- Jul 12, 2007
- 6,211
- 121
- 106
As some of you know my wife and I are in the process of remodeling our house. We started with our basement last year, and now we have moved on to the bathrooms, garage, and laundry room.
Right now our contractor is in the process of gut remodeling our master bathroom. That bathroom is basically a "P" shape, with the long side of the P being about 7 feet wide and extending from a door to our bedroom about 20 feet to the outer wall of our house. The short side of the P is about 12 feet wide and begins about 10 feet from the door to our bedroom. Because the room is so big, we are planning to relocate our downstairs laundry to a laundry closet in the remodeled space, and to turn the existing laundry room into a nice mudroom entryway from our garage. The toilet is being relocated to a dedicated "toilet room" in in the renovated space, and the existing (small) shower and (huge) jacuzzi tub will be removed and replaced by a huge walk in shower.
The project began about 5 weeks ago. For the first couple weeks the project went very smoothly. Demo, framing, etc. all went off without a hitch and was completed about 3 weeks ago. Then the tile guy arrived and began to "work." I put "work" in quotes because apparently the tile guy believes that "work" means standing around for hours on end talking to his apprentice (his son), making incessant trips to home depot, and punctuating the day without about 50 smoke breaks rather than actually doing anything to lay tile. It took him the better part of a week to cut and install roughly 15 sheets of concrete backerboard. He then started to lay the floor of the bathroom, which is in rectangular 1 foot by 2 foot tiles. After he laid about 10 tiles I could already see that the tiles were out of level and out of alignment, which is no surprise because the nimrod wasn't using a level or spacers! He was trying to eyeball everything!
I complained to our GC, who said he would work everything out. Over the ensuing 5 days, the tile guy appeared to be doing nothing again except muttering to himself and talking with his apprentice. Finally over the past weekend he did some work . . . which basically involved popping all of the tiles he already laid and relaying them "properly."
This week it seems that the tile guy got a burr up his butt, and he actually started making real progress on the floor. He laid all the floor tile two days ago and cordoned off the room, which prevented my wife and I from taking a close look at the laid tiles. Yesterday while we were at work he grouted the entire floor.
Well, you can guess what happened. About 50-60% of the newly laid tiles are out of level! I'll post pics when I get home, but you can clearly see that the tiles are off when you look at them. The short edges of about 50% of the tiles are not level from edge to edge with the short edge of an abutting tile. He also apparently mixed the grout color incorrectly, because instead of the nice warm "tan" grout we wanted and picked out, the grout he installed is nearly white! After seeing the grout I looked at the materials in our garage, and it appears that he did not use one of the color "packets" that came with the grout we selected.
So now I am faced with a lovely situation. I have a "complete" bathroom floor that looks like sh!t and has the wrong grout colors. The schedule for the remodel is already 2 weeks behind because of the tile guy, and I have no confidence that he can correct the issues and actually install the tile properly. In all likelihood the tile will have to be ripped up (hopefully without damaging the radiant heat mats under the floor) and completely redone. Moreover I am sure that the tile guy will argue that the floor is "done" and will want to be paid for it before doing further work. ARGH!!!!!
FWIW, our general contractor has been very good thus far and I am confident that he will work with us to make sure that the install is to our satisfaction. But it is incredibly irritating knowing that I have the least amount of confidence in the skills of the guy who will have the biggest impact on the overall look of the bathroom.
update
So my wife met with our GC this morning re: the tile. To my GC's credit, he took one look at the tile floor and said that it looked like shit without my wife having to say anything. He also said that he bore responsibility as the GC, and that he would do whatever it takes to make the floor right, even if that meant ripping out all of the tile, radiant mats, and subfloor, and reinstalling the whole thing. That said, he is going to move forward with all of the other parts of the job so that the remainder of the schedule is not screwed up. And once everything else is done they will come back and fix the floor.
Cliffs:
-OP hired general contractor to gut remodel master bath.
-GC hired tile guy
-Tile guy is an idiot who is both slow and does not know what he is doing
-Tile guy laid ~10 floor tiles, most of which were out of level.
-OP complained and tile guy reinstalled all of the out of level tiles.
- Subsequently the tile guy laid all of the remainder of the floor in one day and blocked off the room, preventing inspection of the laid tiles.
-The next day tile guy grouted the tiles while OP and wife were at work
- ~50-60% of all of the floor tiles are not level edge to edge, and the grout is the wrong color.
-Project is now weeks behind and OP has no confidence that the tile guy can do the job correctly.
-update GC confirmed that the floor looks like shit and that he will do whatever it takes to fix it. :thumbsup:
update 2 Promised Pic with circles to show high (black) and low (red) spots:
update 2
Ok so the situation has gotten worse. I mentioned that the tile installer was proceeding with the shower. I went on travel for work on Friday and came back on Sunday to a shower that is an absolute mess. Will post pics of the issues later. I have grout lines that are not lined up, major "lippage," a shower nook that is going to be 2 inches smaller on a side than we discussed, etc. The issues go on and on.
After seeing the state of the shower on Sunday I called the GC and told him that under no circumstances was the current tile setter to continue working on the job, and that we have to have someone else come in. To his credit, the GC agreed on all of the issues I saw and also agreed (without complaint) that a new tile setter was needed. He also said that he was "embarrassed" and at a "boiling point" with the current tile setter. In sum the GC is being a stand up guy, which is great because our experience with him has been nothing short of fantastic thus far (tile excepted).
Right now our contractor is in the process of gut remodeling our master bathroom. That bathroom is basically a "P" shape, with the long side of the P being about 7 feet wide and extending from a door to our bedroom about 20 feet to the outer wall of our house. The short side of the P is about 12 feet wide and begins about 10 feet from the door to our bedroom. Because the room is so big, we are planning to relocate our downstairs laundry to a laundry closet in the remodeled space, and to turn the existing laundry room into a nice mudroom entryway from our garage. The toilet is being relocated to a dedicated "toilet room" in in the renovated space, and the existing (small) shower and (huge) jacuzzi tub will be removed and replaced by a huge walk in shower.
The project began about 5 weeks ago. For the first couple weeks the project went very smoothly. Demo, framing, etc. all went off without a hitch and was completed about 3 weeks ago. Then the tile guy arrived and began to "work." I put "work" in quotes because apparently the tile guy believes that "work" means standing around for hours on end talking to his apprentice (his son), making incessant trips to home depot, and punctuating the day without about 50 smoke breaks rather than actually doing anything to lay tile. It took him the better part of a week to cut and install roughly 15 sheets of concrete backerboard. He then started to lay the floor of the bathroom, which is in rectangular 1 foot by 2 foot tiles. After he laid about 10 tiles I could already see that the tiles were out of level and out of alignment, which is no surprise because the nimrod wasn't using a level or spacers! He was trying to eyeball everything!
I complained to our GC, who said he would work everything out. Over the ensuing 5 days, the tile guy appeared to be doing nothing again except muttering to himself and talking with his apprentice. Finally over the past weekend he did some work . . . which basically involved popping all of the tiles he already laid and relaying them "properly."
This week it seems that the tile guy got a burr up his butt, and he actually started making real progress on the floor. He laid all the floor tile two days ago and cordoned off the room, which prevented my wife and I from taking a close look at the laid tiles. Yesterday while we were at work he grouted the entire floor.
Well, you can guess what happened. About 50-60% of the newly laid tiles are out of level! I'll post pics when I get home, but you can clearly see that the tiles are off when you look at them. The short edges of about 50% of the tiles are not level from edge to edge with the short edge of an abutting tile. He also apparently mixed the grout color incorrectly, because instead of the nice warm "tan" grout we wanted and picked out, the grout he installed is nearly white! After seeing the grout I looked at the materials in our garage, and it appears that he did not use one of the color "packets" that came with the grout we selected.
So now I am faced with a lovely situation. I have a "complete" bathroom floor that looks like sh!t and has the wrong grout colors. The schedule for the remodel is already 2 weeks behind because of the tile guy, and I have no confidence that he can correct the issues and actually install the tile properly. In all likelihood the tile will have to be ripped up (hopefully without damaging the radiant heat mats under the floor) and completely redone. Moreover I am sure that the tile guy will argue that the floor is "done" and will want to be paid for it before doing further work. ARGH!!!!!
FWIW, our general contractor has been very good thus far and I am confident that he will work with us to make sure that the install is to our satisfaction. But it is incredibly irritating knowing that I have the least amount of confidence in the skills of the guy who will have the biggest impact on the overall look of the bathroom.
update
So my wife met with our GC this morning re: the tile. To my GC's credit, he took one look at the tile floor and said that it looked like shit without my wife having to say anything. He also said that he bore responsibility as the GC, and that he would do whatever it takes to make the floor right, even if that meant ripping out all of the tile, radiant mats, and subfloor, and reinstalling the whole thing. That said, he is going to move forward with all of the other parts of the job so that the remainder of the schedule is not screwed up. And once everything else is done they will come back and fix the floor.
Cliffs:
-OP hired general contractor to gut remodel master bath.
-GC hired tile guy
-Tile guy is an idiot who is both slow and does not know what he is doing
-Tile guy laid ~10 floor tiles, most of which were out of level.
-OP complained and tile guy reinstalled all of the out of level tiles.
- Subsequently the tile guy laid all of the remainder of the floor in one day and blocked off the room, preventing inspection of the laid tiles.
-The next day tile guy grouted the tiles while OP and wife were at work
- ~50-60% of all of the floor tiles are not level edge to edge, and the grout is the wrong color.
-Project is now weeks behind and OP has no confidence that the tile guy can do the job correctly.
-update GC confirmed that the floor looks like shit and that he will do whatever it takes to fix it. :thumbsup:
update 2 Promised Pic with circles to show high (black) and low (red) spots:
update 2
Ok so the situation has gotten worse. I mentioned that the tile installer was proceeding with the shower. I went on travel for work on Friday and came back on Sunday to a shower that is an absolute mess. Will post pics of the issues later. I have grout lines that are not lined up, major "lippage," a shower nook that is going to be 2 inches smaller on a side than we discussed, etc. The issues go on and on.
After seeing the state of the shower on Sunday I called the GC and told him that under no circumstances was the current tile setter to continue working on the job, and that we have to have someone else come in. To his credit, the GC agreed on all of the issues I saw and also agreed (without complaint) that a new tile setter was needed. He also said that he was "embarrassed" and at a "boiling point" with the current tile setter. In sum the GC is being a stand up guy, which is great because our experience with him has been nothing short of fantastic thus far (tile excepted).
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter