marble of poor quality

[Spud]

I have a 50m2 m marble floor to lay on wood for a Building contractor ,this builder is very thorough and has spent alot of time getting the substrate sturdy ,18mm ply on joists, Last friday I visited site and was shown the material that the customer had chosen and asked the builder to purchase on her behalf from her chosen supplier ,
At first glance the material looked to me like 60x30x 20mm polished pentilikon marble ,which i thought great, nice stone and i havent laid pentilikon for donkies years ,I picked up several tiles and on closer inspection discovered there are wheel marks, a poor polish and the tiles are not only different thicknesses ,they are very sizey and out of square ,most have chipped edges and many look bruised as if the have had something dropped on them ,
I pointed this out to the foreman on site and he also pointed out that over 7m2 where actually honed finished and didnt even have a polish on them ,concerned I told the foreman that I wouldnt be fixing them and they would have to be returned to the supplier who would need to replace them with tiles we could work with, he called the supplier straight away who aked the foreman to select all the tiles that were acceptable and he would collect the rejected tiles and replace it with new ones ,
out of 360 tiles on site 304 tiles were unusable for high quality domestic work, the supplier turned up yesterday to pick these rejected tiles up but only had 120 to replace them and these were still extremely low quality , i also rejected the whole batch and told the supplier that we would not put our name to a floor with material of such low quality
Tha supplier is now reluctant to change the tiles saying that you have to expect a few scratches on the stone and what do you expect as he gave the builder a deal ,the builder lost his cool at this point and said in no uncertain terms that there was no deal done, he paid full ticket price and was not going to accept this poor material
What would you have done in this situation and has the builder got the right to ask for his money back ? 60m2 supplied over £3000 paid

 

[DHTiling]

I have seen a few stones like this that are supposed to be first grade...PHG who sent you the morrran got a crate full like this and he refused to pay them... they told him to keep it but it is no good as it has swirl marks in it..

The only other way gary to save your foreman from being lumbered ,is to lay them and then have they ground and polished on site..

 

[mikethetile]

fit for purpose comes into it here

if you cant lay an acceptable floor with them then they are unfit for purpose

the right time to declare this is now not when they are fixed

 

[doug boardley]

a lot of suppliers come up with "it's natural stone, it varies in size and quality blah blah blah". One even stated "caveat emptor" to one of my customers, (buyer beware)

 

[White Room]

As you stated Gary, out of square that will be difficult to put right for starters

 

[Spud]

we tiled the kitchen so the builder could fit the kitchen units, the tiles are so poor and sizey that the joints open and close so much that its horrilbe to look at, i am going to have to dummy up joints to even everything up and this was the best of a bad bunch, total rubbish
Grinding the floor will cost between £1200-£1500 and there is nothing in the budget for this

 

[Aston]

fit for purpose comes into it here

if you cant lay an acceptable floor with them then they are unfit for purpose

the right time to declare this is now not when they are fixed

pretty much summed it up mike

 

[Time's Ran Out]

we tiled the kitchen so the builder could fit the kitchen units, the tiles are so poor and sizey that the joints open and close so much that its horrilbe to look at, i am going to have to dummy up joints to even everything up and this was the best of a bad bunch, total rubbish

I didn't see this entry in JOTM!:lol:
I think you made the correct decision with the Marble - at the end of the job you are responsible - not the foreman.

 

[tommyzooom]

Name and shame the supplier if he won't replace:mad2:

 

[Scott]

Personally i wouldnt lay it, as mike said the time to say its not good is now and not when its down. Most products either tiles or other floorings state on the packaging that any problems with the product wont be replaced or a problem dealt with IF its been fitted/laid.

Plus you wont be happy with the job and if the customer isnt either it could all go hooribly wrong. If its not right he can ask for his money back, at the end of the day the supplier will know if what he is selling is any good!

 

[The D]

I had the same thing about five years ago for chase midlands they had a batch of Crema Marfil delivered to site from mandarin stone in Cardiff I unpacked nine crates and not one crate was the same just as you said different thickness and not square some were polished and some honed some were even green and some were riced. Just like you I refused to lay it, the client had been out and we discussed the possibilities and both agreed it was not going down so I repacked it all. To cut a long story short I walked away from the job and that site was worth about 45k to me. But the chap that did the job in the end lost a lot more than me as the client was not having it and the tiler ended up in court.

 

[White Room]

Whats riced concerning the tiles deano ??

 

[The D]

Whats riced concerning the tiles deano ??

The only way I can describe it is if you throw a cup of rice on the stone that's how it looks but its in the stone not on it