Tiling: the measure, and the tiles you lose

Every tiler carries a wastage percentage in their head. Most carry ten, and most inherited it from whoever trained them.

Ten suits a plain layout in a square room. It does not suit a herringbone in a house that settled forty years ago.

Three things move the wastage, and area is not one of them

• The pattern. A straight lay wastes least. A diagonal or a herringbone cuts every edge tile twice.
• The tile size. A large format tile wastes more, because one bad cut loses more square metres.
• How square the room is. An out of square room grows its cuts along every wall, and old houses are rarely square.

A small bathroom in a straight lay can run under eight per cent. The same room in a diagonal with large tiles can pass twenty.

Measure the setting out, not the floor

The area tells you how many tiles cover the room. The setting out tells you how many you cut, and the cuts decide the wastage.

Work out where your first tile lands and how the cuts fall at each wall. A cut under about a third of a tile wastes the rest of it, and a room with four of those walls wastes four rows.

Check the room for square before you quote

Measure both diagonals. A difference of more than a few millimetres tells you the cuts will taper, and a tapering cut wastes a tile on every course.

Your customer never sees that measurement and it changes your price. It takes two minutes and it saves the argument about why you ordered more tiles.

Order for the batch, not just for the job

Tiles vary between batches. A replacement tile from a later batch rarely matches, so a repair in year three shows as a patch.

Order a small surplus beyond the wastage and leave it with your customer. A plain explanation of why it matters keeps the box in most houses.

Say who owns the tiles in the quote

Customers often supply their own tiles, and then the wastage becomes their problem and your delay. A short line in the quote settles it.

Write that you have allowed a stated percentage, and that a shortfall stops the job until more tiles arrive. Your customer then orders properly the first time.

Record what you actually used

Note the tiles you ordered and the tiles you laid, per job, with the pattern beside them. After thirty jobs your percentages stop being a habit.

One pattern will turn out to be consistently under ordered. That single correction usually pays for the whole record keeping exercise.

The substrate decides the day before the tiles do

A floor that needs levelling turns a one day tiling job into two, and nobody sees that from a tile schedule.

A check for level and plumb belongs at the quote, with the preparation priced as its own line.

Your customer then understands why two identical bathrooms cost different amounts. The tiles were never the difference.

A levelling compound also changes your finished floor height, which matters at every doorway. That belongs in the quote conversation rather than on the day.

What to change first

• The pattern, the tile size and the room set the wastage, not habit
• The setting out gets planned and the cuts counted before the quote
• Both diagonals get measured, and an out of square room prices higher
• A surplus from the same batch stays with your customer
• The quote states the wastage allowance whenever the customer supplies tiles
• Ordered against laid, per pattern, corrects the percentages over time