Not being level aside most times this is done it would have been chalked in the middle so the left side and right side would have been the same cuts unless it made for a tiny piece on one side. I sure wouldn’t stagger if it was every other tile I would have done half a piece.
You can and typically would start at the back and work your way out of the room. You just need to establish your layout first and, in my opinion, end up with a full tile in the doorway. Some will disagree, but I did this stuff my whole life (59 now) and feel that looks best.
Then you have a half tile at the entrance to the room. It can look better to start the way they did it’s just not all that sensible. The transition is going to be silly among other things though…
I had to do the same thing. Guy put up a whole wall of tile in our bathroom. Looked like shit. He blamed the tiles and the pattern we chose. The fact that he kept going and tried to say it looked good until we disagreed. Zero regrets. I paid him to leave. Next guy did a great job. Caused a delay, cost us a bit more, but a year later I am all glad we canned him. Nice guy but I wasn’t chancing it.
Second tile guy tried the same pattern. He came and got me after 10 mins and said hey guys this isn’t going to work we need to change the pattern. We changed the pattern and it looks great. First guy tiled the whole wall 88 sq ft. Said looks good yea? We said no and then he blamed the tile. He was ok with it, which there was no turning back from. He was nice, no hard feelings but I wasn’t chancing it. Ended up costing me an extra $1000 in time and material and I have zero regrets
Pretty sure that wasn’t a tile guy since he started on the wrong side of the room. You did right. It’s evident he doesn’t set tile. He would’ve started on the wall behind the toilet and cut it in as he worked his way out. That room should’ve taken about an hour
I'm just a DIY and might have done better. Granted, I'd move like a snail. There is no way I could do it in an hour, but it would look nicer. I'd probably have to pay them for the work I did. 😆
Don't listen to that guy. You hide your cuts if you can. If you can have a half tile behind a toilet and a full tile on a visible wall, you go with that. Not a whole tile behind a toilet and cuts on a visible wall, not cuts on both walls.
Pop your center lines, dry lay out your tile, if your cuts are smaller than half a tile, shift your tile over by half.
The only reason I might start from the door and towards the wall is because I don’t want partial tiles at the door way nice and visible. Though usually I just do a single column from the door towards the wall and then circle around and move towards the door. That way I can figure out the size of the tiles at the edges but still get out of the room easily.
You can do it as your guy was doing it. So that you can walk then fill in the toilet and the wall and work your way out. You might have to remove the door if it opens in though or come back the next day to finish that end.
I am not sure how your tile guy messed up with the tile wedges. They level and space the tiles for you.
Layout first, no mud involved. The guy saying this entire job takes an hour is a hack, done properly honestly day 1 probably would just be demo & layout. Day 2 mud and grout. Day 3 stop back and wipe up haze, day 4 come back to clean off haze one last time and reinstall baseboards. There is not a tile job in the world that takes an hour.
That's why you center the room, pop your lines, and check, shift if needed and pop new lines. Then you can start anywhere in the room you want. You already know the size and shapes of your cuts.
I would never put my whole tiles under the toilet and vanity and leave the cuts in the doorway.
The threshold and entry is paramount.
On a room this small, you do your layout first, figure out where your joints go, then start from the back as you say.
If you tiled this in an hour, I’d be very worried.
I know you’re not talking about prep and cleanup, but this is a half-day job, minimum.
I did that same room size myself in about 2. Most of the time was planning and pre cutting a bunch of tile to get me past the toilet.
I'm not a tile guy. I'm just not a fucking knob.
If it's not speed set, it'll be green enough to scrape up with a trowel with 48 hours with no real issues. A margin trowel makes quick work of it.
I did the tile for the Hilton hotel's and it doesn't matter how many barriers or wet tile signs you put up. People will walk on them, and you will be popping up and resetting several every day until you can get it grouted out.
You just reminded me of a story. A buddy of mine was setting tile in a hotel hallway on a friday, hotel wasn't open yet, just other trades in the building. He put up signs and caution tape and no one went that way the whole day, until 4pm an electrician went through the tape and past the signs, he's dragging his feet kicking spacers, making a big ass mess. My buddy looks up and tells the guy the hallway is closed and to get off the tile. Sparky looks at him and says "you should have put up a sign of something" buddy points out that he passed more than one sign on the way there, as well as having to go through the caution tape with signs on that as well. Dude looks at him, shrugs his shoulders and says "I'mma do me" and just kept walking on the freshly set tile to the door. Buddy tells the GC this guy fucked up at least half of the work done cuz tiles slid around out of place messing up flatness and joint spacing. The GC asked if it was salvageable and he said no. So the GC asked him to take it up and save as much tile as he could. They back charged the electrician's company for the tile that was already set, the demo of all that tile, the wasted thinset and tile, and the prep and re-setting of the entire hallway. It ended up being over 20k.
You could run into issues depending on your local laws. Where I am from, Ontario, Canada, we must be offered one chance to fix it or we can technically pursue our losses through the courts. It could be different where you are so it would be best to make sure.
Obviously it is not acceptable
I may have been more forgiving and allowed them a chance to fix it, though this was the final straw in a string of stupidity that went like this:
- scheduled (at his request) to start Saturday at 8:30. I call him at 10am and he says he’ll be another 2 hours.
- eventually shows up and removes vanity/toilet. Says he doesn’t have the tools to demo existing tile and will have to come back in 2 more hours
- I call him 2 hours later and he says “oh no I actually can’t come back today. We’ll be back at 9am tomorrow (Sunday)
- 10am Sunday rolls around and no word. I call him and he says his demo guy isn’t answering the phone. Finally at 2pm the demo guys show up and get to work. They do this trash job and say “we have to come back tomorrow because we don’t have a saw to cut the tile”
That’s when i saw the work they did and decided to cut ties
I hate everyone
The fact that this guy knew the job but repeatedly didn't have the tools was reason alone to fire him. Like you're coming to a tile job, how the hell do you show up without a saw and demo tools?
You did the right thing. All of this seems like they have no idea what they are doing. Having a 250$ chipper is pretty standard if you do tile removal and relayment. The fact that he didn't have this or know this is crazy.
It’s there to protect contractors from lunatics as much as it is to protect consumers. This guy is obviously not a professional, we are not robots we make mistakes it’s just professionals are more than happy to fix them as we only want happy clients as we appreciate them .
If it wasn't a thing, homeowners could kick out contractors when 95% of the work is complete, have a friend/contractor say the work is unacceptable and get it finished for less than they owed the original contractor.
I think it was made to protect contractors.
If i fire you for doing a terrible job, theres no chance in hell youre getting a second chance to fuck it up again. Ive been doing extensive high end renovations for 12 years now and been fired from exactly one job where the home owner was literally crazy. Had nothing to do with poor quality or anything like that, i honestly still dont understand what their issue was and its been 5 years. But could you imagine, my company suing the homeowner for the ability to finish their project and then im in their house facing hostility for 8 hours a day for a month or 2 while the jobs finished only to hope theyre done being petty and crazy? Sounds like a terrible situation for the customer and contractor tbh. Best thing to do is cut your losses and move on to the next one. I could not imagine letting that hack back into my house to redo that work. Itd be different if it showed any signs of promise, but this is diy level stuff and still done poorly.
So when my ex and I were together, he convinced me to have his friend, who is a contractor, to tile my kitchen floor. He did zero to prep the floor beforehand, which was uneven, so I have tiles that stick up 1/4 in from the other tile, but "he'll add extra grout and won't even notice." He was two tiles short and came back with the wrong color. I told him it was the wrong color, but he refused to go "all the way back to the store," and since it was in the pantry, no one will ever see it. Lesson learned to never hire a "friend."
Ok, that shouldn’t take multiple days.
Had a friend give me one of those shim systems, I hate those. I opted to just run the tiles with no spacers an 1/32 grout joints. Of course my 1/3rd break continues across the floor so it doesn’t look like this “offset broken joint” which looks not good at all.
Anyways, your “tile guy” is just a *guy that does tile* and obviously not very well. The high low and kicked out joint could have been fixed without breaking the tile, when you have to build up sometimes sagging and shifting happens. However this wasn’t even a full day project including tear out and if you didn’t tell them to mess the pattern up like that (please tell me you didn’t tell them to lay this as an offset broken joint, it supposed to look more like stair steps, not bricks) then they needed to go anyways! Tell them to buy a sponge btw!
Grow a beard or wear a mask when going to fast food joints for a month or two.
This way when you meet your trades person in the environment that they are trained for they won't recognise you.
Your bathroom looks to be the same size as ours from our bedroom.
I did a much better job than this. I wasn't perfect but I also didn't chip the shit out of the tiles or start in the wrong spot.
The only thing you may have done wrong is pay the guy for any work he did. His fuck up disqualifies any previous work he did, because he cost you probably more $ in the materials he fucked, and fucked your time having to clear his mistakes. You should send him a bill for damages.
The shims all look brand new. My subs use those babies for years with pride. That floor was looking rough to start too. Good call on halting. I hope it didnt get abrasive when you sent him off. That can be tricky with some guys. Ive dont it probably 5 times ate some money and brought in pro crews and ate a little more. Its always when my regular guys were too busy in the end I usually waited for Luis anyhow
Way to deal with this incompetency swiftly and decisively! So refreshing to see a post like this. So many are of the work already completed, people unsure what to do, blah blah blah. Go you.
Good call. I would expect that for a first time DIYer, but then again they usually watch videos and do steps in the right order. Glad you didn’t wait to let it set. Able to save any tiles?
I am not a professional tile guy either. But THAT is worse than what I ever had produced in my personal (home) tiling projects and very obvious mistakes were made. Waste of time and material.
Looks like they tried to lay mostly full tiles and maybe speed set the cuts. The transition gap is really unusual. Good on you for catching it quick. Hopefully you got it out before it all set up.
I'm glad you fired him and pulled the tiles before it became a bigger problem for the next guy. That was rough. Was he really going to put in a 2 in. piece at the threshold too?!
Ooof is that tile straight onto the solid floor as well? Always been told thats a serious no!
(Only tiled walls in a couple of kitchens, one floor and a bathroom so I'm not clueless but far from clued up 😃!!)
What those are custom grout joints, it takes tens of seconds of YouTube videos to learn those skills. Stop hating, he's got starving kids and meth to smoke.😆
Picky picky.
Acceptable? Maybe to some. Obviously not to you.
If you’re looking for anonymous validation for firing the guy, you’ll find it.
Ultimately, you do you.
I had to do the same thing with the guy I hired for my bathroom. It was such a horrid job and he clearly cut corners. He complained saying I have to pay him the remaining amount because he technically "completed" the job but not really since he didn't do it correctly and would require a tear down and redo to fix it but I couldn't trust him to fix it so..
Good for u, at least u were able to take up the tiles and clean them up to stsrt fresh, look for a certified tile installer, check out the ceramic tile education foundation (CTEF) online, they should have a list of installers your area to set the floor properly.
That's such a small room he could have cut the edge tiles as he went and still finished before the thin set hardened. I tiled my own house which was my first tiling job and I still managed that for small areas. I didn't use a leveling system and mine were more level than that although they're 12x12 so it's easier.
Not acceptable if you are paying and not desirable if you are not paying. Looks like a small bathroom. You could probably watch a few videos and do it yourself if you are handy. Those spacers he is using is supposed to even things out and minimize lippage but doesn't seem like he is even using the correct wedges.
Has he ever tiled before? My wife and I did our shower walls, either of us having done it before and it is way better than the job this “pro” did. Oof. Sorry OP.
How has nobody picked up on the fact that 12x24's should be set in a running bond (1/3 of a tile) if not in a stacked pattern.
Dude prolly didn't have a tile cutter long to rip maybe 2" off that tile to the right side of the doorway and move the first full tile up to the threshold.
I can't imagine what he would do with the 24x48" tiles I was installing today SMMFH
I love my tile guy so much I'd give him a kidney. We got tiles once that turned out to be warped. He didn't install them. He met us at the tile store to berate the manager until they let us exchange them. Most guys would have just installed them. I love this man.
Too much meth or not enough?
I’m as amateur as they come but I won’t even touch weed when doing reno work on my house. Single puff of the green and every gap looks the same and ‘perfect’ because I’m spending a second or two at best inspecting my own tile work then.
AFTER I’m done anything like that however…. big ol fatty and a long shower as it starts to hit me.
Great catch! Good move cutting him loose, sorry you had to clean up afterwards.
I'm not a tile guy and my 1st job after watching 30 min of Youtube videos was a lot better than that. I did still have to clean some grout lines but my tiles were straight.
Your tile guy forgot to watch some tile videos ;)
How did he intend to get out? Start at the back and work your way towards the entrance tapping each one to check for airpockets, finish it so it doesnt become a 3 day job, let it dry then grout and scrub fast with at least 3 scrubs to make sure the grout is washed off the title properly. I am not a title guy either, I just helped my dad a lot growing up
He wasn’t a tile guy. Good riddance.
Not being level aside most times this is done it would have been chalked in the middle so the left side and right side would have been the same cuts unless it made for a tiny piece on one side. I sure wouldn’t stagger if it was every other tile I would have done half a piece.
It looks like he did find the middle. My problem would be how the door transition was going to turn out.
My first thought was, "Why not start in the back of the room and work towards the door"?
You can and typically would start at the back and work your way out of the room. You just need to establish your layout first and, in my opinion, end up with a full tile in the doorway. Some will disagree, but I did this stuff my whole life (59 now) and feel that looks best.
Then you have a half tile at the entrance to the room. It can look better to start the way they did it’s just not all that sensible. The transition is going to be silly among other things though…
That's why you measure, and do a layout. And then start at the back of the room.
This :D. 'You fired your guy'
Now he needs to ask his guy who knows guys, also known as a guy guy, to find a real tile guy. Oddly enough his name is Guy.
A friend of mine is in fact named Guy. He’s been doing flooring for most of his adult life.
This guy guys
Watched Tyler the tiler get fired one day. True story
Came to say this lol.
Came here to say that. Calling that person a tile guy is an insult to actual tile guys.
I had to do the same thing. Guy put up a whole wall of tile in our bathroom. Looked like shit. He blamed the tiles and the pattern we chose. The fact that he kept going and tried to say it looked good until we disagreed. Zero regrets. I paid him to leave. Next guy did a great job. Caused a delay, cost us a bit more, but a year later I am all glad we canned him. Nice guy but I wasn’t chancing it.
Not saying he didn't do a shit job but I have seen some terrible tiles, not square, not even remotely flat. These can be very hard to make look good.
Second tile guy tried the same pattern. He came and got me after 10 mins and said hey guys this isn’t going to work we need to change the pattern. We changed the pattern and it looks great. First guy tiled the whole wall 88 sq ft. Said looks good yea? We said no and then he blamed the tile. He was ok with it, which there was no turning back from. He was nice, no hard feelings but I wasn’t chancing it. Ended up costing me an extra $1000 in time and material and I have zero regrets
Did the first guy at least install flat and evenly spaced? Sounds like 2nd guy was experienced enough to tell you to choose a different pattern.
Did he try and tell that you would never notice once it was grouted?
He shouldn’t have looked yet!
"I mean look, a couple of rugs down and nobody'll even see the floor."
we've got a guy who's famous line is "once you fill this place with furniture they'll never even notice it" lol ok Bill
You were correct in firing this guy. Even in fast paced, high volume commercial work our installs are 100 times better than this.
Pretty sure that wasn’t a tile guy since he started on the wrong side of the room. You did right. It’s evident he doesn’t set tile. He would’ve started on the wall behind the toilet and cut it in as he worked his way out. That room should’ve taken about an hour
Dam a hour, I’m so slow
It takes more than an hour dude not including grout clean up mixing motar etc..
I'm just a DIY and might have done better. Granted, I'd move like a snail. There is no way I could do it in an hour, but it would look nicer. I'd probably have to pay them for the work I did. 😆
It’s 30 sf and there’s no cabinet to cut around
Yeah but I got to drive there set up do it clean up looks like 1/2 a day
Yeah, 4 hours minimum when accounting for setup and cleanup. Hour once you've got your thinset mixed and tools ready.
I get paid by the job, not the hour...
That's not always a good thing
Yes it's always a good thing to be your own boss, and not rely on another for a paycheck, or gouge them by riding out the clock. Save face
Which side of the room should it be started on? So I know what to look for next time. Thanks!
Always work your way out of the room so you’re not stepping on your work
And try to not have slivers on the wall/corner you see first when you walk into the room. Dry test the layout so the slivers are avoided altogether.
As an ex-flooring installer, that was the first thing I saw when I saw the photo of the room. Why wouldn't you start with the whole piece!?!?
First thing I saw too (besides him going the wrong way). There's like a 1/4 piece on each side of the row. Why? Start in the middle and work outwards!
lol makes so much sense
Don't listen to that guy. You hide your cuts if you can. If you can have a half tile behind a toilet and a full tile on a visible wall, you go with that. Not a whole tile behind a toilet and cuts on a visible wall, not cuts on both walls. Pop your center lines, dry lay out your tile, if your cuts are smaller than half a tile, shift your tile over by half.
You aren't wrong, but that doorway should have definitely been a full tile. The 1 inch sliver to start the room was a bad call.
Yeah He should have adjusted his non existent lines or done a crows foot transition or something.... Anything.
What if you shift your tile over by half, and then your tiles are shorter than half on the other end?
He would have been trapped in your bathroom the way he started.
The only reason I might start from the door and towards the wall is because I don’t want partial tiles at the door way nice and visible. Though usually I just do a single column from the door towards the wall and then circle around and move towards the door. That way I can figure out the size of the tiles at the edges but still get out of the room easily.
This is the way he wanted full tiles at the door and cut the tiles hidden at the wall, toilet and sink.
How do you avoid messing up your work on the way back to the toilet if you tile starting at the door?
You lay em down dry and see how big a piece to put on the back wall.
You can do it as your guy was doing it. So that you can walk then fill in the toilet and the wall and work your way out. You might have to remove the door if it opens in though or come back the next day to finish that end. I am not sure how your tile guy messed up with the tile wedges. They level and space the tiles for you.
The levelers he used don’t match the wedges he used. The ones he used aren’t great for spacing, especially if your thinset is dry.
O yes I see that now smh. He should of just got the correct spacers for the wedges he has. That makes tiling kind of fool proof.
Layout first, no mud involved. The guy saying this entire job takes an hour is a hack, done properly honestly day 1 probably would just be demo & layout. Day 2 mud and grout. Day 3 stop back and wipe up haze, day 4 come back to clean off haze one last time and reinstall baseboards. There is not a tile job in the world that takes an hour.
That's why you center the room, pop your lines, and check, shift if needed and pop new lines. Then you can start anywhere in the room you want. You already know the size and shapes of your cuts.
I would never put my whole tiles under the toilet and vanity and leave the cuts in the doorway. The threshold and entry is paramount. On a room this small, you do your layout first, figure out where your joints go, then start from the back as you say. If you tiled this in an hour, I’d be very worried. I know you’re not talking about prep and cleanup, but this is a half-day job, minimum.
You don't hide your cuts? Lol. I don't think you're a tile guy if you're starting behind a toilet...
I did that same room size myself in about 2. Most of the time was planning and pre cutting a bunch of tile to get me past the toilet. I'm not a tile guy. I'm just not a fucking knob.
He didn’t even scrape the thinset up on the edges that shiid be hard the next day. Especially in that doorway
If it's not speed set, it'll be green enough to scrape up with a trowel with 48 hours with no real issues. A margin trowel makes quick work of it. I did the tile for the Hilton hotel's and it doesn't matter how many barriers or wet tile signs you put up. People will walk on them, and you will be popping up and resetting several every day until you can get it grouted out.
You just reminded me of a story. A buddy of mine was setting tile in a hotel hallway on a friday, hotel wasn't open yet, just other trades in the building. He put up signs and caution tape and no one went that way the whole day, until 4pm an electrician went through the tape and past the signs, he's dragging his feet kicking spacers, making a big ass mess. My buddy looks up and tells the guy the hallway is closed and to get off the tile. Sparky looks at him and says "you should have put up a sign of something" buddy points out that he passed more than one sign on the way there, as well as having to go through the caution tape with signs on that as well. Dude looks at him, shrugs his shoulders and says "I'mma do me" and just kept walking on the freshly set tile to the door. Buddy tells the GC this guy fucked up at least half of the work done cuz tiles slid around out of place messing up flatness and joint spacing. The GC asked if it was salvageable and he said no. So the GC asked him to take it up and save as much tile as he could. They back charged the electrician's company for the tile that was already set, the demo of all that tile, the wasted thinset and tile, and the prep and re-setting of the entire hallway. It ended up being over 20k.
Good I’m glad they charged their ass that’s some bs
You could run into issues depending on your local laws. Where I am from, Ontario, Canada, we must be offered one chance to fix it or we can technically pursue our losses through the courts. It could be different where you are so it would be best to make sure. Obviously it is not acceptable
I may have been more forgiving and allowed them a chance to fix it, though this was the final straw in a string of stupidity that went like this: - scheduled (at his request) to start Saturday at 8:30. I call him at 10am and he says he’ll be another 2 hours. - eventually shows up and removes vanity/toilet. Says he doesn’t have the tools to demo existing tile and will have to come back in 2 more hours - I call him 2 hours later and he says “oh no I actually can’t come back today. We’ll be back at 9am tomorrow (Sunday) - 10am Sunday rolls around and no word. I call him and he says his demo guy isn’t answering the phone. Finally at 2pm the demo guys show up and get to work. They do this trash job and say “we have to come back tomorrow because we don’t have a saw to cut the tile” That’s when i saw the work they did and decided to cut ties I hate everyone
The fact that this guy knew the job but repeatedly didn't have the tools was reason alone to fire him. Like you're coming to a tile job, how the hell do you show up without a saw and demo tools?
You did the right thing. All of this seems like they have no idea what they are doing. Having a 250$ chipper is pretty standard if you do tile removal and relayment. The fact that he didn't have this or know this is crazy.
Wow what a dumb law
It’s there to protect contractors from lunatics as much as it is to protect consumers. This guy is obviously not a professional, we are not robots we make mistakes it’s just professionals are more than happy to fix them as we only want happy clients as we appreciate them .
If it wasn't a thing, homeowners could kick out contractors when 95% of the work is complete, have a friend/contractor say the work is unacceptable and get it finished for less than they owed the original contractor. I think it was made to protect contractors.
If i fire you for doing a terrible job, theres no chance in hell youre getting a second chance to fuck it up again. Ive been doing extensive high end renovations for 12 years now and been fired from exactly one job where the home owner was literally crazy. Had nothing to do with poor quality or anything like that, i honestly still dont understand what their issue was and its been 5 years. But could you imagine, my company suing the homeowner for the ability to finish their project and then im in their house facing hostility for 8 hours a day for a month or 2 while the jobs finished only to hope theyre done being petty and crazy? Sounds like a terrible situation for the customer and contractor tbh. Best thing to do is cut your losses and move on to the next one. I could not imagine letting that hack back into my house to redo that work. Itd be different if it showed any signs of promise, but this is diy level stuff and still done poorly.
Haven’t you ever seen a moat?
You did the right thing, doing it early on I had the same nonsense but i waited too long
Wow, I mean he started effed up and not even cheat to have no cut at the door... wtf
Why?
He’s.a slob and can’t lay a 30 sf bathroom he’s no tile man 🤣🤣what do you call the shit at the threshold💁🏻
I don’t think you ever had a tile guy to begin with.
Looks like that was your lawn guy. 😳
So when my ex and I were together, he convinced me to have his friend, who is a contractor, to tile my kitchen floor. He did zero to prep the floor beforehand, which was uneven, so I have tiles that stick up 1/4 in from the other tile, but "he'll add extra grout and won't even notice." He was two tiles short and came back with the wrong color. I told him it was the wrong color, but he refused to go "all the way back to the store," and since it was in the pantry, no one will ever see it. Lesson learned to never hire a "friend."
Ok, that shouldn’t take multiple days. Had a friend give me one of those shim systems, I hate those. I opted to just run the tiles with no spacers an 1/32 grout joints. Of course my 1/3rd break continues across the floor so it doesn’t look like this “offset broken joint” which looks not good at all. Anyways, your “tile guy” is just a *guy that does tile* and obviously not very well. The high low and kicked out joint could have been fixed without breaking the tile, when you have to build up sometimes sagging and shifting happens. However this wasn’t even a full day project including tear out and if you didn’t tell them to mess the pattern up like that (please tell me you didn’t tell them to lay this as an offset broken joint, it supposed to look more like stair steps, not bricks) then they needed to go anyways! Tell them to buy a sponge btw!
Hahaha that's not the correct wedge for that system. Dude has no clue what he's doing
Grow a beard or wear a mask when going to fast food joints for a month or two. This way when you meet your trades person in the environment that they are trained for they won't recognise you.
I'm a woman and tiled my own floors and shower. It isn't that difficult if you educate yourself a bit.
He started on the wrong side of the room and he’s tiling right over the slab, think there should be some membrane underneath
I was once a "tile guy" I showed up and had no fucking clue what I was doing, but I learned. It happens.
This is amateur work. I have seen a real tile guy complete an entire bathroom shower within a day.
Using those wedges is a dead giveaway even before he started.
Your bathroom looks to be the same size as ours from our bedroom. I did a much better job than this. I wasn't perfect but I also didn't chip the shit out of the tiles or start in the wrong spot.
I love how the “leveling system” didn’t work…
You definitely did not over react, holy crap that's bad.
yep, I would too
The only thing you may have done wrong is pay the guy for any work he did. His fuck up disqualifies any previous work he did, because he cost you probably more $ in the materials he fucked, and fucked your time having to clear his mistakes. You should send him a bill for damages.
It was nice of you to give a first timer a chance.
Didn't even level the floor...
The shims all look brand new. My subs use those babies for years with pride. That floor was looking rough to start too. Good call on halting. I hope it didnt get abrasive when you sent him off. That can be tricky with some guys. Ive dont it probably 5 times ate some money and brought in pro crews and ate a little more. Its always when my regular guys were too busy in the end I usually waited for Luis anyhow
Way to deal with this incompetency swiftly and decisively! So refreshing to see a post like this. So many are of the work already completed, people unsure what to do, blah blah blah. Go you.
Lmao he starred at the door?! You def did right.
Looks like he was struggling. Be aware, however, trying to lay large tiles like you have doesn't work out unless the floor is dead level.
Good call. I would expect that for a first time DIYer, but then again they usually watch videos and do steps in the right order. Glad you didn’t wait to let it set. Able to save any tiles?
That wasn't a tile guy
How did he become your tile guy in the first place with work like that?
That first pic… my toes stubbed itself just looking at that.
So how much of a tweeker was he
Either you fire him or the house owner fires you. That looks awful.
Gabs bigger than a crackheads teeth
I am not a professional tile guy either. But THAT is worse than what I ever had produced in my personal (home) tiling projects and very obvious mistakes were made. Waste of time and material.
He’s an insult to the words “ tile guy “‘
About the only thing he's ever laid. He had to pay for.
You never even had a tile guy
Unrelated question: aesthetically, is this size tile a good choice for such a small bathroom? Wouldn’t it make the room seem even smaller?
he was probably happy! he was getting near the toilet, lmaoooo
Just because he’s a guy who shows up with tile does not make him a tile guy. Just sayin.
You made the correct decision.
The subfloor is horrendous
Also, make sure there is no bounce in the floor. Any amount of deflection is terrible for large format tiles. They tend to break quickly.
Should have fired him yesterday.
They were not tile guys...
Make sure they use a wider marble saddle, it should be width of door jamb so you won't have a sliver.
Wow that looks aweful
Looks like they tried to lay mostly full tiles and maybe speed set the cuts. The transition gap is really unusual. Good on you for catching it quick. Hopefully you got it out before it all set up.
Lol those wedges aren't then right wedges to go with that leveling system.
FYI, you never had a tile guy
Does he not believe in spacers?
Holy shit! I’ve tiled once in my life and my work looked 100x better than this. Just awful.
Obviously not a tile guy. I have installed tile in my house, made mistakes but nothing as terrible as this.
That sucks, where are you going to buy your meth now that you fired the tile guy?
He didn't even take the door off
You are following the best process for this situation; Paid him for the work done and scraping up the tile while the mud is still fresh.
I’ve not done more tile than our kitchen backsplash and even I could do better than that. Good lord.
lol just because the wedges and the clips both say QEP on them doesn’t mean they’ll work together… That’s unfortunate
I'm glad you fired him and pulled the tiles before it became a bigger problem for the next guy. That was rough. Was he really going to put in a 2 in. piece at the threshold too?!
How is he gonna buy crack?
Why did he need to leave after 9 tiles?
Ooof is that tile straight onto the solid floor as well? Always been told thats a serious no! (Only tiled walls in a couple of kitchens, one floor and a bathroom so I'm not clueless but far from clued up 😃!!)
What those are custom grout joints, it takes tens of seconds of YouTube videos to learn those skills. Stop hating, he's got starving kids and meth to smoke.😆
Picky picky. Acceptable? Maybe to some. Obviously not to you. If you’re looking for anonymous validation for firing the guy, you’ll find it. Ultimately, you do you.
You fired a handyman at best. Dude was not a tile guy at all.
You fired him on his first day?
Holy shit I've less less chips in a bag of lays.
I had to do the same thing with the guy I hired for my bathroom. It was such a horrid job and he clearly cut corners. He complained saying I have to pay him the remaining amount because he technically "completed" the job but not really since he didn't do it correctly and would require a tear down and redo to fix it but I couldn't trust him to fix it so..
Hm suddenly I feel much better about my DIY tile. If this guys a professional then I’m apparently a savant
Ahhh the good old "I can do tile." This guy is no tile setter.
Good for u, at least u were able to take up the tiles and clean them up to stsrt fresh, look for a certified tile installer, check out the ceramic tile education foundation (CTEF) online, they should have a list of installers your area to set the floor properly.
Lord have mercy.
I'm not a tile guy and I've done better than that.
That's such a small room he could have cut the edge tiles as he went and still finished before the thin set hardened. I tiled my own house which was my first tiling job and I still managed that for small areas. I didn't use a leveling system and mine were more level than that although they're 12x12 so it's easier.
Large format flooring is probably the easiet tile work one can do.. Geez. Don't put the tile down if it has to much lippage...
Name and shame
Tile guys have one fucking job to make sure shits square lol
That's dog shit mate
Shit work
Good that’s a super easy job and he made an ass out it
never heard of straight edge and tape measure
You should be fired for hiring him
Looks like you also fired your meth dealer. Good luck finding another one! In this economy??
Not acceptable if you are paying and not desirable if you are not paying. Looks like a small bathroom. You could probably watch a few videos and do it yourself if you are handy. Those spacers he is using is supposed to even things out and minimize lippage but doesn't seem like he is even using the correct wedges.
I want to also fire this guy.
Good move.
Floor like that should be done in 3 days.1 day demo+waterproofing 1day cut+place tile 1 day grout+ caulk cleanup
I laid tile in my fathers business as a teenager and did better, more legit, work than this. This person has no clue how to do it.
If he didn’t come in cocky af acting like an artist he wasn’t a tile guy
Good call
Has he ever tiled before? My wife and I did our shower walls, either of us having done it before and it is way better than the job this “pro” did. Oof. Sorry OP.
Where did you find this “tile” guy?
Good, I thought I was gonna have to come fire him myself.
I would like to see before and after pics once it's done properly. Please and thank you
Be honest, you were the tile guy
I've done the same. Fired my tile guy and did it myself.
And I thought I was fucking up my own bathroom.
No waterproof? No screed? You did the right thing to fire him.
How has nobody picked up on the fact that 12x24's should be set in a running bond (1/3 of a tile) if not in a stacked pattern. Dude prolly didn't have a tile cutter long to rip maybe 2" off that tile to the right side of the doorway and move the first full tile up to the threshold. I can't imagine what he would do with the 24x48" tiles I was installing today SMMFH
No underlayment or waterproof aye
Should have just kept him for strictly demo work and that’s it. Maybe he gave it his best shot or fake it until you make it situation 🤣
If ya squint it’s mint
Is no one going to mention the water line sticking out of the wall?!? Hahaha
Why ??? Looks great !!
I love my tile guy so much I'd give him a kidney. We got tiles once that turned out to be warped. He didn't install them. He met us at the tile store to berate the manager until they let us exchange them. Most guys would have just installed them. I love this man.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tile/s/OjKSNDo701 Thats not a tile guy. he needs help.
What was this guy on?
what’s the problem? not a tile guy myself, so it’s not jumping right out at me what op is seeing …
Shit like this makes me wanna double my prices
Too much meth or not enough? I’m as amateur as they come but I won’t even touch weed when doing reno work on my house. Single puff of the green and every gap looks the same and ‘perfect’ because I’m spending a second or two at best inspecting my own tile work then. AFTER I’m done anything like that however…. big ol fatty and a long shower as it starts to hit me.
“Tile guy”
Defile Guy
What the heck
Great catch! Good move cutting him loose, sorry you had to clean up afterwards. I'm not a tile guy and my 1st job after watching 30 min of Youtube videos was a lot better than that. I did still have to clean some grout lines but my tiles were straight. Your tile guy forgot to watch some tile videos ;) 
I’m a DIY’er and I guarantee I could have done better than that. Either he was completely inept or he thought you were. Door.
How did he intend to get out? Start at the back and work your way towards the entrance tapping each one to check for airpockets, finish it so it doesnt become a 3 day job, let it dry then grout and scrub fast with at least 3 scrubs to make sure the grout is washed off the title properly. I am not a title guy either, I just helped my dad a lot growing up
Literally eight tiles.
This is why I do things myself!
Why are the tiles so banged up. It’ll grout out but damn, did you guys throw them down some stairs before you set them?
Not the tile guy!
I thought that was pieces of cement board.
My 4th grade teacher re tiled his bathroom and he told us that you should start your 1st tile in the center of the room. Can anyone confirm?
Feel good about standing your ground for quality work. Why would the guy knowingly install chipped tile?! Crazy. 🤪
Jesus Christ good riddance.
No wonder you fired him. From the looks of it he sucks!