# Tiling mess



## GingerCat (18 Dec 2009)

We bought white tiles for our bathroom a few weeks ago; we had a look at the boxes when thehy were delivered and they all appeared to be the ones we had ordered.

The tiler started work the other day; the first day he did one wall from two boxes; we came home from work and everything looked fine.

On the seond day we got a phone call from the tiler at about 5 o'clock to say that he had had problems with the tiles. He had done most of two walls, taking tiles from random boxes, and when he stepped back he said the walls looked like a chessboard. The tiles were from two different batches. One batch was the pure white we had ordered, but the other was a darker white which looked fine in the box but against the others was distinctly grey.

The tiler took down all the white tiles from the walls he had done and replaced them with grey ones, and continued with the job, finishing those two walls before ringing us.

When we got home, he told us that unless the tile shop could provide us with more of the grey tiles, the fourth wall would have to be done in the whiter ones. Also, he said that he didn't have enough of the greyer ones t finish the three walls he'd started in grey, so he needed one more box of grey to finish those.

We spoke to the tile shop and they said there was one box of grey tiles left, which they would swap for one of our remaining white boxes. The tiler went ahead and finished the grey walls with this box, then did the fourth wall with the whiter tiles.

All four walls are now done and if you don't look too closely you can't really tell that they're different, except that the grey tiles look absolutely awful against the white painted walls. Our real problem now, though, is that the tiler has announced that he miscounted the number of grey tiles he still needed; he had filled in some spots with timber because he needed to cut tiles for there and was leaving it till the end. When he had used the last grey tile he realised that he needs another 6 to fill in those parts. The shop don't have any of those left and can't get any more.

Is there anything we can do at this stage? I know that we shouldn't have gone ahead with the tiling when the tiles were wrong, but we didn't know till three walls were done! It wasn't at all obvious when they were in their boxes that they were different, and to be honest, we haven't bought many tiles before so didn't know that we should check batch numbers when they arrived - we just assumed that when they were all white, they'd be the same. Once we knew, we thought we could live with the three grey walls and one white one, because it actually just looks like it's a trick of the light in the room. Now that we're having to have isolated islands of white in the sea of manky grey tiles, it feels like the last straw, and we'd really prefer to get some sort of help from the tile shop with sorting the whole mess out. 

Any thoughts?


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## Complainer (18 Dec 2009)

Who did the measuring up? Who decided the quantities of each to order?


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## MOB (18 Dec 2009)

Would a random scattering of something altogether different (i.e strong contrast) work instead of the 'isolated islands'?
 Bright red or blue?  picture tiles?  Mirror tiles?


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## MandaC (19 Dec 2009)

MOB said:


> Would a random scattering of something altogether different (i.e strong contrast) work instead of the 'isolated islands'?
> Bright red or blue?  picture tiles?  Mirror tiles?



To me that would be the best choice.


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## GingerCat (22 Dec 2009)

Complainer, we ordered one type of tile. They delivered tiles from two different batches, which are distinctly different colours.

We can't scatter them around as the tiler made the decision without consulting us to put all of the whiter ones on one wall on their own. The adhesive was dry by the time we found out (though he ended up with a stripe of whiter tiles along the edge of the bath too, as he miscounted; this is much more obvious than the wall of white tiles, and looks horrendous).

We've ended up just sticking with the two colours. It looks terrible but it took us long enough to save for it, we certainly can't afford to tear it down and redo it.


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## sam h (22 Dec 2009)

It would be interesting to find out who is ultimately responsible :
 - should the shop OR you OR the tiler have double checked each batch number

I had the same issue a few years back & everyone blamed each other!  I was luck as I could still get some of the correct batch number (literally just enough & now have an issue as a few of them have craked).  

Normally I'd follow up but it was part of a bigger job and the fact I could resolve it with not too much expense to me I let it drop.

Any time I've bough wallpaper, the girl has always been very particular to check the roll is from same batch....but maybe she is just very careful.

It's an awful shame to have saved to get a job done and be so disappointed in the result


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## Bluebells (23 Dec 2009)

Ask the shop who else has bought these tiles, and either you or the shop ask them if they have any of the grey tiles left over.

If you changed the shade/colour of the paint it might make the tiles look less grey.

Hope it works out for you. Don't let it spoil your Christmas !


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## Complainer (23 Dec 2009)

sam h said:


> It would be interesting to find out who is ultimately responsible :
> - should the shop OR you OR the tiler have double checked each batch number


I'd guess it is a bit of a shared responsibility. The shop is responsible for delivering what you ordered, but their obligation is only to repair/replace/refund the ordered items. I would guess that they are not responsible for the consequential loss arising from the fact that the tiler has already used the wrong tiles. Perhaps you could make a bit of a song & dance with the shop (maybe even a small claims courts case) and see what happens.

Given that this kind of thing isn't unknown, I guess you could also expect the tiler to have checked the stuff before he starts. If you have already paid him, it will be very difficult to get anything back from him.

Having gone through a bathroom replacement recently, it seemed that most of the stuff sent out by the shops (tiles, taps, shower tray, shower doors) was the wrong stuff, and had to be replaced. Our builder noticed a problem with 1 box of the tiles before he put them up, and we got them replaced by the shop.


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## serotoninsid (23 Dec 2009)

Are both not at fault?  
Shop should have checked they were all the same batch - or if supplying different batches, confirmed this with you first.
Simliarly, the tiler is equally to blame.  Should have checked beforehand.  The batch code is usually stamped on the side of the box of tiles.


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## GingerCat (23 Dec 2009)

Yes, I reckon they're both to blame, but we are too, for not checking. Though how we're supposed to know to check when we've never had a problem like this before, I don't know. 

We haven't actually paid the tiler yet as he's doing masses of other work on the bathroom which isn't finished yet. When he finishes it, we're going to pay him and never speak of it again. It's not looking as awful as we expected now that everything else is nearly finished, we want to enjoy our Christmas, and I'm pregnant and don't really want the hassle and high blood pressure of a confrontation.

At least next time we'll know to double check bsolutely everything, and never leave a tiler where we can't check on him every ten minutes.


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## AlastairSC (25 Jan 2010)

Would you consider taking down enough grey tiles from random places on the walls? Just enough to finish the last bit needed. Then put up similar size tiles in a different colour (toning or contrast - your choice) to fill the gaps. 

You could even try this on a bigger scale - put a few random greys on the white wall and vice versa. 

We did this in a house we restored once (didn't have enough of one type) and it looked just great....


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## Leon76 (10 Feb 2010)

Where did you get the tiler?


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## aaa1 (18 Feb 2010)

Would you not just check the name/code on the box of tiles and then ring the company that made them and ask which shops in Ireland stocks them? Or ring around a few shops yourself and ask if they have them.


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## PaddyBloggit (18 Feb 2010)

OP's last post was in December 2009  .... I'm sure they've learned to live with it now or have torn the whole lot down at this stage!


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