There seems to be a massive shortage of tilers generally in the UK (along with every other trade for that matter) and in the Fort William area, everyone I asked gave me one name. I first made contact on 2nd December, and despite having good conversations unfortunately he was just too busy to get our job booked in. Towards the end of January my neighbours were having some bathrooms done and so I asked the bathroom company doing the work for advice. They gave me a name of another guy they used. Made contact, all seemed straightforward and got it booked in for end of February.
I had of course thought about doing the tiling myself, but they are large fairly heavy porcelain floor tiles – 600x900mm – and go across from utility room, first part of the entrance and into bathroom. And having never done any tiling at all, I’ve read enough online to make me think that this wouldn’t be the ideal job to start my tiling career with.
The tiling is now critical to be able to move forward. Once the tiling is in, we can do all the 2nd fix plumbing and connect the electricity up.
So the first tiling date arrived. I got up to Ardnamurchan 24 hours ahead of time to do the prep work of putting down the insulating boards that were needed for the electric underfloor heating that is going in the two bathrooms. Whilst putting the insulating boards down was simple enough, I had hugely underestimated the amount of adhesive I’d need – I had just assumed that the massive bag I’d happened to find in our garage would do the job, but it does always help to actually look at the m2 coverage (especially when you’re a 1.5 hour drive from the nearest DIY store!). Turns out I needed about 5x as much as I had. I was sure the tiler would have some though, and I could finish the job when he arrived.
Sunday night message came through from tiler that really unfortunately he was in Inverness hospital with his mother-in-law who had apparently had a stroke. Whilst very unfortunate for me, having done my 500-mile trip up, obviously very sad for them and not something you can predict or do anything about. He seemed very apologetic and we booked in for a couple of weeks further on when I could next come up.
So it was booked in for 18th March – starting on Saturday and he would stay until the job was completed. I booked in the electrician for the Thursday before to make best use of the time. By the time I headed up on the Wednesday, tiler had said he would now be there on Monday. Monday morning came and after chasing I got a text saying job had overrun the day before, so he’d be there tomorrow… And you can guess the rest. No response at all until Friday morning that week. By text at least he sounded extremely apologetic, but because of his mother-in-law being ill, he’d got massively behind, (apparently) hadn’t realised that I had a 1000-mile round trip and yes could definitely do the work during April.
Next date booked in. By this time, all the inside jobs that could be done pre-tiling had been done, and with the electric underfloor heating mats laid out, plus the insulation mats in the hallway, it’s not ideal doing anything in the house until they’re properly covered over. Prior to driving up after the Easter weekend, I had needless to say checked several times that tiler was still fine for it, impressed upon him that I was coming up solely for him to do the work, and gave him plenty of opportunity to suggest if he had any issues. Never a hint, ‘100% definite’ ‘be there 7.30-8.00’.
And of course, he didn’t show up. He did text on the morning, said at 7.45am he’d be there in a couple of hours, 12.30 he was half an hour away and then nothing. Finally heard from him around 5.30pm basically telling me it was ‘too far for work’. And that was it. Fortunately this guy is pretty much the only total and utter w***** that I’ve had to deal with over the past couple of years. Some trades have been delayed, or slightly difficult to get hold of, but nothing like this. In the end, I’m just very glad not to have someone like that working on our house. However, the tiling still hasn’t been done.
While I was waiting…
During week 2 of tiler-gate, I decided to use some of the scraps of our larch cladding to make a surround for the round window in the upstairs bedroom. As the plaster build up had been quite substantial, unfortunately there’s a bit of a crack around the circular cut edge of the plaster board. So using my best biscuit jointing skills (learned doing the window surrounds), I made a multi-sided ‘frame’. The first version – whilst wasn’t too bad – I had just slightly randomly selected different pieces of wood, with no uniformity, and in the end it didn’t quite work size-wise. So version 2 was much more meticulously planned, and I learnt how to use a router for the first time. It’s not perfect, but I got so much pleasure out of the process, and once it’s painted, I think it will look pretty good around the window, with all its imperfections.
I also spent a really good day with the electrician, installing all the infrared heaters and – excitingly – learning how to install backboxes. One of those small things that gave me great pleasure! Also made the week waiting for the tiler slightly less of a waste of time.
Once we’ve checked that the infrared panels worked, we will paint them the same colour as the ceilings so they don’t stand out so much. All the lights are now also installed, the covers put on the ventilation units, and all sockets and switches complete.
During week 3 of tiler-gate, the weather was unexpectedly glorious, and so I moved outside and painted all the soffits and (lower level) fascias, which have needed to be painted for a long time. Looks so much better. And definitely something that was really worthwhile to have done (albeit with a lot of swearing under my breath – and not so much under my breath – about people who think it’s ok to behave so unbelievably badly).
