Materials costs

[hazza1969]

I wonder if someone could give me a vague idea of how much adhesive and grout should cost to tile an average sized bathroom at current UK prices? (16 square metres of wall and 3 square metres of floor tiling)

Thanks.

Harry.

 

[Fekin]

That would depend on wether you are trying to guage what a tiler is charging you for doing the job for you, or are you buying it from a shop like Topps or B&Q.

Then it all depends on what quality of adhesive and grout you are on about.

If you go into somewhere like Topps Tiles just look on some tubbed adhesive and it will say how many sqm thast size of tubb will cover, same for grout.

You can pay anywhere from £9.99 for crappy B&Q 4.6L tub tile adhesive that will cover upto 5.5m2 or upto £30 for the better end of the range, same idea for grouts too.

 

[hazza1969]

Thanks for the swift reply. I'm trying to guage whether £170 is a reasonable charge for the above job.

That was £170 for the materials only. Labour extra, obviously.

 

[scrubmuncher]

As fekin said, alot of what ifs. Would need more info than that to give a rough idea. Other than that just check out how much it would cost down Topps. If you want to know how much it would cost your tiler for the ads n grouts, trim, levellers, primers n whatever else needs to be used I wouldnt know, depending where we buy from we all get different trade discounts and different % on different gear, depends what he needs to use. I can tell you it costs a lot more for pro gear as apposed to DIY muck than the average client would think.
If you are trying to do the math, get a couple of quotes in and that'll give you an idea if your getting hit a bit hard.


Have you had any other quotes yet?

 

[hazza1969]

Therein lies the problem. It was organised by my other half. The job's been done and I'd assumed she'd got a quote but it looks like it was an estimate, not a quote and the final bill is about twice what we were expecting and I now feel we're being ripped off. It will probably turn out to be an expensive learning experience!

I think he used Ardex adhesive but I'm not 100% certain.

 

[Fekin]

When it was stated the job was an estimate then yes the price can go up versus being given a quote where it cannot, but twice the price does seem over the top.

Saying that though, did the tiler say he\she had unforseen work to carry out say once the old tiles were removed, like large repair work on the walls first etc ???

 

[scrubmuncher]

If the price has worked out twice as much then I would have expected him to clarify with you that you were ok with that. I would ask him first where the extra cost has gone as getting your materials wrong by half is a bit of a bad judgement. If he has had to replace walls and level the floor out (although should have known this before) then it is quite realistic for the original estimate to be way out.

 

[hazza1969]

Well it's a new house, only a few months old. One bit of plaster about 6 inches square needed to chiseled out and filled as it was loose but that's about it. There were no previous tiles to remove, it was just painted plasterboard.

 

[scrubmuncher]

If it was as straight forward as that I can't see a price almost doubling. I'd be honest with him. Ask him where it went, he will more than likely give a completely genuine answer and you'll have no probs. If not I'm not sure what you can do about it, an estimate is an estimate not a quote.

 

[grumpygrouter]

If the guy had use BAL Fastflex on the floor, that would account for about £70 straight away for just 1 bag! Still maybe a bit pricier than I would have "estimated" though. If the plasterboard was painted with emulsion, he may have spent a lot of time removing it as it is not ideal to tile over emulsion paint.

 

[Fekin]

Yep, best thing would be to phone the tiler up and ask how the estimate has near enough doubled.
I presume you have already payed for the job doing ?

 

[IvegotsTILE]

I don't think its that outrageous if it includes all the adhesive,grout,filler,primer,spacers, silicone and trim.
As Srubmuncher said quality materials cost alot more than the rubbish at the DIY'ers

 

[McP77]

Doing one at the minute which is 21 square metres of wall and just over 4 of floor. Materials bill is £275 which is increasing as chrome trim is being used instead of plastic.

 

[Fekin]

I don't think the issue here really is the price guys, it's the estimate nearly doubling which I think is the issue.

After all, anyone pricing up a job should get somewhere near the right cost, not just halfway there, then expect the customer to be happy that the final price is nearly double.

 

[brian c]

I don't think the issue here really is the price guys, it's the estimate nearly doubling which I think is the issue.

After all, anyone pricing up a job should get somewhere near the right cost, not just halfway there, then expect the customer to be happy that the final price is nearly double.

fair comment FEKIN

 

[McP77]

Yeah fair comment. That's why I personally don't like estimates. Anyone can throw in a really low estimate and then jack the price up as it goes along.

 

[Fekin]

I can fully understand tradsmen giving out estimates if the job is going to require some form of unearthing, where you ain't going to know what something is like until halfway through a job, like after removing a full bathroom of tiles, and having a load of repair work that needs to be done to the walls.

So, really, an estimate should only ever shoot up dramatically if something like this has happened, and it should be shown\ told to the customer.

Forgetting what half your job is going to entail though when giving an estimate is no excuse, like forgetting about trims, propper amount of adhesive\grouts that are going to be needed and so on.

 

[Dan]

The tiler is using Ardex so it's probabl fair to say the materials cost was spot on and the tiler knows a good brand. So if he's estimated it's going to cost twie the labour price then it's probably a fair price. I think there's more to this job than meets the eye.

 

[Fekin]

There must be, because nearly doubling the price is quite steep.