sahib said:
Tried all avenues.
Even the "trendy, posh boys". They do not even have the courtesy to return your call.
The "tradesman" in UK, at least here in Scotland has a bad reputation. And I am not even talking about the one man bands. Few years back my wife insisted on getting the bathroom done by B&Q which cost a lot of money.
The tiler did not mark his horizontal line to start with and as a result the tiles did not match on the final wall. So, what did he do? He cut the tiles slanted to match them. I know hard to believe but he indeed did. See the picture below. Luckily when you enter the bathroom the wall you face is projected by about 4 inches and we could hide the unjoining lines. So, I got him retile the last row and column. But above the door this was not possible. Their supposed to be inspector guy came up and argued with me that there was nothing wrong with what you see in that picture.
For the underfloor heating the electrician wanted to tap onto the wall plug in my son's bedroom which is next to the bathroom. I obviously told him to get to f***. So they had to install a separate circuit breaker. He was also about to twist the (thermal) sensor wire, tape it up and burry it under the tiles. Again another get to efff was issued. And I am not going to even bore you with what they have done to the central heating pipes.
This is unfortunately how the tradesman behaves here in general.
Sorry, yeah that's pretty bad and , even if those tiles are actually level and your home (ceiling and window )isn't, any decent guy will try to find any issues that may be lurking by laying out everything first. Clearly no tile leveling system and/or correct mud was used on these large format tiles (in this section) either..... The leveling systems hold the tiles in place while the mud (thinset) dries which will shrink and pull the tiles with it, creating the lippage I also see.....
It's everywhere and if you visit the Houzz forum ever, you'll hear and see stories just like these every day. You really have to be proactive until you trust someone enough as you can see how many headaches you saved by being there to supervise the times you were. Unfortunately, some, including myself at times, won't see something clearly being an issue until it reaches somebody's point of no return.
New construction here is so bad in some areas I don't know how these make it to sale. Hopefully the problems we see in the aesthetic side of the industry aren't as prevalent in the construction side of things as there are supposed to be inspections along the way. There are codes for tile install but, this area, aside from handicap regulation and friction ratings, is never checked into....
Good as new doesn't mean what it used to and quite the contrary......
They have made stricter laws here regulating licensing and this is helping somewhat but, it's far from where it could be. Guys here aren't allowed to touch plumbing (aside from installing a toilet seat) or electrical (aside from installing an outlet cover) without State licensing which isn't an easy task. It definitely makes getting into more trades difficult for the small guy, but it has it's benefits. But even the license doesn't mean the guy holding it is worth trusting. People fall into the trap of seeing all the cool numbers on the trucks, with licensing and insured being the warm cozy feeling they are after, and it turns on them.
All I can say is that the pro forums regarding tile , painting , etc...that I've read, really do know what they are talking about and, if you were ever to post something you had a question about, they would point you in the right direction on how to proceed or start over.......
And like Gold mentions, references can be a good thing if you trust where they are from.......
Cool tile though!!! I'm sorry you have to deal with this.... any way to remove/replace those 4 tiles and hide any joint mismatch on the tiny section of wall?????
