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Hi guys,

My builder is just about finishing a retile of my two bathrooms. He's laid 24 square metres of 10cm x 10cm tumbled marble with 17 square metres of bull nose dado. He's done a great job.

However he's now asking an extra £520 because I asked him to tile in a diamond pattern above the dado rail.

For both bathrooms this adds up to an area of 4.39 metres square in a diamond pattern but he claims that to create this diamond pattern has taken an extra weeks work.

This seems ridiculous and calculates to £117 per square metre extra ontop of the money I've already paid to have them tiled anyway. It'd be over £200 square metre if I combined the quote cost and extra cost.

In real terms 62 tiles have been cut in half to form the edges and the rest just rotated 45 degrees. Is that worth £520 extra? Is there much more time involved? An extra week?

When I specified the diamond pattern nothing was mentioned about an increase in cost or difficulty and had I know it was going to be such an increase I would have just kept the tiles horizontal.

Putting aside that I didn't authorise the increased cost, I've built a good relationship with him (so I thought) and would like to use him again on other projects in the future. I don't wish to fall out but is he justified to ask for more or is he just trying it on?

Thanks. Appreciate your comments.

For what you describe then yes that is way over the top.

It is true that diamond bond does take longer and is more involved. Now you haven't mentioned this but there could also be an extras charge for working with marble (over the whole area) which again is more involved but to charge an extra £520 over such a small area is way over the top IMO. Unless there is other info you haven't mentioned?

The original quote was for marble (supplied by me). That hasn't changed.
The only this that has changed is that I asked for the diamond pattern above the dado in the shower area.

How much more work is involved over just laying them horizontal?

What would be a fair and reasonable extra charge do you think?

Many thanks

Assuming it just relates to setting them out and nothing else then I would have thought an extra £100 is more than enough.

If there really is no more to this story then to use the excuse it took an extra week is laying it on strong. For 5sqm the extra time taken over and above what was already quoted should take no more than half a day.

Thank you very much.

something not adding up in my head here
you say 24m total then the diamond is only 4.4m
the diamond appears to be around 1/3 the wall length above dado height [about 50/50]
unless theres loads more wall we cant see the ratio being 5.5 to one

in other words what ever amount is diamond patterned say 4m length there must be 5.5 times the amount off below dado as in 22m in length
are these very big rooms

what was the original cost for the tiling ??

Looks like a lot of cutting and setting out.......100 quid seems cheap to me.

Did you not discuss price before he started or did you think he would do it for free?

Seems like something isn't being told here....

BG

Big-All, You can easily work out the square meterage in those pics given the tile size of 100x100. I make it around 6sqm, but I suspect the op is not including the border in those figure where as I am.

Even so £520 is way over the top as an extra to do that.

I rarely comment on price as you never know what the tradesmen has come up against without seeing it first hand but the OP insists there is no more to it and on that basis it's far too expensive.

Personally I don't think the tiler has made the best of it. I can see he has had to make a call on it because the ceilings are so far out of whack. I would have set out differently but that's personal choice I suppose.

BillyGoat wrote:Looks like a lot of cutting and setting out.......100 quid seems cheap to me.

Did you not discuss price before he started or did you think he would do it for free?

Seems like something isn't being told here....

BG

£100 extra on top of original price for diamond bond BG, not £100 to tile that area.

Or are you saying that £100 is styill not enough?

Colour Republic wrote:Big-All, You can easily work out the square meterage in those pics given the tile size of 100x100. I make it around 6sqm, but I suspect the op is not including the border in those figure where as I am.

Even so £520 is way over the top as an extra to do that.

I rarely comment on price as you never know what the tradesmen has come up against without seeing it first hand but the OP insists there is no more to it and on that basis it's far too expensive.

Personally I don't think the tiler has made the best of it. I can see he has had to make a call on it because the ceilings are so far out of whack. I would have set out differently but that's personal choice I suppose.

the point i was making is he downplaying the ratio to better his situation as in diamond 3 to 1 rather than 5.5 to 1??

i dont know really i am trying to see it from both sides and give a fair point off view

my thought are total area 24m divided into cost say £10 a square m then add 30-50% extra for the diamond

I'm not reading it like that Big-All, the ratio has no relevance. There could be 200sqm elsewhere it doesn't really matter.

The tiler gave an overall price for the tiling, the OP changed their mind and asked for 2 small areas to be set out differently, which from the pictures equates to 6sqm. The rest of the area was set out as previously agreed so there shouldn't be any extra cost related to those areas.

I'd go with BG above .....a 40 percent extra, as a premium sounds fine.....it does look a good job.......tel him to justify the price and settle at 50 percent of 520 ?

He would have still made plenty at that !

Colour Republic wrote:

BillyGoat wrote:Looks like a lot of cutting and setting out.......100 quid seems cheap to me.

Did you not discuss price before he started or did you think he would do it for free?

Seems like something isn't being told here....

BG

£100 extra on top of original price for diamond bond BG, not £100 to tile that area.

Or are you saying that £100 is styill not enough?

I'm actually thinking that 100 on top of the original price doesn't seem a lot. I think 520 sounds a bit on the highside though.

I'm just thinking from the blokes POV. He's got the cutting to do, so presumably uses his blades/time - the extra time getting it setout and looking nice (it does look nice from the pictures......) and it's a change of the job. He might have had to move other work around, who knows what else.

It's all guesswork to me as to what actually happened, but I just think 100 seems a bit cheap. I just don't get how the cost wasn't discussed BEFORE the work was started.....I ALWAYS ask or get it written. If he just got on with it and sprung a figure on the end with no indication of extras then I'd say there was room for discussion.

A bit of hmmm on both parts.

BG

BG

If he never told you it was going to cost extra when you asked for the diamond pattern, i wouldn't pay him for any extras and tell him where to go. The price should of been agreed before the work started. He hasn't got a leg to stand on without any price agreement for the extras.

assuming its labour only we need to know the agreed rate for the whole job surly so we can work out the extra

520 on top off 520 is vastly different to 520 on top off say 3000