Sigh. How would you handle this? *Update* 5/30; post #11

[pomtzu]

DUH - a box of grout. It seems like his ego was hurting more than his back. Bet he felt stupid.

[Cataholic]

The tile came in the same sized box as a carton of grout? We must be weird in the US. Tile comes in the square boxes, and grout comes in cartons. Sounds like this guy doesn't know what he is doing, really. I put up my own backsplash. Kind of an easy job, really. Though my tile was on mesh, and not tape, it is the same application. I had a few tiles fall off, but, I had the mortar to hold them back in place until I grouted. Did you pay him to seal, too?

You might want to think twice about keeping this guy around. Who knows what else he might be off about.

[smokey the elder]

Oops. I think he was grumpy because he was mad and embarrassed at himself, not you. I hope it all gets sorted out.

[Medusa]

The tile came in the same sized box as a carton of grout? We must be weird in the US. Tile comes in the square boxes, and grout comes in cartons. Sounds like this guy doesn't know what he is doing, really. I put up my own backsplash. Kind of an easy job, really. Though my tile was on mesh, and not tape, it is the same application. I had a few tiles fall off, but, I had the mortar to hold them back in place until I grouted. Did you pay him to seal, too?

You might want to think twice about keeping this guy around. Who knows what else he might be off about.

I can understand why you would feel that way, especially after I complained on PT about him. But, to be fair, the grout was in a carton packed inside a box the same size as the tile. So he just assumed that it was tile and that I had moved the grout elsewhere. (Why he would assume that, I don't know.) Anyhow, he did a great job w/the tile installation, just beautiful, even painstakingly hand gluing on each stainless steel piece that fell off. It took him a full day, 8 straight hours. He's done other work for me in the past and his work has always been top notch, so my gripe now is w/the tile company. Clearly the product was defective and the owner of the company offered to "help" me w/any over charge incurred from the installer's over time, so we're presently working that out. The installer has a couple more jobs for me that we've already contracted for, so I told him that after that, I'm taking a break. He was his usual chatty, nice self yesterday, so I think he may be worried that I'm going to cut him loose. If he had indeed mismeasured and wouldn't have reimbursed me for the error, then, yes, I would've cut him loose. But, as I said, he measured correctly and even worked tirelessly to correct the tile company's mistake, so we're good.