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How much area would a tiler expect to lay in a day?
I’m having some negotiations with a bathroom fitter, which at first have come back with what I think is a very high quite (£2.5k +vat labour) for a straight forward re fit - nothing being moved.
He’s now offering to reduce the price, but in reality is only lowering the labour by £100 and losing the VAT (his offer not my request)
He’s saying 5 days to tile and grout which I think is frankly ridiculous for less than 9m2 of floor (minimal cutting) and 1/2 height on a single wall and full height in a shower enclosure - around 6m2 total. Wall will be freshly battoned and boarded so will be true.
Floor tiles are 450mm square and wall tiles are similarly large.
There are no windows or any intricate balancing of tile cuts to do.
I think this is Excessive for a straight forward filing job? Am I being unreasonable?
don't like his price ask someone else and repeat until you get somewhere near what you want to pay or alternatively have ago yourself.
Just for reference would do you think is a reasonable cost?
I’d expect a tiler to do that job in two visits. A full shift to do the tiling and a half shift to grout.
about 12 hours work at £25 to £30 an hour plus materials.
At £2.5 k he’d be pulling your pants down and going in dry.
Get another tiler.
Bruneep - My question is about tiling rates - I think 5 days is excessive - I’ve tiled bathrooms before, and know that a decent job can be achieved with some care and decent preparation. I may well end up tiling this bathroom myself.
I have no issues with tradespeople earning a living, and am not falling into the PAYE trap of equating day rate to annual salary.
But I’m also not a mug and feel like in reality says he’s dropped his labour by £100, and itemising 5 days tiling. I’m trying to gauge If this is fair - from my research so far a pro can tile up to 15m2 \ day if it’s straightforward job. Making 5 days excessive.
That's £500 a day...
I'd say that's excessive for sure.
I run a building firm and my tiler doesn't charge me that!
What area are you in?
Is he supplying materials like adhesive and trims? Metal trims can be expensive depending on style and finish but not that much!
depends on your tiler. I had a mate of a mate do two bathrooms for us Fairly complex shapes of walls with coombed ceilings. around 15m2 each - each one took him a few days but I have never seen a tiling job so good. No silly little slivers of tile, everything is withing a 1/2 mm of where it should be, all lines matched up wall to wall and ceiling to wall ie 2/3 of a tile on one wall - on the adjoining wall 1/3 of a tile. everything is level and straight.
Yes he was expensive but I can only say - never seen such a meticulous job so for me it was money well spent. He certainly laid nothing like 15m2 a day
We paid £40 a square meter.
10sqm done in a day, floor and walls.
just done a bathroom on day rate. charged them 2.5k, no vat. that included sorting out the joiners cockups, boarding the walls, overboarding the floor, 5m2 floor tiles and 25m2 on the walls which was no where near straitforward, lots of stuff to cut round and recess's. i'd spent 5 days on the job before even starting setting out for tiling.
wish i could charge that for 5 days work, not that it sounds like 5 days work but i wouldn't say how long it should take without seeing it.
it does sound like more work than perchypanther says though plus he would have to come back when the grout is dry to silicone.
you can't put on as many m2 a day on smaller jobs as you spend all your time cutting.
I've just paid £1070 for our tiler to prep, tile, seal and grout approx 14sqm of floor.
This included two trips to lay two layers of screed then supply and fit thermal boards, uncoupling membrane, electric ufh and then the tiles which were 900x600.
15m2 of tiles at 450mm x 450mm for £2500.00 labour only in 40 hours equals....
£166.67 per m2
or
£33.33 per tile
or
£62.50 per hour
or
15 tiles a day
Clearly, I should chuck in the Quantity Surveying and become a tiler instead.
Well over the odds. Sack him off without a second chance as that quote is frankly offensive based just on a day rate breakdown. I know of pms on less who are pushing bridges over live motorways. I'll have a look later what we paid 4 months ago on a commercial project at msq rates, Derbyshire based so no London tax added.
Five days to tile and grout that area is ridiculous. 2 days tops (2.5 if there is anything really complex to cover)
Is the £2.5k just for the tiling or for the full refit including tiling?
I had a tiler work for me for ages that charged me £30/£35 metre2 depending on the tile.
He was top notch and He would have been under £500 for the tiling on your job. (Adhesive/Grout/trims included in price)
I reckon that's about double what we paid this week. Possibly even more.
Ours did what i think came in at about 9m2 of floor + about the same in walls for £1100. The walls were stripped in advance but he had to take the floor up. Came in at 5 full (ish) days labour.
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Thanks for the replies
The £2500 is for the full fit (excluding electrics).
But it was the 5 days to tile I wanted confirmation that was a little over zealous. I think it’s 2.5days work just for the tiling
Reading the OP, it's not £2.5k for the tiling, that's for the full bathroom refit.
Still seems high to me.
I paid £5k for a bathroom refit, which involved knocking the toilet into the bathroom, moving a door, new stud wall, plastering, moving stuff about, adding a shower cubicle, tiling full walls and floors.
It took about 5 days and I didn't think it was particularly cheap. I think there was 3 of them.
I’m literally just finishing off a tiling job similar. Perchy is under on his timing I’d say unless it’s new build, perfect floor and walls and no sheeting down, tidying up etc.
Mine is full height all way round, and a floor 16m2 total and it’s 2.5 days work with the last half a day being grout and silicone. could’ve got it done in 2 days if I’d got a wriggle on, I’ve charged £35/m2.
Your guy ain’t a tiler if he needs 5 days for that area.
I've just finished tiling our ensuite, all 4 walls including around door, window, shower alcove, staggered area around concealed toilet and shower. cut outs for pipework and toilet. took me about 3 days as a novice. well over 100 cuts with only 2 cock ups. learnt hard way big tiles / small complex room = lots of cuts.
I'd just do it yourself.
agree about metal trim costing z fortune....why? in the end I bought z trade lot of Ebay for not much more than 4 pieces from the local shed
Perchy is under on his timing I’d say unless it’s new build, perfect floor and walls and no sheeting down, tidying up etc.
Not new build, refurb of social housing.
Walls and floor prepped by others.
After roughly 3000 houses i'm pretty sure that a competent tiler can deliver 3 houses a week.
Fair enough. I’ve only been a tiler for 25 years. What do I know?
If you’re slamming on loads of mid format ceramics maybe, but you ain’t doing 300x600 porcelain with all your wet diamond saws set up outside so
You don’t get dust in a bedroom at that rate!
There’s tiling, and there’s tiling. Can easily loose an hour a day sheeting down and cleaning up in customers houses, plus time walking up and down the stairs to do all the cuts outside.
To be fair, you don't tend to get large format porcelain tiles in social housing projects.
If truth be told, you don't get any tiling at all these days, it's all wetwall and vinyl now.
The OP did, however, stress the simplistic, relatively cut-free nature of his tiling and the lack of prep required.
Let's split the difference and call it two days. It's still not five.
Agreed.
While i have the attention of the professionals: should I expect to replace the backer board when lifting up the old tiles? Guessing removing the old adhesive will destroy the existing backer board?
yes, a couple of weeks ago i had to replace some cracked tiles and had a hell of a job removing them without destroying the backer boards and it got very dusty cleaning of the old adhesive
Seems to me like hes given a price and asked for 5 days allowance for the tile.
If the homeowner is "preparing" the space, I'd be adding time and budget right there.
You may or may not need to replace backer boards. The method I use to fix them, you'd be doing well to get them back up so I'd be lifting tile and re-laying on existing after cleaning up (I have a dust extracted diamond grinder)
As for the total price he's after, the job I'm doing is a full ensuite refit - Rip out and dispose inc. skip, re-new pipe under floor due to suspicious leak previously, replace flooring and over board/tile, overboard ceiling and provide spot-lights, move light switch to external wall and fit a fan/isolator, re-board shower area due to previous leak, fit shower, tray and enclosure. fit 2 cabinets and worktop, fit basin/wc/concealed cistern, fit new towel rail/pipework and full height tile to approx 16m2. This is costing £3000 + VAT labour only.
That sounds cheap - had my bathroom done last year and it was £11k all in. All the bits broken down seemed reasonable enough, it's just once added up it makes your eyes water...
My tiling breakdown was (for 20m2 walls & 4m2 floor):
· Tiles & adhesive/ Grout £1,193.53
· Tile edging beads £100.39
· Tilers Labour £1,100.00
· Tanking £54.00
The tiles were my choice and not the cheap option + the edging was also my choice as I wanted a powder-coated that closely matched the tiles (and the only readily available option was Schluter Trendline Jolly which were about £25 each 🙁 ). To be fair, the tiler did a great job and worked flat-out over 3.5 days (also included assisting with fitting the under-floor and under-wall heating).