Expensive stone, tile fitting.

[Matthew77]

Just wondering if any of you guys or girls have priced up any stone tile fixing (labour only) at around the £100m2 mark or more?

I'm currently pricing up a job for some stone tiling and when I've approached some local stone layers for some help on the job a few of them have suggested that they'd normally charge around £100m2 (or the same as what the stone costs) for labour. When I spoke to the quarry where the stone is coming from they said that that seems about right.

The stone retails at about £110pm2 to buy.

While in B&Q yesterday I noticed a sign on their tile range saying "tile fixing service starting at £40pm2" and it got me thinking about how much big company's charge for stone and tile fixing. I hear Fired earth also charge an above average rate.

Are these prices just relevant to the cost of the materials for example if your fixing expensive stone would you ask for a higher labour price as your also responsible for handling or potentially damaging the stone.

Any thoughts would be appreciated

thanks

Matt

 

[Colour Republic]

It all depends on the diffculty of the job in hand and the service you offer.

You could get prices in from £40-£150 for the same job. However they are offering a different level of service.

Take B&Q for example, they charge £40 sqm for basic tiling, We all know Mr & Mrs Smith could get it done for maybe half that, yet B&Q are backing up that work and giving the customer piece of mind because they have big enough pockets to rectify if anything goes wrong. The customer knows this and is willing to pay extra.

If you charge £50sqm for stone fixing then the customer expects a satisfactory job, if you charge £150 sqm for the same job then you better make sure it is damn near perfect or you'll be taking it up again and doing it at your own cost. They also won't think twice about ringing you up 3 years down the line if a problem occurs as at £150sqm they expect the work to be guranteed.

Charge as much as you're worth but push the limits because the client has deep pockets and they will demand A1 service and accountability from you.

 

[Dontiler]

as above spot on advice

 

[Sean Page]

That's pretty much exactly how it is. An expensive stone job will take longer to fix and it needs to be of a very high standard.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Although I'd agree with the Colour Republic on all points it's the first sentence that is the most important IMHO.
The difficulty of the job and service you offer.
If your not sure how much to charge then I'd suggest you don't have the experience to undertake the work and you are leaving yourself open to big risks.
Too many 'Tilers' think all materials are the same but the variety of stones and how they need to be handled can make this a specialist area.
Tread carefully grasshopper !

 

[jonnyc]

£100.00 per sq mt sounds like a lot to me if it is floors.
if you could tell me what size format the stone is , whethe honed/aged ettc and how many rooms or bathrooms could give you a better.
if you were fixing 60x 60 solid bed on walls in bathrooms I would say £ 70.00 per sq mt about right for good quality work plus any polishing /honing.
100 sq mt honed limestone 60x 60 in say 3 rooms £ 45.00 per mt labour only .

 

[thompsonbrown]

I would never charge a different rate for fixing more expensive tiles.
I charge more for type of tile, difficultly of job and prep work needed before installation can commence.
Basing your installation price, on prices customer has payed for tiles, will not always work with what customers expect the finished job to look like.

 

[jonnyc]

im starting a floor next week where stone cost approx £450.00 per sq mt .
if i could charge the same for labour i could take a few months off

 

[widler]

Im doing one now jonny, limestone, he called it 'barreem' but can't find it online, he said the floor alone is costing nigh on ten grand, for boards, eufh ,tiles, materials and my good self to fit, but im getting just over a 1/4 of the cost of the tile for fitting.
I wouldnt, and no one would get anywhere near £50m2 for ANY tiling never mind £150 around my way, id of earned over £3000 this week , be nice that

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Mathew must be off on his yacht rather than checking any replies and thanks for his thread!

 

[Matthew77]

Really Sorry for the delay, not been on the yacht John (honest) been up-to it with "customer service", liaising back and forth from adhesive rep to company director, as well as pricing up, quantifying materials and working! .


Thanks for all your replies.


The quarry here basically give my number out to customers that are looking for fixers for their stone. They don't take any commission from it, they are just happy to recommend me as I have fixed a lot of this stone for them and I do a good job. I know how I would price this job up but because it's a big job I'd have to get other fitters in so I was keen to get prices from them. I was surprised by the £100 a meter prices to be honest, but these these guys obviously get those sort of prices as they are always busy.
In the end I put a high price in incase I had to move the stone from where it is delivered to the work area and extra cost for laying 70m2 of the stone on a mortar base which would mean mixing and humping all the mortar about and to obviously cover any other stone layers wages.


I haven't heard back from them. It's a shame that the company had such a tight timescale on the job and gave me very little notice. If they'd had a longer timeframe for completion I could have put in what I would think was a more reasonable price.


I just find it interesting that there are some big differences between prices in the same areas and thought it might be a good topic here


The stone is honed, 300mm wide by 20mm thick random lengths (usually 300mm to 1000mm+)


thanks again for for all your replies.

Matt


Here is a pic of the stone

 

[jonnyc]

Lovely stone .nice random offset pattern.
only point I would make is that by mixing base colours you could get a better grout colour to blend in with field stone beige background.
also looks like 300/400/600 banded widths by running lengths.

 

[Sean Page]

Just to clarify a point, I wasn't saying I'd charge more based solely on the price of the tiles. I was trying to highlight the differences between expensive stone and cheap ceramics. If a customer is paying for top of the range stone they'll be expecting a top quality finish, that includes all specific preparation, proper adhesives, cleaners and sealers. Natural stone is also more labour intensive with regards to cutting and fixing so this needs to be factored in when pricing.

Hope that clears things

 

[Matthew77]

Lovely stone .nice random offset pattern.
only point I would make is that by mixing base colours you could get a better grout colour to blend in with field stone beige background.
also looks like 300/400/600 banded widths by running lengths.

I think if I remember right the customer wanted a light grey for grout although it looks more white in the picture. I usually recommend a mid grey as it's closest to the cement and sand based mortar that would have been used in the olden days, although one mid grey grout I use comes out looking a bit blue/grey which a customer had with the same stone and really liked as it made it look very modern. I've recently done another similar floor and the customer wanted the kerakoll fugabella light grey which again I thought would be too light but looked very good once finished and sealed.

I think a grey grout contrasts against the colour of the limestone and really brings out the textures and fossils in this type of stone, where as a beige or limestone kind of blends in with the stone and doesn't really look that great IMO.

Are you suggesting mixing for example a sandstone with a grey to give a more natural look? This is something I've thought about before, what colours have you blended like this and would you suggest for this type of stone?

I think the stone was coursed in widths of 300/400/600 like you say, but that was a few years back now so bit of a stretch to remember exactly.

 

[Matthew77]

Just to clarify a point, I wasn't saying I'd charge more based solely on the price of the tiles. I was trying to highlight the differences between expensive stone and cheap ceramics. If a customer is paying for top of the range stone they'll be expecting a top quality finish, that includes all specific preparation, proper adhesives, cleaners and sealers. Natural stone is also more labour intensive with regards to cutting and fixing so this needs to be factored in when pricing.

Hope that clears things

Indeed, I find apart from the weight, cutting and laying part of the job which is as you say more labour intensive (Getting a 600x980x20mm thick beast onto my tile saw for a cut!) there is so much labour involved in surface prep and self levelling, cleaning the stone front and back (as it's usually covered in stone dust), letting it dry, sealing, letting dry then sealing again, letting dry, grouting, cleaning grout, then final seal of grout and stone.

That's without humping the stone from down the bottom of the garden to the house because the delivery driver refuses to back up the driveway as there's a tree he's worried about somewhere in the garden!

 

[Matthew77]

It all depends on the diffculty of the job in hand and the service you offer.

You could get prices in from £40-£150 for the same job. However they are offering a different level of service.

Take B&Q for example, they charge £40 sqm for basic tiling, We all know Mr & Mrs Smith could get it done for maybe half that, yet B&Q are backing up that work and giving the customer piece of mind because they have big enough pockets to rectify if anything goes wrong. The customer knows this and is willing to pay extra.

If you charge £50sqm for stone fixing then the customer expects a satisfactory job, if you charge £150 sqm for the same job then you better make sure it is damn near perfect or you'll be taking it up again and doing it at your own cost. They also won't think twice about ringing you up 3 years down the line if a problem occurs as at £150sqm they expect the work to be guranteed.

Charge as much as you're worth but push the limits because the client has deep pockets and they will demand A1 service and accountability from you.

Thanks for this it's it's an interesting post.

I realise that big company's have enough money to rectify anything that might go wrong, but I also think that most tilers would have insurance to cover themselves for any mishaps and like me I always leave my card with the customer after completing a job and tell them to contact me if they have any problems at all regarding the tiling, plus I know my adhesives that I use as will you and all my work is guaranteed accordingly with the adhesives I use. On top of this customers know that when you quote for the job you will be doing the work to your usual standard. If you tiled their neighbours kitchen and they have asked you to tile theirs then they will get a similar standard of work unlike a big company who may have 10 tilers all with different standards of work. I've seen some shocking tiling work carried out by some large firms that the customer has been really disappointed in.

With this in mind why aren't we all charging these higher prices?

 

[Matthew77]

im starting a floor next week where stone cost approx £450.00 per sq mt .
if i could charge the same for labour i could take a few months off

Wow that's some expensive stone, what sort of stone is that!?

 

[Matthew77]

Im doing one now jonny, limestone, he called it 'barreem' but can't find it online, he said the floor alone is costing nigh on ten grand, for boards, eufh ,tiles, materials and my good self to fit, but im getting just over a 1/4 of the cost of the tile for fitting.
I wouldnt, and no one would get anywhere near £50m2 for ANY tiling never mind £150 around my way, id of earned over £3000 this week , be nice that 

The stone for the job I quoted for comes in at over £18,000 for just the stone maybe a bit more if there are any bull nose edges for the quarry to put on!

At £150 a meter that's £25,000 could probably take the rest of the year off knobbing about on my yacht with that price as long as it doesn't take a year to fix it!

 

[Colour Republic]

With this in mind why aren't we all charging these higher prices?

Because people will always work to different standards and those without a full order book will often drop their prices just to get the work in. That's always been the case and always will be, It is what it is, you'll never change that no matter how hard you try. If you want to charge more then you have to work in a market where clients are shopping on quality and not on price. But they demand quality as they know they are paying more than the 'going rate'

Ok let me give you an example. I get a lot of granite/quartz/corian etc etc worktops installed in the kitchens we supply and fit. A lot of fabricators will always leave some wiggle room when fitting, for example an overhang on an undermount sink can be 10-15mm so that if the slab needs to be shifted to the right or left 3 or 4mm then it isn't noticable, also the polishing is often done by hand so it isn't always bang on straight but in the normal scheme of things you'll never notice and the worktops look great.

Now if I don't want an overhang on the sink and I want it perfect (keeping in mind the sink itself might not be bang on straight) and I want the fabricators to work of tolerances of 0-1mm and not 4-5mm, then i'm willing to pay more.

Why? Because I know that you can fabricate stone or acrylic worktops using cardboard to template and a few inexpensive diamond cutting and polishing tools, you can set yourself up for under £5k. But if I want it digitally templated and cut by CNC then I know the digital templater can cost £20k and a CNC cutter upwards of £100k.

So if I pay say £3k for some worktops to be done by hand and it looks good i'm happy. If I pay £3.6K for the same job to be done by CNC then I want it perfect and if it isn't then it's going back as my expectations are much higher.

If i'm shopping on price because I know the customer wants a good job at a resonable price, then I go to one fabriactor. If it's a discerning client that will appreciate the difference, then I go to a different fabricator.

It's the same with tradesmen. Good clean job it's one price, perfection then it's another.

 

[widler]

Really Sorry for the delay, not been on the yacht John (honest) been up-to it with "customer service", liaising back and forth from adhesive rep to company director, as well as pricing up, quantifying materials and working! .


Thanks for all your replies.


The quarry here basically give my number out to customers that are looking for fixers for their stone. They don't take any commission from it, they are just happy to recommend me as I have fixed a lot of this stone for them and I do a good job. I know how I would price this job up but because it's a big job I'd have to get other fitters in so I was keen to get prices from them. I was surprised by the £100 a meter prices to be honest, but these these guys obviously get those sort of prices as they are always busy.
In the end I put a high price in incase I had to move the stone from where it is delivered to the work area and extra cost for laying 70m2 of the stone on a mortar base which would mean mixing and humping all the mortar about and to obviously cover any other stone layers wages.


I haven't heard back from them. It's a shame that the company had such a tight timescale on the job and gave me very little notice. If they'd had a longer timeframe for completion I could have put in what I would think was a more reasonable price.


I just find it interesting that there are some big differences between prices in the same areas and thought it might be a good topic here


The stone is honed, 300mm wide by 20mm thick random lengths (usually 300mm to 1000mm+)


thanks again for for all your replies.

Matt


Here is a pic of the stone

This is mine at the mo, im a 1/3rd (ish)way through at the moment , i sealed and grouted last week,cos the blinking kitchen men were in monday so i couldnt go until today, to do the dining /livingroom .
I love doing floors when every other trade has to walk OVER them

 

[m3fitter]

hmmmm £100.00 a metre ? No, i'm at the high end of Stone, installing for stonemasons, high end builders, property developers aswell as private clients, on a large meterage project you would not compete or get it, on a small room, where the days / meterage doesn't work, you could convert it back to £100.00 a metre but not as a rule, the average is £40 trade and £50.00 retail, more for mosaic stone work and bespoke, you can get away with it for a project or two, but not regularly, you'd lose more leads than business you gain, and if you have your usual suspects that provide you with multiple projects a year, you wouldn't mug them off with a dodgy price, or risk losing them. Retail only maybe, but they're one offs and then you're continuously seeking work, and not relying on recommends.. just my point of view

 

[jonnyc]

This looks like same stone as previous pictures but the distressing is diabolical.
looks like someone has just swung a hammer or chisel side ways in to edges at random two or three times at any edge, causing large scallops of stone to break off.
then the grouting in grey accentuates the problem.
is this English stone or Portuguese.they can look similar.

 

[widler]

This looks like same stone as previous pictures but the distressing is diabolical.
looks like someone has just swung a hammer or chisel side ways in to edges at random two or three times at any edge, causing large scallops of stone to break off.
then the grouting in grey accentuates the problem.
is this English stone or Portuguese.they can look similar.

I aint got a clue jonny, it does look the same stone, thats why i put the picture up.
Its not a new stone either has the main contractor has had them in his showroom for over 20 years.
Ive been back today and i actually like it now the grout has dried , i will take a few pics and put them up when ive completed it all