Complete rant-renovations and dealing with crappy contractor

[Sunnyday]

I just want to cry out of frustration. I just need to get it out before I attack someone with my words.

the tile person who just put in the tiles showed me that he was done. Some of the tiles were chipped at the edges. All of them are down with grout set in. I noticed one. And, I decided, oh well, whatever, I'll just ask him if there is anything else to do to hide it a little bit better. He said that the contractors would probably be chalking and a base board around the floor because they had chipped and cracked all the white tiles that were on the wall. And he said that the contractor would probably add a baseboard to hide it!!! If anyone read my dream house thread, i love the clean simplified look of modern, nowhere in my world would a baseboard be okay in my bathroom.

to be clear, I had existing white tiles on the walls, and the contractor removed what was on the floor and replaced it with new modern ones.


I now have chipped white tiles on my walls, and chipped tiles (like on the edges as if when they cut the tile, it didn't cut straight) on some of new beautiful grey tiles, and now they want to add a fucking baseboard

and i don't think this post makes sense. 

I hate contractors. I have never had a good experience with one. they are seriously money grubbing, corner cutting, incompetent AGHghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

And please don't reply in saying that "my son is a GC and he is so honest, and blahs balhalahlah".

None of them are honest. None!

I can get pretty aggressive when I get angry so I have to get the husband to deal with them now.

And the tile person was a sub-contractor of a sub-contractor. 

What would the solution be, they aren't going to rip it all out. Perhaps, they can rip out all the white tiles, but wouldn't it risk damaging the newly installed grey tiles especially where they join at the wall?

And yes, the guy could have done a better job of making sure that all the tiles were cut straight, but there are only 3 places that I saw on quick inspection that had the ragged edges. yeah, it would always bother me, but I don't think anyone will ever notice.

[Sunnyday]

yes, I remember how one of them gouged your floor. thanks. 

sniff.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Sorry, if they are chipped enough that they are apparent, I'd have them rip out the chipped ones and do it again at their expense. That is unacceptable IMO.

We had our bathroom tiled last year. The pattern we chose needed a lot of cuts in the tiles, because we have inset patterned tiles inside of tiles, and we do not have a single chipped tile.

[Sunnyday]

Can they just rip out one or two and reinstall it?

I'm totally clueless and I know that ragged lines and chipped tiles are unacceptable. I have never seen that in other places.

[michelyn8]

Apr 10, 2014 11:06:57 GMT -5 Sunnyday said:

Can they just rip out one or two and reinstall it?

I'm totally clueless and I know that ragged lines and chipped tiles are unacceptable. I have never seen that in other places.

If they are any good they should know how.  If I remember right from my HGTV viewing and from what I saw my Uncle do when he replaced a couple of damaged tiles in my Mom's bathroom a couple weeks ago, its just a matter of scoring out the grout around the damaged tiles and maybe an adjacent tile or two until you can get under the tile to remove it, installing new tile, and then re-grouting the area.  My Uncle replaced only 4 tiles for Mama and the biggest issues were finding tiles that matched since the original ones were over 15 years old and matching the grout (and he did a damn good job at that IMO).

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Apr 10, 2014 11:06:57 GMT -5 Sunnyday said:

Can they just rip out one or two and reinstall it?

I'm totally clueless and I know that ragged lines and chipped tiles are unacceptable. I have never seen that in other places.

You will have to ask them.

I know that when our's was done, the guy had the whole floor laid and asked me if it was ok.  It was, so he proceeded to grout.  There are no ragged lines, no chips and everything is lined up perfectly.  I think that there were 3 tiles that were miscut of the whole floor.  He left those behind to show what was waste.  There is still part of the package of all 3 of the tiles he used left for any repairs that need to be done in the future.

It almost sounds like they grouted because they figured that you'd not make a fuss about the chipped tiles if it was already done.

[michelyn8]

www.diynetwork.com/how-to/how-to-replace-a-broken-floor-tile/index.html

If its this simple for a DIYer, then an experience tradesman should have no problem fixing what they damaged.

Don't let them off the hook if you're not happy with things.  If you don't want baseboard, then make them fix it or discount your costs so you can pay someone else to do it.

[Deleted]

Apr 10, 2014 10:32:40 GMT -5 Sunnyday said:

I now have chipped white tiles on my walls, and chipped tiles (like on the edges as if when they cut the tile, it didn't cut straight) on some of new beautiful grey tiles, and now they want to add a fucking baseboard

I don't understand why baseboard is bad in a bathroom? In all of the homes I have owned the bathrooms had baseboard. Tile, Wood, Laminate they are all with baseboard.

Are tiles laid in the middle of the floor chipped? Or is it a problem only at the walls on cut edges. The subcontractor did not have the right or sufficiently sharpened blade on the tile cutter if all the cut edges are chipped. What kind of tile is it?

Did the contractor know that you expected the tile to run to the edge of the room and hit perfectly so no baseboard would be used? If so, then you do have the right to ask them to rip it out and re-do it. Does your wall tile come down to the floor & that is why you have no baseboards? What is the total cost of the full job you are doing and how much of it is the bathroom tile cost?

What I find is that rarely do I communicate to my contractors in sufficient detail to get what I thought I was asking for. Any future jobs I will spend the time to gather examples, pictures, maybe do a rough drawing. I was kind of surprised sometimes at what difference in interpretation there is. The work was quality work, just sometimes not what I meant I wanted 

[Deleted]

I don't think you should settle for cracked tile. Take pictures. Contact the contractor above the subcontractor... He is the one you have the contract with? (Do you have a written contract outlining the work to be done?) ... And make them fix the problem.  It doesn't matter how they have to do it. You contracted for something specific and THAT is what you pay for...

[Deleted]

They chipped your existing tile too? You better talk to the contractor and let him know your issues.
If you had tile floor before and it finished into wall tile, then you had every right to expect same with the new replacement.

[Sunnyday]

Apr 11, 2014 7:36:54 GMT -5 @lillylake said:

Apr 10, 2014 10:32:40 GMT -5 Sunnyday said:

I now have chipped white tiles on my walls, and chipped tiles (like on the edges as if when they cut the tile, it didn't cut straight) on some of new beautiful grey tiles, and now they want to add a fucking baseboard

I don't understand why baseboard is bad in a bathroom? In all of the homes I have owned the bathrooms had baseboard. Tile, Wood, Laminate they are all with baseboard.

Are tiles laid in the middle of the floor chipped? Or is it a problem only at the walls on cut edges. The subcontractor did not have the right or sufficiently sharpened blade on the tile cutter if all the cut edges are chipped. What kind of tile is it?

Did the contractor know that you expected the tile to run to the edge of the room and hit perfectly so no baseboard would be used? If so, then you do have the right to ask them to rip it out and re-do it. Does your wall tile come down to the floor & that is why you have no baseboards? What is the total cost of the full job you are doing and how much of it is the bathroom tile cost?

What I find is that rarely do I communicate to my contractors in sufficient detail to get what I thought I was asking for. Any future jobs I will spend the time to gather examples, pictures, maybe do a rough drawing. I was kind of surprised sometimes at what difference in interpretation there is. The work was quality work, just sometimes not what I meant I wanted 

I don't have all the details to your questions, but the baseboard is not what we are going for in our bathroom. Our bathroom was suppose to be modern with clean simple lines. We didn't want 4-5 elements cluttering the visual. 

The floor tile is porcelain.

The Contractor said that he's going to replace the broken white tiles on the wall.  I don't know what the solution is for the ragged edges on the floor tiles. The one up on the wall behind the wall, while it is the biggest, is not the one that bugs me. It's the smaller ragged edge on the corner of the bath box (big bathtub surrounded by tile). It's in the corner, right next to the toilet. 

I'm trying to take a step from the process, because I have a hard dealing with people that I can't trust. I had my husband take over most of the dealings.  

I heard that renovations caused us a lot of stress. I get it now.

[Deleted]

Putting down any sort of floor without a baseboard is hard because everything has to be perfect. Baseboard covers lots of sins. Your contractor may just not be up to the task.

[lexxy703]

I'd talk to the GC that hired the sub if they don't replace ALL of the broken tiles.  I really can't picture wall meeting floor without baseboard.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

We had baseboard under the cabinets and the short pieces of wall that were free in the bathroom.

Today, I'm off to the local floor store to find tile for the laundry room.  I don't get why the contractor who built this house (and lived in it) tiled everyplace else but the laundry room.  He put down some sort of vinyl floor that is showing its age.  So now need to find something that will look ok against the rest of the tile.

fortunately, the contractor did leave extra tiles so we've got something to work with.

[Sunnyday]

Apr 11, 2014 11:43:35 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Putting down any sort of floor without a baseboard is hard because everything has to be perfect. Baseboard covers lots of sins. Your contractor may just not be up to the task.

Well, no argument from me there!!!

But obviously, it's possible. We had tiles on the wall  and on the floor before and no baseboard. 
And believe me whoever did our bathroom before weren't master tilers. They didn't even put one of those flooring layers down.

If I had one of those online photosharing accounts, I would post a picture.

[Deleted]

"I hate contractors. I have never had a good experience with one. they are seriously money grubbing, corner cutting, incompetent AGHghhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

This has been my experience as well.  I have had a lot of different contractors in the the house doing different things and DH and I were discussing the ones that didn't break something, not finish the job, or just do shoddy work.  The guy who installed our HVAC was a dream, start to finish a great job. There was some problem with everyone else and we either had to have them come back to fix it or finish/fix it ourselves.  Carpet guy left a big bump in the center of the room.  Excavator left and never came back.  Roofer never sealed around the sky lights.  Drywall guy did great work, but ran out of time on our job and asked us to finish it for a reduced fee (not too bad of a deal).  The guy who did the front walk, It looks nice now, but there are no words...

[Bonny]

We have a WONDERFUL contractor. We recently completed our 3rd project with him.

We also have a terrific electrician and plumber. Since I acted as the GC for the last two projects I know how much work scheduling and coordinating subs are.

Our neighbor is also a master tiler. Working with existing tile is much, much harder than laying fresh. He did a beautiful job cutting back and inserting deco tiles when we took down a wall between our kitchen and living room.

Good contractors are out there. But they are busy. Sometimes it takes a few calls to get the best.

BTW This is a situation where being nice helps. I found the "I know you're busy... Or I know this isn't a structural thing but it doesn't reflect your normal craftsmanship..." approach much more successful.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Our neighbor is also a master tiler. Working with existing tile is much, much harder than laying fresh. He did a beautiful job cutting back and inserting deco tiles when we took down a wall between our kitchen and living room.

I found a good one that did exactly this. The contractor who built this house ran the carpet from the bedroom into the area in front of the vanity in the master bath. The rest of the bath was tiled (including the walls), and had a border tile. This house was built almost 20 years ago and those tiles were long gone. My wheelchair destroyed what was left of the carpet.

So not only did we have to find tiles that contrasted well but matched, but it was a small and difficult job. The guy did such a good job on it that I wanted him to take the rest of the tile out of the bathroom and do it all with the newer tile. We must have looked at hundreds of tile. trying to find something that would work.

[Deleted]

Good contractors, in addition to being busy, don't always have the lowest bid... Ask specific questions and get acceptable answers about bid differences before you make decisions...