Porter Davis - Tiles

Bel,

We're not building with PD, but I'm sure that you could go there for a browse anytime.
This is the same with Beaumont - M's tile supplier.
You would be able to ask too, which tiles are standard for your house.

Actually, we went to Beaumont several times before our tile appointment.
This is to make sure we like the same tiles everytime we go there.
As you know.. most women change their minds as often as they change their clothes .

I went to both Beaumont Tiles and Kefton Ceramics, the two tile places that DFH use.

The lady I spoke to at Kefton was very helpful and pointed out which tiles were builders standard and which were upgrade.

I think that most of the tile places use stickers to show which are builders standard, which should assist with your selections.

Hi Bel

Go and visit National tiles in sunshine, ballarat rd. The staff are friendly and can show you the standard range. There are so many tiles to choose from, some are upgrades.

The project home builders can cut the costs of building because they build so many homes.

As a smaller builder, we couldn't care less what tile you picked so long as it was within the price range we quoted - usually $35.00 - $70.00 per m2, depending on your home.

To me it sounds as if they actually have bought pellet loads of specific tiles at special pricing and anything else has to be charged at full retail.

You should understand that when you build 2000+ homes per year then you have serious buying power for everything from timber to tiles to kitchen appliances.

Those discounts are largely passed on to you the home buyer but if you want to buy from outside the standard box then you will pay full retail - there is no rip off here that I can see (not that i have any interest in defending PD etc), but purely market economics at work.

I think you missed my point, it was the laying charge that I had the issue with.

If I chose the same tile for the niche as well as the shower the laying charge was the same (regardless of if it were a standard tile or upgrade). but if I chose a different tile for the niche (standard or upgrade) they wanted to put a hefty laying charge on it.



The same tile at a tile shop for $60.00 per m2 was $85.00 at Ntiles for PD

Sorry, I see that now. What sort of fee are we talking about?

Just the same I still think this laying fee will be related to the cost of importing the standard tiles and that they make their profit from you using those, not from using others. That is, as soon as you choose a different tile then they simply cannot make the markup on the new tiles to cover the loss of profit so they load up the 'laying' fee.

If your new tiles were porcelain (as many are now) as opposed to ceramic then maybe they can justify an additional cost to lay. Plus, someone has to order and pick them up etc - all has to cost something.

Again, depending on how much this fee is determines how it is justified I suppose. Although the $6000 fee does seem incredible.

I presume they will argue that it is your choice to agree and pay - it all comes down to how much you personally value having those choices.

As I have said in other places on this forum, if you go the project home route then do it and don't add or change anything and you will get the cheapest home that could possibly be built. They work on wafer margins, hence why we call them volume builders because they survive on volume.

Not very personal, but that is the business model - you get their choice, not yours.

Hi - I phoned National Tiles and they told me I could visit any time Mon-Fri - 9am - 5pm and not weekends.

hi P aula just read your post about being charged extra for the niche tile, i did a ** when i saw the tiler i asked him to change the tile in my niche.. he did .. site super didnt notice.didnt charge anything maybe thats an option for you.

Hi Haywgl, we said exactly the same thing - and it cost us an extra $3,700
Good luck with that.