Yes jess1979, a cement tile MUST be sealed prior to grouting. And it should be sealed again after grouting (and yearly). Also, this floor needs to be protected at all times during construction as it is prone to scratching and chipping. Cement is very porous, so if not sealed properly, it will be susceptible to staining.

@ Tundra

LOL..... what didn't ya like? The BLOOD signature thing? Gimme a break, it's a hundred dang degrees here and i'm doing invoices......: )

Actually loved the Blood part, I try to get folks to do that too, slice our palms and shake on it, now we are both vested..

Chess

I think you have missed the DISCUSSION aspect of my post. Not everyone is equal in every regard. Plenty of very very skilled trades people don't use e-mail, don't want a smart phone, scrawl on a yellow pad, even have horrendous grammar and spelling......but can still deliver an incredible result.

You CAN be armed with photos. You can speak, you can ASK.... what do I need to ask YOU to ensure a result like this? Can you walk me through how you will do it? What about my baseboards? What about this "seal thing" I just READ in the box over here? Do you have sealer? Do I need to provide it? Do I need to make a space in the garage for you to lay these out and seal? I'm a clean freak, I will have a conniption fit if you leave me a mess, so I know you will clean up , right? When will that be?

Whine all you want. If you are going to act as your own designer? Be prepared to do his or her job. That is all the type of stuff WE talk about with even the most experienced and reliable folks we have at our beck and call. Nobody is excused from follow through. Nobody. I've run more than my share of power vacuums.

"Chess you sound like your'e mad, perhaps from a series of bad hiring decisions , likely based on pricing. You are misinformed and dont need to know every detail and its very likely you'll never quite get up to speed that way. You need a contract that forces the Tiler to standards, so you will later have recourse when they fail to. I fear you will continue to learn the hard way."

You would like to think so I am sure. Neither is true. I'm not mad, but tired. Tired of not getting the job I paid for, without having to constantly oversee and correct. I am not naive, and I don't ever try to hire the cheap guy. I have had a lot of work done, and also been responsible for checking work done at my parents house. I don't make "bad hiring decisions" and I am NOT misinformed. I have hired nothing but well-respected companies that, going by their reviews, should have done a great job. SOME of them have... but MOST OF THEM, have NOT. In the cases where they have not, the actual installer/tradesman that came out to the house has been "uninformed" and I am being kind using that word. It would be nice to live in your rose-colored-glasses world where everyone does what they say they will. It doesn't work like that. I no longer hire anyone to do a job that I have not fully researched and learned the details of how it should be done. I really should not have to do that, but the shoddy contractors out there today leave us no choice. MY BF is a building inspector, and before that, was a home builder himself. He tells horror stories about the crap jobs some of these people try to get away with. So no - believe me, I am NOT misinformed.

LOL at "key to my future". Too funny. But as I asked previously, let's discuss how a consumer, can write a proper contract for a job they don't already know how to do? I would honestly LOVE to see a sticky somewhere with different categories of projects/jobs, that lists the gotchas and best practices, and sample contracts that a consumer should use. I think that would be incredibly helpful for so many people. I also think it would run a lot of contractors off, but that is probably a good thing!!

Creative Tile Eastern CT

Grouting to baseboard is a failure. Space for expansion must be left around the perimeter. That is the reason for undercutting, 1/4 round or R&R baseboard. No reason to pay a dime.

@ chess, here you go https://www.ceramictilefoundation.org/homeowners-guide-to-hiring-qualified-tile-installer

Excellent website - thanks for posting it.

I'm going to guess that the tilers took one look at those great gobs of caulk between the baseboard and bead board and decided that you'd be better off with shoe mould than to disturb the mess that's already there.

ci_lantro, that's not caulk it's grout they put there. They had done the previous installation too. We went through a high priced installer that is specifically a specialist in Tile Installation for this, by no means a low priced company.

We discussed they needed to remove baseboards and tile to wall and we told them our own general contractor would come at our cost, separate of this project and replace then but they needed to make sure tile was perfect.

The installers brought 3 kids to our house when they were installing that were running around our house and garage into tools and other dangerous things. I felt it was SO unprofessional of them, especially for a high priced specialty company.

As far as communication with contractor, I had multiple conversations with her about what we expected out of the project. We stayed home for the first two days and checked in several times reminding them of things like sealing cement tiles and tiling to baseboards.. all in our contact but owner didn't have good communication with installers and a lot of them don't speak great English. They provided a translator I'm not sure if he was getting the message across.

"The installers brought 3 kids to our house when they were installing"

That is CRAZY. You never should have allowed that.

MT, I'm not talking about the grout. It's the gobs of white caulk on the top edge of the base along the bead board..

Very sloppy job of caulking. When/ if the base gets pulled, the caulk will pull away from the wainscot taking paint with it and probably some of the MDF if that's MDF bead board. Big PITA to clean up the base to reinstall. IF the base is MDF, probably won't be able to remove in one piece and end up having to replace it.

There's literally no visible caulk. That's dust you're seeing and dirt from the project. Not sure what caulk on the top would have anything to do with grouting errors they made either.

I continue to find it appalling how all these so called pros can look at this quality of tile and say anything other than "oh my gawd, that company should never live to tile another floor." Unless you hired them off Craigslist and they showed up in a 90s van with the phone number spray painted on the side, you should have reasonable expectation that the work will be done to "realistic standards". Unfortunately its true that in these days, you need a contract to protect you from people who do terrible work like this. At this point, you need them to pay to have another company tear out, pay to replace your tile and any damage to baseboard, and give you a full refund of work. I was going to say to at least let them do the demo, but no way would I let their 3 kids back in my house. It's a liability that will cost you dearly in home insurance should something go wrong.

I think Houzz needs three new separate categories in the tool bar header:

" HELP! I am cranked over my tile install".

"Help ! me pick a tile for this dated counter top"

" HELP! Can these nine different tiles look good TOGETHER in my master bath ?"

.....................blame the heat, the wine, and the invoice day

ellenN

"I
continue to find it appalling how all these so called pros can look at
this quality of tile and say anything other than "oh my gawd, that
company should never live to tile another floor."

What SHOULD we say? Really? What should we say?

We should say this: Everyone is happy to pay for tile that looked great in a photo. Almost nobody loves paying for install of same. Nobody wants to acknowledge the skill, the set up time, the wet saw lugging, the prep, the grout, the return the following day TO grout, the clean up and again....the skill involved in a great job.

Any jackass with a wet saw and a bag of grout and the truck to get it there can declare himself able.

It's on YOU as your own designer, to find out in advance if that is true. Hard to do when you're buying a tile online and nobody in your tile shops will spare a great recommendation. And who may I ask shall blame them? But someone got product online, got it at Home Depot, hired the low bid guy, didn't do due diligence......what should we say?

I'm sorry that happened, how frustrating! I must say I do like the tile though, mind telling me where you got it? I hope everything works out

"It's on YOU as your own designer, to find out in advance if that is true."

While I recognize nobody should have to hire a designer for a tile install, unfortunately, the above statement is true. The hardest part about growing my design firm was finding qualified contractors. It took me ten years to get a solid collection of extraordinary tradespeople. You have to kiss a lot of frogs... But these pros come at a price and too many times my clients opt for the lower bid. They, and I, always suffer for this. At least with my supervision, we have more of a chance to stop major issues before they happen, and I could write a BOOK about the major issues I've had to stop (and those I couldn't).

I so appreciate how frustrating it is to hire who you think is a qualified pro only to find they are just another frog.

PS I would've kicked them off my job if they showed up to a job site with children.

Amen Kristin

That is the sole reason for my line: " Not my monkeys? Not my circus!"

It takes years for any designer to separate the gems from the wannabes! Now..... once in a while well give a newbie a run for his money. Once in a while we are pleasantly surprised and yes, even thrilled. So is that guy. Because we aren't the once in a blue moon job, we are repeaters all year long.

We take up the time of a lot of the best out there. So when you say " I have a guy who can do it" ? ............. You will get the monkey line. At least from me. If you insist? It's your circus to supervise.

Tile setters make mistakes. So do architects, engineers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, masons, kitchen designers and writers. They are human. That is why homeowners need to educate themselves. You may not know or have the skills to DIY a given project, but you must know enough to question what they are doing.

There's literally no visible caulk. That's dust you're seeing and dirt from the project. Not sure what caulk on the top would have anything to do with grouting errors they made either.

Yes, I see dust and dirt. And caulk.

I thought you were upset because the tilers didn't remove the baseboard. That's what the caulk has to do with it.

As far as 'grouting errors'? Not seeing them.

Chips in the tile? Those tiles in the 'chips and gloppy grout' photo haven't been cut so the installers didn't cause them. Tile most likely came out of the box with the chips. Probably should have been culled but OTOH, they had X amount of tile to work with and didn't have any choice but to use some tiles out of the cull pile.

They could have left the job a bit more tidy but it may have been a long hard day after a long hard week. (I noted that they were working on a Saturday which seems rather unusual to me.) Tiling is a physically demanding job and the material isn't lightweight. Rough on the knees and the back. So, I would give them some slack.

You're supposed to wait at least 24 hours after grouting before you clean the floors. The grout needs time to cure. Another reason perhaps the floors weren't showroom clean?

All in all, IMO, they did a decent job. No lippage that I can see. I see a lot of bad tiling jobs; this one looks good. Looks really good compared to a lot of tile floors that I see.

Oh my

"We should say this: Everyone is happy to pay for tile that looked great in a photo. Almost nobody loves paying for install of same. Nobody wants to acknowledge the skill, the set up time, the wet saw lugging, the prep, the grout, the return the following day TO grout, the clean up and again....the skill involved in a great job.

I just don't believe that is true. If the contractor lays all this out in his detailed estimate, I don't see how anyone could be mistaken about a fair price for a decent job.

Any jackass with a wet saw and a bag of grout and the truck to get it there can declare himself able.

Of course. But who is talking about hiring jackasses? We are talking about hiring professionals.

It's on YOU as your own designer, to find out in advance if that is true. Hard to do when you're buying a tile online and nobody in your tile shops will spare a great recommendation. And who may I ask shall blame them? But someone got product online, got it at Home Depot, hired the low bid guy, didn't do due diligence......what should we say?"

You make a lot of assumptions there. How about those folks that buy GOOD quality material, and don't hire the low-bid guy? Come on. These companies are hiring workers that are completely unqualified to do the jobs that they sell. It's voiced here time and time again. I don't know what has happened to "if you aren't willing to sign your name to the job, don't do it".

It’s happened to us a lot. Great contractor gets busy and hires new people...then the quality goes in the toilet. A contractor can go from great to horrible within just a few jobs.

Tunda,

I am a bit confused.

First you state that you DON'T need to know detail about tiling standards but that "You need a contract that forces the Tiler to standards, so you will later have recourse when they fail to. I fear you will continue to learn the hard way." Then you go on to state that if the "OP had the proper wording in their contract they would have a documented way to prove the job is a tearout.."

As a homeowner, we hire contractors, or GC's, to perform work for us. We expect them to perform to trade standards and to meet current codes. Most homeowners are not aware of what the current codes are, much less what standards each specific trade has.

We think we do, but we obviously don't. And if we do, what's to prevent the contractor/GC from going out of business?

The last time I hired a GC was to build a 2-story addition. It detailed what was included as much as I could think of and what they would let me.

Tiling to be done to applicable standards.

Framing done to code.

Flashing of windows...

1 course of weathershield ice and dam insulation installed. (I amended it to 6' beyond sidewall as this was in Minnesota)

And even though this was all spelled out, I had to keep on top on top of them. And this was a highly recommended GC, and we had hired them to do other work.

The main thing that pissed me off was the weathershield, they only did two courses. Which was 6', not the 6' beyond the sidewall.

And then, once they got the sidewalls, roof, tyvek and shingles on, They went out of business.

So, what is a homeowner to do? We do our best, rely on the contractor to provide us with a contract that spells out what is expected of both of us, and then fails to stick to it.

I detest threads that simply say "you should have" and point the finger...

MT this isn't good enough for you. Personally, I wouldn't want them back in my house.

I'm so sorry this is going to cost you more.

And to answer your question based on my own experience, no. Their behavior and work aren't what I have experienced.

ci_lantro, issue is there is a half an inch thick grout outside the perimeter of the room. It shouldn't be like that, had they removed the baseboards and tiled to the wall the new baseboard would have solved this. We discussed ahead of time and that was our expectation. If they couldn't do that for some reason they should have specified. We also purchased 20 percent overage and told them don't use chipped tiles. We had over 7 boxes of tiles leftover! No excuse for using a chipped one in my opinion.

The question of the day is, what exactly did you pay for the job to call it “high priced”? And what was the exact square footage and scope of work? Did they move all of those appliances? What about demo, dust control, and haul away of debris? Did they need to hire the finish carpenter sub for them to do all of the finish carpentry work that you, the GC, was trying to make a tile contractor do?

The problem is the owners of the company here, they tell a story through initial consultation, marketing, website, etc .. that is a high quality company with highly skilled craftsman who specialize in tile installation. Then they have NO follow through on projects and never check the site when it's being installed despite that this was done after some major mistakes with the first one. I have no doubt they hired their subcontractors to do our job at a very, very low price and are obviously taking the lions share of the profit for themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if they were hired in the lot of home depot. This was after a botch job and I'm mad at myself that I expected them to hire someone more skilled than before. Owner had promised it would be perfect but it's obvious they will hire cheapest labor they can get than someone who is actually good. In three days we had 3 different groups of guys coming. My expectation was one or two of the same workers that we were communicating with that understood the scope of the project and had experience installing cement tiles before. Room is 25 square feet and other one is 50 square feet. It was a small project.

Perhaps your next step would be to get the owner to your house and ask him what he thinks of the job?

@Dan Im speaking specifically about tile here, I hope thats not your tile detailed scope et al. leaves you wide open in regards to the tile aspect of your job. Its all in the wording.

Sophie I got 5 bids when I did my initial flooring and they were the 2nd highest, but I felt that having a company that was experienced in flooring installation was worth it instead of a general handyman. The owners should act as the GC in these projects, that's what I am paying for right ...if they are hiring guys at min. wage in the home depot.. They moved washer and dryer. I told them we would handle getting any baseboards fixed after from our own painting/baseboard contact.

M T sorry you are going through this. Sounds like you did your due diligence and yet a few would like to toss the blame at you, not right imo. If I go to a doctor and they provide inadequate care it is their fault. If a car mechanic puts the oil in my car wrong they will be on the hook to fix my engine. Yet if a contractor builds a wall wrong or installs tile incorrectly it is my fault, I DON’T THINK SO! Maybe contractors need to carry malpractice insurance. Hopefully you can get some of your losses covered although your time is a total loss.

So, 5-6K for the job total?

It was a little more than that. I think around $6500 then costs to come in for fixing up damage done to baseboards etc

$6500 is about $86 a sq ft.

For 75 sq ft?!!

That includes tile costs

And then the costs of the cement tile and grout were over $2000. (purchased at a store not online as someone else said)

"Any jackass with a wet saw and a bag of grout and the truck to get it there can declare himself able.'

That's the difference, when some jackass oversells his ability, it's on the jackass, not the homeowner. If a hairdresser has a booth in a salon and tells me she's qualified to do my hair, but then turns my hair orange instead of brown, I'm entitled to a full refund and she's entitled to a terrible Yelp review. And when I show my friends my hair, I expect them to say "you're right, you really deserve better", not "well, shoulda got a signed contract. oh you did? well clearly you left a loophole so it's still on you! suck it up buttercup"

I think most reasonable people realize it red flag if a quote comes in thousands cheaper than the rest. But by the same token, no one should go for a contractor that is thousands more expensive than the others. Since, by the very fact they bid and have licensed companies, they are telling you they're qualified to do the job.

Most people know you get what you pay for and I'm willing to bet most people go for the middle of the road bid, try their best to get a contract of some kind, try their best to oversee what they can.... and most get a satisfactory job. But a few get completely screwed over by "professionals" who are more interested in quantity that quality. And when they post asking whether it's reasonable to have the baseboards left on despite contract wording and verbal reminders, the only acceptable answer is "absolutely not, don't pay these hacks."

I am not sure what you are getting at? Live in a mid priced city

following>>>

I am paying $2800 (labor only) to prep and tile a 58" x 52" fireplace surround. Licensed and insured GC. He dry-fits the layout on the floor first and plans out every cut. When there is more than one way to do something like a corner, he shows me the options before proceeding.

He used to have crews, but said it wasn't worth the headaches and problems. He now does it all himself with a partner. I waited 4 months for him to finish his previous job and will highly recommend him.

This is an upsetting story -- they didn't do it right the first time and then on the redo it STILL wasn't right. Makes you wonder.....

Plus getting off on the wrong foot in not removing the baseboards when that had been specified up front.

I guess the main question I have is if the OP stayed home the first few days to make sure things were on track with this project, would it not have been obvious about the baseboards not being removed in that early time?

That was our mistake on the baseboards, we overlooked it because they didn't grout until the last day so we didn't see how bad it would look.

I am a non-professional tiler - have done a few of my own floors and backsplash. I know that the floor needs expansion space and to undercut the door properly. I cannot imagine any pro who would tile around the corner of a door that poorly. I only know these things because I read a lot and had advice from a professional tiler. A homeowner would not have that knowledge - just know that it doesn't look right or well done. I think that you could clearly show that this is not a professional quality job.

A good place for non-judgmental advice is the John Bridge tile forum.

http://www.johnbridge.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1

The "owners" sound like nothing more than" well pressed suits in really clean Dockers" running a daily payroll. Not a hammer swinging, tool belt wearing contractor with a fabulous tile sub. Give me the latter every single time . Why? The contractor comes in, knows there needs to be an undercut to the base trims, knows the toilet or whatever has to come out, writes it up, discussion etc as all previously stated, even may level the floor..............and then the tile guy appears. The contractor reappears and ensures all is on track as prescribed. Two hiring types/ methods. The first one ? I don't touch it..And I sure as hell don't touch it a second time. Give me Tool Time Tim.

Once you said you needed a translator there was no reason to go any further. If someone cant speak the language of the country they are doing the instal in how do you expect them to read a guide?

How can they read instructions? How do they know what l a quality job is if they have never seen one?

People defend this off the corner worker and this is what you get. They don't have a clue as to the standards or guidelines yet they get hired based solely ON PRICE undercutting the real educated tile person.

Anybody not understanding what I wrote come to San Diego or LA and see the absolute butcher jobs these people do every day. Houses are ticking time bombs as they do everything from electrical, plumbing to drywall all without speaking word of English or know one single guideline. Then add all the flippers who also undercut the materials and these house all look like crap. They are designed to look good from a picture on Zillow.

Sorry but hire a real tile person who you can easily communicate with. It doesn't matter what their ethnic background is it has to do with being educated in the country the install is being done.

By the way the key to cement tiles is buying them that are polished. Look on Cle Tile's website and you will see that they polish their tiles which eliminates the majority of install problems by sealing the tiles surfaces.

quik and easy sution is using quarter round to cover the edge. it will make all that bad cutting disappear.

2 years later for that trick?

My CUT AND PASTE Post......since Houzz can not stop horsing around with this site, Put six months old posts to a separate heading. . It's gotten endlessly annoying as to whether anything is the same here, two days in a row, or god forbid it actually works. At all.............: (