Tile selection tips from your installer

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the choices and the beautiful tiles when you first go to a tile showroom, so we thought we’d give you a few tips to consider as you’re making your selections.

– Large tile is very popular right now, and it’s getting larger. We’re glad to install it for you, but it does require upgraded mortars and more time to ensure the substrate is appropriately flat and that patterns flow with the maximum full tiles possible. Therefore, your price will be a little higher for large-format tile (anything larger than 15″). Because most large tiles have some degree of curvature, we can’t install large tiles with anything less than a 1/8″ grout joint.

– Glass tile and sheeted materials also require different setting materials (and tools in some cases), so there is usually a higher level of skill needed to install these materials. Many sheeted materials may not line up the same way non-sheeted materials will (grout joint widths will vary from one sheet to the next). The nature of the material will usually mean a little higher installation price for sheeted or glass products.

– Natural stone has a honed surface and will need to be sealed prior to installation (as will some that have polished surfaces). If the stone is pitted, grout will fill any holes and won’t be removed. Filled stones are not a good choice for floors where high-heel traffic may impact these weaker parts of the end-product. Sheeted pebbles/ river rocks will be grouted, and we’d like to make sure you like that look as much as you like the ungrouted version you might see in the showroom. (You might want to see a sample mock up for approval.)

– Accents and liners should be similar in thickness to the tile being installed. A good tile designer will steer you to products that line up well, so it’s important to take advantage of the talented showroom designers we have in our area.

– Grout joints are routinely 3/16″, so if you want a different width, please discuss it with the designer and your installer. Some tiles require specific types of grout and joint sizes, so it’s important to be specific in what finish look you want.

– Patterns, accents, and borders can add pizazz to a tile installation, so they are worth including in your plan. They do take more time to install, so your labor cost will increase each time you add an accent or extra feature.

– Standard heights of showers are 7′, and tub surrounds are generally 5′ off the tub. If you want a different finish height, be sure to let your designer and installer know that.

– Niches are more popular than soap dishes these days, and most showers now contain a shelf or foot prop, so be sure to specify which of these you’d like to add to your project. Waterproofing is needed behind that niche, and the best installers will be sure your design flows seamlessly through the indentation. There’s a little extra charge for these items, but having an easy place to keep your shampoo and soap is priceless!

Tile Person of the Year – congrats, Nyle!

Our very own Nyle Wadford was recognized as Tile Person of the Year by the National Tile Contractors Association at Coverings 2013 in Atlanta this month. Since 1958, NTCA has been honoring a tile professional each year who is dedicated to supporting the non-profit trade association and its service to all segments of the tile and stone industry.

NTCA Tile Person of the Year

Nyle joins a prestigious group of tile professionals who have received this honor, and, we’re pleased to say, he was completely surprised at the ceremony (good job team!).  Nyle’s work to create qualified labor specifications for the tile industry and his contributions to the growth of NTCA were cited among his many industry accomplishments.

The whole Neuse Tile team shares Nyle’s passion for correct tile installations, but it’s Nyle and the team at NTCA who have worked so diligently to make sure all tile contractors have the technical instructions they need to perform installations that will last. When Nyle was President of the NTCA, the organization experienced record growth in membership, expanded its Partners for Success program, formed an historic partnership with Tile Contractors Association of America, and significantly expanded the NTCA’s Five-Star Contractor Program.

Nyle will continue to represent the NTCA on the Tile Council of North America (TCNA) Handbook Committee, and serve on the ANSI ASC 108 Committee, making Neuse Tile Service one of two contractors worldwide to sit on all three committees! He currently is the Chairman of the Board for NTCA.

Way to go Nyle! We’re proud of you!

Check out this interview with Nyle from the floor of the Coverings Show in Atlanta:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1137610517001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAi5oby5k~,gf8A03pw9syJ8i8_PnfPj-SRCKEGXH2m&bctid=2379083272001

Trusted tile team pulls together

Like the human body, a well-run work team has many parts that ideally line up and work in sync. When we’re hitting on all cylinders, we move forward pretty well. But, when we recently had several team members out of the picture for multiple days, it took extraordinary effort to keep the machine running as it should.

We have a fairly small staff, and the recession reduced our structure to its bare bones. So, when this rash of incidents and illnesses took out two and three team members at once, we were really struggling to keep our customers from feeling the effects. Internally, we always talk about our team of employees as our “work family.” (When you’re a family-run business, the people who work with you long-term become adopted members of your clan –whether they want to or not -ha!). Like most families, we certainly know it when one of our folks is missing or out for a few days, but we ‘re pretty good at knowing what needs to be done to adapt and flex to fill the gaps.

But with two and three out at the same time, we were intimately reminded of our interdependence. It took some extra “above and beyond” efforts to keep all the installations, estimates, accounting, purchasing, warehousing, and deliveries going these past two weeks, and we’re extra grateful for the team members who made it all happen with minimal interruption to our customers.

While we want to be as inconspicuous and expedient as possible when we’re working on your tile installation, we also want you to know that the folks who work with us are superior. They are talented, of course, but, even more important, they are trustworthy people who have proven how much they care about the quality of your work and about each other.

Thanks to our great team and to our wonderful customers, we’re looking forward to getting back to “business as usual” this coming week!

Remodeling recoups investment

It’s often aesthetics or convenience that make us consider a home renovation or remodel, but dollars and cents might encourage you to pull the trigger on that project as well.  Recently published statistics in the Remodeling Cost vs. Value report indicate that bathroom and kitchen remodels in our area recoup more than 60 percent of their value.

The cost-to-value ratio of remodeling projects has improved for the first time in six years due to stabilizing resale values and flat construction labor costs.  The cost-value ratio is figured by comparing resale value as a percentage of construction cost, and the upturn “is an encouraging sign that the remodeling industry may have turned the corner,” states Remodeling magazine. Check out the statistics by city or region for a project you might be considering  www.remodeling.hw.net

While you’re thinking about improvements, consider using ageless design elements to make your home more universally appealing. Wider doorways, curbless showers, varying cabinet heights, and lever-handled faucets and knobs can make your renovation beautiful and adaptable to the long-term needs of family members or visitors with different physical abilities. Local realtors tell us they have a hard time finding homes which can accommodate those clients who are looking for a barrier-free home, so thinking long-term can improve your resale value as well.

And, do let us know if you’re considering a renovation. With almost 50 years  experience in the Triangle’s construction market, we have some great local contacts to assist with just about any renovation or project.

Know what’s UNDER your tile!

As another year comes to a close, we’ve enjoyed reflecting on  some wonderful

installations and some great general contractors and homeowners on projects large and small. But if we had to single out one project from this year that speaks volumes, it would be a local homeowner’s steam shower.

Unfortunately, we were called in after a so-called “tile contractor” had completed his ‘installation’, and the homeowner had experienced the resulting rain in their kitchen below. This one had to go all the way back to framing to correct the plethora of mistakes that had been made (including cardboard shims under the tile).

The incompetence of the work is outstanding, of course, but the project itself is indicative of so much more. These very nice homeowners had taken the recommendation of a someone in the industry and had invested their hard-earned money. What they got was barely passable on the surface, and horrific underneath. It’s a good thing that it started raining in their kitchen;

otherwise, it might have been a year or two before the extent of this travesty was revealed. So many of the jobs we’ve had to tear out and replace this year have been 2 years or 5 years old, and the original contractor is long gone. We were honored to help this family get the steam shower they paid for, but it would have been so much better if they had not had to endure the process and the expense of a project done twice.
We hope and pray that in this coming New Year, quality and integrity will come back into style; that the professional businesses in the construction industry will

Steam shower tranquility.

be allowed to thrive; and that homeowners and contractors will remember that the lowest bidder is always going to cost someone in the long run.

A successful business is one which delivers on its commitments AND prices its work so that it can be around to serve customers in the future. Here’s hoping we are one of those in 2013!

Climbing Out Together – One Tile at a Time

“Still Climbing Out” is the theme of the 7th annual blogfest, which brings together bloggers from around the globe to write about the importance of bathrooms in the customer experience. Their posts come from a wide range of perspectives that include sociology, marketing, research, psychology, environmental, customer experience, and design.

     We  have always been North Carolina folks – our parents are ‘from here’, we grew up here, we will probably always live here, and 98% of our business has been in the Tarheel State. In the past several years, however, we’ve been fortunate to be involved in the tile industry on a national level. We’ve attended national conferences, written for industry trade journals, and even worked on joint projects with tile contractors from other states. As we travel and talk with our peers the general consensus is that we are still climbing out of the debris that has been the construction industry for the past several years.

   However, from our vantage point, the best of the industry seems to be climbing out together- not scraping and clawing but building upon and encouraging. Many throughout our nation want to focus on what divides us, but, for the most part, quality tile contractors seem to be concentrating on what we can do as a group to help the industry collectively. Certainly we compete on projects from time-to-time and we often prefer our own way of doing things, but the general belief is that when individual companies are better trained, better equipped, better managed, and working toward common goals, then all of us succeed. Perhaps our nation can return to that ideal in coming days as well…

   In our industry we’ve seen unprecedented cooperation as trade and labor tile organizations have worked together to develop specifications that will help designers, architects, and consumers more carefully select tile installers; manufacturers have worked jointly to agree on common standards for the ‘green’ characteristics of their tile products; tile installers and distributors have begun having trade conferences jointly to offer even more learning opportunities; and tile contractors from all over the US now meet as one Five Star and Trowel of Excellence group to share ideas, promote excellence, and continue to drive the industry forward.

   As the fatigue factor lessens from the endurance test of the past few years, we are hopeful that this common spirit flourishes even more. Perhaps it’s been the desperation of our shared economic crisis that has pushed us to think collectively, but the result has been an encouraging lift to our spirits. Challenging climbs still await to be sure, but a moment of appreciation that we are still here to climb another day is in order.

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Name	Twitter Username	Blog Name	Blog URL
Susan Abbott	susanabbott	theIdeaStudio	http://www.theideastudio.ca
Laurence Borel	blogtillyoudrop	blog till you drop	http://www.laurenceborel.com
Bill Buyok	AventeTile	Avente Tile Talk	http://www.aventetiletalk.com/
Jeanne Byington	jmbyington	The Importance of Earnest Service	blog.jmbyington.com
Nora DePalma	steamtherapy	The Mr. Steam SteamTherapy Blog	http://blog.mrsteam.com/
Mr. Steam	noradepalma	OR-DP POV	http://www.oreilly-depalma.com/blog
Stacy Garcia	kbtribechat	kbtribe	http://kbtribe.wordpress.com
Diane Kazan	dkazan	Public Bathroom Blog	http://thekazan.blogspot.com
Arpi Nalbandian	Arpi_Nalb	Avente Tile Talk	http://www.aventetiletalk.com/
Victoria & Shelley Redshaw & Pond	scarletopus	Scarlet Opus Trends Blog	http://www.scarletopus.com
Sandy Renshaw	sandyrenshaw	Purple Wren	purplewren.com
Bruce D. Sanders	rimtailing	RIMtailing	http://rimtailing.blogspot.com/
Paige Smith	none	Tile tips from installation professionals	http://neusetile.wordpress.com/
Todd Vendituoli	TALV58	Thebuildingblox	http://www.thebuildingblox.com/
Shannon Vogel	cyswebsites	From the Floors Up	http://fromthefloorsup.com
CB Whittemore	cbwhittemore	Content Talks Business Blog	http://simplemarketingnow.com/content-talks-business-blog/
Irene Williams	crossvilleinc	Elevate Your Space	http://elevateyourspace.wordpress.com/
Linda Wright	skiptotheloo	Skip to the Loo!	http://lindaloo.com/

Specify tile installations that last

To help architectural and design professionals demand installation excellence, the tile industry approved historic new language for its 2012 Tile Council of North America (TCNA) Handbook. This update details the credentials an installer needs to complete a specific project so that the customer can rely on both the beauty and longevity of the tile.

In the past, correct tile specifications have included types of tile, setting materials, methods of installation, and any mention of installer qualifications has been vague at best.  However, this new TCNA handbook, “strongly recommends using installers who have demonstrated their commitment to their craft and taken the time to stay current with the latest materials and methods.”

Listed are recognized certifications and programs which give an indication of a tile professional’s qualifications. Also referenced is a Contractor Questionnaire developed by the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation (CTEF) which can be used “to aid in evaluating and comparing contractors.”

“Well-established and recognized programs like CTEF Certification, National Tile Contractors Association’s (NTCA) Five-Star Contractor designation, and Tile Contractors Association of America’s Trowel of Excellence distinction allow specifiers and owners to feel confident that their material is being installed by a company which has the expertise and integrity to do the job correctly. They also assure manufacturers that their quality products are being installed by knowledgeable craftsmen who will stand behind their work,” said NTCA and Neuse Tile Service president, Nyle Wadford.

This industry-approved language has also been added to MasterSpec and other systems designed for use by engineers, architects, specification writers and owners.

Most tile installers will tell you they do a ‘quality’ job, but for true ‘quality’ other things MUST be considered:

-How long will the installation last?  will it move when the structure breathes? how much use can the surface withstand? will the setting material keep the tile in place when water seeps through? how challenging will it be to maintain the surface?

-What are the consequences of a project’s failure? grout coming up or ‘crunching’ heard each time you walk across a floor? tiles popping loose and creating a trip hazard? down-time and money to re-do the project; or water seeping through the downstairs ceiling?

As TCNA executive director Eric Astrachan said, “For a tile installation with permanence and artistry, specify installers who are passionate about their craft. For a permanent finish, the issue should never be who is cheapest, but rather who is best.”