5 or 6 of the tiles are way off and at least half of the tiles are not level. (Confirmed with spirit level and some quite bad). This is despite him putting down ply wood and putting the orange plastic mesh down prior to tiling.

This is where things get interesting... When we sent the pictures to the tiler, he called us and said that 'tiling that floor broke my heart'. When we asked him why, he said that the tiles were not rectified. He went on to say that the size of the tiles were different (0.5mm or 5mm we cannot remember) and that he made the decision to continue trying to lay them despite knowing that they were not the right size. He did not bring this up with us despite being in the house at the time and he would never have brought it up if we had not.

As far as I can tell, if there is a defect with the tiles, then we have lost our right to return since all of the tiles have been laid and to remove them would mean damaging them. The tiler has also admitted that he continued the job despite knowing from the start that they were different sizes . We are now in the position where the tiler is telling us once the grout goes in then it will look fine and we won't notice it since the grout is a similar colour.

To add insult to injury, we did not need the extra boxes. We needed one extra box as there are 6 full tiles left over without the box. (£100)

My questions for the experts are the following;

1. Would the tiles being different sizes cause these amount of defects in the tiler's workmanship or is this an excuse to a rushed job?

2. Do we have a legal right to request that the tiler take up all of the tiles, pay for the replacements and start again?

3. If the tiles are off in size (which from looking and measuring, I think they are) do I have a come back with the tile company? Are they ultimately responsible despite the tiler's inexcusable decision to not bring this issue up with us prior to tiling and allow us to go back to the tile company right away?

The tiler has agreed to come back and to remove the 5 or 6 tiles that are not correct however it is being made clear by the tiler that as far as he is concerned, the tile company is responsible and so we need to buy the extra tiles to put down as he will not cover this cost. The extra 2 boxes left over, according to him, are the wrong size.

If it is any help, the tiles are Inara™ Cloud Porcelain Tiles 60.5cm x 60.5 cm.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read and to respond. We're really needing some direction here as you can imagine.

john.h

That tiling is terrible. You can’t blame the tiles for that, just very bad fitting. 

twopenny

In picture 2 the tile isn't cut correctly to fit against the wall.

Is the wall straight? Even if it is he should have been able to make a template to cut it correctly. To judge the overall look it would be useful to have a photo of the area.

The tiles do look slightly different sizes. You need to measure them and check what the size is stated on the box. Check more than one tile and more than one box.

It seems odd that someone should keep going when they realised there was a problem.

It also seems very strange that he didn't mention it when he started laying them. It would seem the obvious thing for a professional to do and for him to have checked the boxes when he realised.

littleboo

It's a mess. In my view, by employing a professional tiler, you can reasonably expect them to identify any issues with the materials either before starting work, or at least stop when they found there was a difference in tile size so you could agree the way forward. As you purchased the tiles, they could charge you for the additional effort involved in the job. Its seems strange they would crack on regardless, was someone home when they were working?

cryton1

littleboo said:

It's a mess. In my view, by employing a professional tiler, you can reasonably expect them to identify any issues with the materials either before starting work, or at least stop when they found there was a difference in tile size so you could agree the way forward. As you purchased the tiles, they could charge you for the additional effort involved in the job. Its seems strange they would crack on regardless, was someone home when they were working?

Thanks for replying, yes there were people in the house.  

cryton1

twopenny said:

In picture 2 the tile isn't cut correctly to fit against the wall.

Is the wall straight? Even if it is he should have been able to make a template to cut it correctly. To judge the overall look it would be useful to have a photo of the area.

The tiles do look slightly different sizes. You need to measure them and check what the size is stated on the box. Check more than one tile and more than one box.

It seems odd that someone should keep going when they realised there was a problem.

It also seems very strange that he didn't mention it when he started laying them. It would seem the obvious thing for a professional to do and for him to have checked the boxes when he realised.

Unfortunately the boxes have been thrown away, which is convenient for him. 

gozaimasu

I agree, that is terrible tiling. I'm a complete amateur but even I managed to tile a bathroom (walls, using a tile levelling system) and nothing looked as bad as that. Are your floor tiles from the same place/manufacturer as the wall tiles? There are presumably no issues with the tiling on the walls?

Doozergirl

You never plan to lay a full tile into a corner.  You always plan for large cuts at the edges because walls are rarely, if ever, totally straight. How you lay the tiles out at the start is key to a good finish.  Our tiler spends a good hour or more working out where every cut will hit and checking where I'd prefer them. 

Your guy has laid a full tile to a corner and it's gone wrong from there.  It's a very basic,
obvious error that sends the whole room off.
 

This person wasn't qualified. 

You can ask him for whatever you like.  A bonafide tradesperson would fix a simple error with no questions asked, but that never started right, hence it will need redoing. 

What due diligence did you do? 
 

welshmoneylover

My tiler spent ages laying out the plan and the first tile.
i am not an expert but I think he has done a terrible job and he should have stopped and notified you of a problem if the tiles were off.
i hope you haven’t paid him?

greenface2

bad workmanship in the tiling and not stopping when it was going tits up and talking to you about it . He has to take some responsibility about this 

southcoastrgi

crap job & he's used the wrong size spacers as well