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Home Repair (alt.home.repair) For all homeowners and DIYers with many experienced tradesmen. Solve your toughest home fix-it problems. |
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#1
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Question about buying tile
Hi everyone,
Since I have started renovation on my bathroom I have gotten a lot of good advice on this newsgroup. I am finally to the point where I am ready to purchase my tile. I am planning on buying Dark Emperador marble. I recently went into the local granite and marble shop and the price I was quoted was between 10.50 and 11.00 per square foot (the lady has to do more investigating).. Anyway, it never occurred to me that I could purchase marble tile on ebay but I see the dark emperador on there for 7.49 per square foot. I am a bit hesitant to buy tile online but I do believe in shopping around to find the best deal possible. Does anyone here have any experience with buying tile online (ebay or stores).. Anyway, this is the link to the ebay page (not sure if I'm allowed to post it here), but I just want to know everyone's opinions. http://cgi.ebay.com/EMPERADOR-DARK-P...QQcmdZViewItem Thanks in advance for any advice, Anthony |
#2
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Question about buying tile
wrote in message ups.com... Hi everyone, I recently went into the local granite and marble shop and the price I was quoted was between 10.50 and 11.00 per square foot (the lady has to do more investigating).. Anyway, it never occurred to me that I could purchase marble tile on ebay but I see the dark emperador on there for 7.49 per square foot. I am a bit hesitant to buy tile online but I do believe in shopping around to find the best deal possible. Does anyone here have any experience with buying tile online (ebay or stores).. Shipping charges may make it more expensive than buying local. Marble is heavy. Be sure you know what you are getting into before you commit. If the price is close, the local guy is there for you if you have problems with the product or the installation. |
#3
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Question about buying tile
Can-of-worms alert......
Marble is fragile and as mentioned, shipping would be expensive. There are many advantages to a local supplier. You need to weigh out "saving some money" with all the potential problems of buying on-line. The large variations in price tells me something is wrong with either the on-line supplier or the local supplier. I would contact the manufacturer and see who their distributor is in your area. Could be the high priced supplier is a re-seller and you're paying $3 a foot too much. Or they may be right in line with what it should be, and may be that distributor you need for that material. Also too, you're only doing a bathroom. It's not like a lot of square footage will make or break you. Marble is difficult for a homeowner to install. Do you have an installer? The local installer is a valuable source for these answers. Usually when people order and purchace tile on their own before contacting me, they end up making a mistake because they trusted "instincts", and salespeople who are not looking out for their interests. thetiler wrote: Hi everyone, Since I have started renovation on my bathroom I have gotten a lot of good advice on this newsgroup. I am finally to the point where I am ready to purchase my tile. I am planning on buying Dark Emperador marble. I recently went into the local granite and marble shop and the price I was quoted was between 10.50 and 11.00 per square foot (the lady has to do more investigating).. Anyway, it never occurred to me that I could purchase marble tile on ebay but I see the dark emperador on there for 7.49 per square foot. I am a bit hesitant to buy tile online but I do believe in shopping around to find the best deal possible. Does anyone here have any experience with buying tile online (ebay or stores).. Anyway, this is the link to the ebay page (not sure if I'm allowed to post it here), but I just want to know everyone's opinions. http://cgi.ebay.com/EMPERADOR-DARK-P...QQcmdZViewItem Thanks in advance for any advice, Anthony |
#4
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Question about buying tile
"thetiler" wrote in message oups.com... | | Usually when people order and purchace | tile on their own before contacting me, they | end up making a mistake by hiring | thetiler | | |
#5
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Question about buying tile
Hi Everyone,
Actually, I do have a professional tile man in mind to do the installation. I am sort of handy but working with marble is something I would never attempt myself. Here is one more sticky question. If I were to buy this marble tile online, would it be offensive if I went to a marble/granite shop and asked them to install it even though I didn't buy it from them. Anthony |
#6
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Question about buying tile
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#7
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Question about buying tile
wrote in message oups.com... Hi Everyone, Actually, I do have a professional tile man in mind to do the installation. I am sort of handy but working with marble is something I would never attempt myself. Here is one more sticky question. If I were to buy this marble tile online, would it be offensive if I went to a marble/granite shop and asked them to install it even though I didn't buy it from them. It certainly would be. Most would just not do it. If a problem arises with the material, they are stuck in the middle. Saving money is a good thing, but you still have to maintain dignity and character. This just shouts "cheap *******" and I'd avoid it completely. |
#8
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Question about buying tile
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#9
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Question about buying tile
kitchens etc. wrote: "thetiler" wrote in message oups.com... | | Usually when people order and purchace | tile on their own before contacting me, they | end up making a mistake by hiring | thetiler | | That was funny. You better get off the computer before mommy comes home. I see all the posts you make to alt.home.repair are real helpful. thetiler |
#11
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Question about buying tile
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#12
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Question about buying tile
Norminn wrote: We bought tile first, found the contractor afterward. We just loved the tile when we first saw it and wanted to order before supply exhaused. There are two types of customers who buy their own tile generally, those who innocently buy tile first because they liked it, thought that was the way to do it, were told to do it this way etc etc. I don't have a problem generally with these people. The problem people are those who deliberately by their own materials to purposefully cut out the markup by the contractor. In my experience, people who go cheap on materials usually want to go cheap on installation. Going cheap and hiring me usually don't mix so the relationship starts off bad right away. When we started looking for a contractor, we ended up with the first one we talked to. He mentioned that he could have ordered the same or very similar tile, but it was no big deal. You might be in better favor with a contractor you buy tile from, but that is life. If he is offended, he doesn't need to accept your business. See above. In your case, he probably saw that your motive was as you described it, you like the tile and bought it before it went away. No problem. He perceived you weren't trying to be cheap. FWIW, the only thing I know about marble is that I often see instructions not to let water stand on marble. Do you KNOW this tile is suitable for bath? Does he know that some marble can only be installed with epoxy adhesive? How about some adhesives can bleed through some marbles.........point is he should value the experience of a professional marble contractor (not the saleperson or store clerk) before he proceeds with this. Cheap marble can vary in size, vary in thickness, be damaged, have bad edging etc etc. I know a mechanic (good, honest one) who installs stuff customers bring in. They can always adjust the price on the install to make up for what they lose on the sale. This is an important issue. I'm going to start another subject heading to post my opinion, and call it: "Customers purchacing their own materials" thetiler |
#13
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Question about buying tile
Why don't you just hire "thetiler" to put in your tile?
he's obviously experienced as he posts useful information on usenet all the time...and he must be busy because he always posts at like 10pm. Plane tickets aren't that expensive...well, compared to the cost of putting in the tile. Who knows, maybe his price is cheap enough to justify buying him a plane ticket. |
#15
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Question about buying tile
clipped
When we started looking for a contractor, we ended up with the first one we talked to. He mentioned that he could have ordered the same or very similar tile, but it was no big deal. You might be in better favor with a contractor you buy tile from, but that is life. If he is offended, he doesn't need to accept your business. See above. In your case, he probably saw that your motive was as you described it, you like the tile and bought it before it went away. No problem. He perceived you weren't trying to be cheap. There were issues with our job that we settled thoroughly in advance. First, tore up the carpet to make sure there weren't cracks in the slab that might have made tile a bad choice. Did that before we ordered the tile. Some really tricky issues with tiling up to unlevel adjoining rooms, tiling around a step with bannister embedded in the face of the step. We had the baseboards undercut so the tile would go under them, not up against as some of our neighbors have done. We had considered laying the tile ourselves, as I have always liked DIY. Glad we didn't. He even helped solve how to get grout lines in the right place where there is a long "line of sight" that would have looked weird with other placement. His price was decent, but (I suspect) very good money for him. There was no discussion of his price - paid what he asked. He did a superb job. The contractor has been in biz a long time, and we could tell he was serious about his work. |
#16
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Question about buying tile
I NEVER shop for lowest price. If it is too good to be true, then it is )
We had a vacuum cleaner salesman stop by a while back. Hubby answered the door ) He did the old trick of vacuuming a spot with my old vacuum cleaner, then putting a piece of filter paper on his to show me how much dirt was left when he ran the new vacuum. Nice guy, chatty. I asked him for a spare piece of filter paper, which he gave me. I put it over the nozzle of my 30 year old Electrolux, vacuumed the same spot, and showed him how much dirt HIS vacuum left ) |
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