Inspecting Your Tile – Some pointers that you may not have considered

 

(Make sure to read Essential Tile Tips first)

When ordering tile, we advise that you order a control sample to keep and match with the actual tile you will later receive. If your tile looks significantly different than what you ordered, don’t worry yet! Take a deep breath! Often tile has a vast range of color and shade variation. Try to view several tiles from different cartons before assuming the whole “dye lot” is wrong. Most importantly, open your mind to the lot you get. One of the most desirable qualities of natural stone and hand-glazed or hand-crafted tile is its shade and texture variation. If, after sorting through it, the tile genuinely looks like the wrong color, it may well be. Have the salesperson at your tile vendor check the material, so if there’s an ordering error, they can correct it as soon as possible.

These situations are rare, but not too rare. If an ordering error has bumped your installation date back, let us know immediately. This will allow us to prioritize you on our schedule and it will give us notice so we can temporarily fill your spot. We are accustomed to dealing with scheduling surprises in the Construction Industry.

 

We pick up from most local vendors, and charge a fee of $200 – $300 per truck load per vendor, depending on circumstances and vendor.  If you need your tile stored by us or your vendor for more than 30 days, please advise us as this will entail a storage fee. Our delivery fee is based on anticipated time for wait, loading, checking inventory, and on current fuel prices. We offer delivery as a courtesy, but encourage our clients to check with their vendor to see who provides the best delivery option for them. Please remember, an average car can hold up to about 150 SF of tile in the trunk. If your order is less than this, you may consider picking it up yourself.

Don’t confuse “freight” with “delivery.” If you see a “freight” fee on your invoice from your local tile vendor, this means you purchased something they do not stock. “Freight” refers to the transport (usually by truck) from the vendor’s supplier to the vendor’s warehouse or showroom. Most vendors will not drop ship the tile directly from their supplier to your home. The reason for this is that the vendor must inspect each order before you (or we) can pick it up. For online companies who sell tile, they will drop ship directly to you, and you must check for breakage as it is extremely common because online vendors use common carriers who are not trained in how to pack, ship, and handle tile.

Occasionally, even your local tile vendor may overlook a broken or wrong tile order. Furthermore, nobody is familiar with each and every piece of inventory in the warehouse. This is why it is so important that you inspect your order before it’s installed. Only you will recognize and know what you ordered and anticipated. The warehouse personnel will not. Try to have your control sample available to match up to your tile order when it’s in. The warehouse will only check that the order matches the packaging on the box (most of the time). If you feel your order is wrong or the “dye lot” does not match what you had ordered, let the vendor’s order department know immediately. If you didn’t order a control sample, ask to compare a piece of tile from your order with a sample tile or sample board you were shown when you ordered.

Remember to keep your mind open if the tile does not match your control sample. It is more important that your tile order matches well with the area where it’s going to be installed, than it match exactly to the control sample. Most importantly, make sure you are happy with your order BEFORE it gets installed.