Advice Please: Is Travertine Unusually Expensive to Lay?

[White Room]

Hi and welcome

 

[mattyg]

I'd be asking the question "do you want a builder to lay your expensive trav tiles" It may be better to pay extra and get a proper job

 

[Time's Ran Out]

:welcome: To the Tilers Forum.

33sq metres of stone in 2 days :lol::lol::lol: some one is not being accurate with their costings!
That could be a 4 day job at least.
Was it a fully inclusive back of a cigarette pack estimate or a summary of works/itemised costing contract?
Others have advised the no difference aspect of your problem, but if he has no confidence in being able to do a professional job for you - it would seem a financial solution has to be found.
Good luck on a satisfactory outcome - and you could get a 'guide price' through Administration or PM a member direct.

 

[kilty55]

not sure i agree he should be putting the price up however he has given you an estimate not set priced job is this right

the case could be argued that hes under estimated it which he has

 

[DHTiling]

Stone is more to lay than ceramics..

Your choice now is whether you want to pay for having them installed... The builder has said he cannot do it and has got a tiler into price it.. this is a separate price and another trade coming in..

So unless you have a written contract with the builder then you will have to pay the tiler or seek another price IMO..

 

[IvegotsTILE]

If you say "He QUOTED you the price to lay STONE flooring" then A. Travertine is stone so he can't get out of that one and B. Quoted you the price,not an estimate then he has to honour the price by law(I think).
I personally would never quote until I knew the tile,as said before though travertine is one of the easier stones in my opinion.Its not like you've turned up with uncalibrated slate.
Most builders aren't tilers,as said before do you want someone whos not confident laying your expensive tiles,its too late once they're down.Make him pay for a tiler.
Good luck.

 

[kilty55]

just to add,again have u a set price job or an estimate of works from him

if its an estimate and he thought u may bring slate back ....he may well be confident in laying slate but never have used tunbled trav then he is right to get a tiler to price it

at the end of the day would you rather he had a go himself,i think hes done the right thing in speaking up

 

[mgoodw]

Thanks to everyone that contributed to this thread - it gave me the information that I needed to resolve the situation that I faced.

The outcome was as follows; we got 4 quotes from professional floor tilers and went with the cheapest (although that was still 3x what the builder had allowed for when pricing the overall job).

With the help of the information supplied to me via this forum I was able to convince the builder that he had made a mistake in his quotation and that the additional cost has not arisen due to my choice of stone. However, as it was a genuine mistake and the work has been completed properly to a high standard (rather than being bodged to fit the original budget) I will make a contribution towards the paying cost-overrun.

Conclusion; everyone is (more or less) happy.

Thanks again for the inputs that I received.

 

[doug boardley]

glad we could help

 

[The D]

It is nice to know the outcome of these threads so thank you for that. I'm glad you got it all sorted out.