Do-it-yourself tile installation
Home and Garden television has been a great source of ideas and motivation for home improvements. In some ways, it’s made the construction industry better because customers ask more informed questions and are often willing to try more adventurous things.
However, it has also contributed to the misconception that projects can be completed by fairly inexperienced people in compressed time-frames with relative ease. What they don’t show is the mass of experienced people brought in between ‘takes’ to complete the work, or all the overnight hours that are put in to complete the project ‘on-time.’
Sometimes the shows encourage homeowners to save money by doing all or part of the work themselves. They never seem to put a dollar value on the time the homeowner is going to take learning the skill they’re about to undertake, or the time they’ll take away from a profession they are trained in (or from family) to do the work, or the tools they have to rent, or the physical therapy visits from strained backs, or the family tension that can result.
And, then there’s the questionable construction methods used by some television hosts. More than once, we’ve begged the television to stop a ‘contractor’ from installing shower wall tile over a substrate not intended for wet areas. This installation will fail within the first 2 years if they shower is used at all. Where will the host be then? Will he offer a warranty? Will he cover the cost of the repairs to the ceiling downstairs when the shower leaks or rots the wood all around it?
Nope.
There’s a reason the Tile Council of North America’s handbook is 296 pages with 204 different methods for installing tile and stone. Installation is affected by the size and type of tile, the area it’s going to be installed, the setting materials specified, the substrate, the time the tile will have to adhere, what the temperature variable in the area will be, whether water will be on or near the tile, and numerous other factors. And, all this is before you get to the ‘pretty part’ of designing the layout for the tile pattern.
Tile and stone are beautiful additions to your home, and we are very pleased that television often features these products. But, we want you to love your tile for how it functions, as well as how it looks. When it’s installed correctly, it can last the life of your home. Find an NTCA 5-Star tile contractor or at least a CTEF certified installer to do your installation, and save your DIY energy for a less permanent part of your home.
We have an industry friend who says, “the pyramids weren’t built out of plastic,” and they weren’t constructed in a 30-minute segment either.
The current economic climate is driving customers to make decisions based solely on the perception of
short-term savings. On the construction site, ‘bargain hunting’ can prove to be a costly mindset if used as the only selection criteria for subcontractors. What a customer may have to pay after the contract is closed can cost far more than any up-front savings from using ’’bargain basement bidders.”
On two recent projects, Neuse Tile Service of Raleigh, NC, was called in to repair or complete jobs that weremishandled by the very contractors who took the original project with their ‘low bid.’
On one, Neuse was asked to find a solution because when the cleaning crew mopped the restaurant’s kitchen floor, it ‘rained’ into the space below. The improper installation of trowel-able waterproofing caused the application to fail, and the customer to spend a substantial amount of money paying Neuse to repair an installation that 'looked OK' on the surface, but failed to meet specifications or stand up to on-going use.
In another instance, Neuse was asked to come in at the 11th hour to install tile on a university project that turned out to be beyond the capabilities of the 'low bid' tile subcontractor. The dollar value of the change order issued for Neuse to complete that job was the same amount their original bid differed from the price of the 'lowest bidder' originally chosen.
In this era of price shopping, please understand that the lowest cost is not necessarily the best value.
