The Home Improvement Thread

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

What do people think is a reasonable rate for tiling labour for a bathroom? Just floor and an alcove tub surround, no backsplash, without materials costs? The pricing I am getting is making me very sad.

[Shazam]

It's going to be a lot. $10K at minimum in Calgary, it might be a bit cheaper there.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Seriously?? Just for labour? I could see if you were buying tile at $8-10 psf and had to do removal and clean up and everything, but just laying down tile that seems insane.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Seriously?? Just for labour? I could see if you were buying tile at $8-10 psf and had to do removal and clean up and everything, but just laying down tile that seems insane.

The tilers that were at my reno prepped the floors and walls as well, since they don't trust drywallers and framers, so that added to the time.

[TopChed]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

What do people think is a reasonable rate for tiling labour for a bathroom? Just floor and an alcove tub surround, no backsplash, without materials costs? The pricing I am getting is making me very sad.

I paid the family rate to my brother in law to do a similar amount of work, and he charged me $2,500. I topped that up a bit as well since it seemed too low.

That was for a small bathroom floor and full shower surround including a niche and fiberglass shower base. I paid for materials and did the demo and framing, and he did the cement board, waterproofing and tile setting.

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Dude, I busted my daughter for having an oil heater on in her room on Monday. I'm blasting the AC and she's blasting the heat. Like wtf.

THEN - after I thought I explained to her how ridiculous that was - she popped her window open on Tuesday with me standing right there to "let some heat in". I'm like, 'that's barely better...put on a fricken sweater'.

As I started to read this I thought, hey I wrote this post a while ago, nope. Teenagers.

I went to my kids room hours after she had left and the electrical heater was blasting at full. Grrr.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Seriously?? Just for labour? I could see if you were buying tile at $8-10 psf and had to do removal and clean up and everything, but just laying down tile that seems insane.

I should add that that cost also included tiled baseboards, which does add a lot since they have to come up with a layout that makes the baseboards not look weird. Also it included the mud room/powder room, which was even more annoying because there's a bunch of diagonal walls they had to deal with.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

What do people think is a reasonable rate for tiling labour for a bathroom? Just floor and an alcove tub surround, no backsplash, without materials costs? The pricing I am getting is making me very sad.

Depends on the details. If they're doing the waterproofing for the surround as part of that, that'll add a fair bit of expense because it generally adds another day or two work. And if you're excluding all materials from the calculation (e.g. tile, mortar, underlay, waterproofing membrane, etc.) that will be different than if you're just excluding tile costs. If consumables are built into the labour rate, then it'll be higher.

A job like that is probably going to bid on a day-rate basis. So while it's not huge in terms of hours, it's still a 4-5 day job to do the prep/underlay, tiling, and grouting. And unless the tile setter can fit in other work to fill the day, they're going to want to be paid for a full day, even if a lot of it is just waiting for things to cure.

So all that said, I'd think ~$5-6K for labour would be pretty normal assuming they're doing the surround and providing the consumables.