Tile Allowance, what is a good square foot price?

[Katy Tx Mom]

Thanks ahead of time! My husband and I were in the Harvey flood and have had bad contractors before and may have a bit of PTSD about all this.

In our contract, it has $8 per sq. ft. allowance for the tile. Is it me, or does that seem low?

The contract also includes flagstone for the coping and we didn't know to change it before so we knew all the extra charges we were racking up. One of the add ons is the cost for installing Colorado square edge travertine tile instead of the flagstone. Is it true installers charge per cut of travertine? For 108 sq ft they are charging an additional $1200. to change to travertine. Plus more for the other tile of course.

 

[Oswald]

$8/sq ft, is that for the tile itself? There are lots of tile selections in that price range. Do you have the option of paying the difference if you want something more expensive? If so, I would say that's in line with what our pool builder considered a Level 1 tile. We paid extra to move to Level 2 for a tile we liked a bit more.

 

[BigPapaSmurf]

My installers did not charge per cut for travertine, if they did I would be paying a bloody fortune considering they were cutting on the coping for 11 days and the patio for 5 days!

 

[ajw22]

You can expect allowances to always be the lowest end product and rarely what you really want.

 

[Oswald]

You can expect allowances to always be the lowest end product and rarely what you really want.

Yup, for us it was solid color in a couple shapes in a few shades of blue for the base.

 

[.ben]

Our waterline glass/mosaic tile allowance is $12. We have yet to choose a tile, but we will have the option to pay the difference if we choose a more expensive tile.

I’ve heard flagstone should never be used (at least in Texas). Our builder had 3cm travertine coping in the contract. We choose a non standard color of coping for no additional cost.

 

[Oswald]

Our waterline glass/mosaic tile allowance is $12. We have yet to choose a tile, but we will have the option to pay the difference if we choose a more expensive tile.

I’ve heard flagstone should never be used (at least in Texas). Our builder had 3cm travertine coping in the contract. We choose a non standard color of coping for no additional cost.

If flagstone shouldn't be used in Texas, somebody should tell all my neighbors. Oklahoma Flagstone was very popular a few years ago and I see it all the time. I don't see it as much anymore since, whites and greys are more popular, so I see more Travertine and Lueder limestone now.

 

[Cena_sea]

According to my builder (maybe he was joking) I chose the cheapest NPT tile. He told me the price. Apparently both my first and second choice tiles were the cheapest and less than your allowance. The irony was I wasn't trying to be cheap. I chose these based on a showroom visit (which didn't have every tile in stock).

After my visit I went through the online catalogue (I did not look at their online site beforehand) and the only tile I probably would've chose instead of my top two was the special order boutique tiles. I didn't ask my builder for pricing on those because I thought special order meant way too expensive but I probably would've paid for them had I known the pricing (found out later).

 

[KCNM]

Based on knowing one of the actual distributor prices for a tile we were looking at, my builder was around $18ish allowance, including installation. There was a tile that I know was $19 from the distributor, which was a $1.75 markup per linear foot on a 6" waterline. So $19 - ($1.75 / 2) ~ $18.

Of course, that means they raked it in for people who chose cheaper tile. So pick your poison I guess.

 

[darkrider]

$8 per sq/ft is what our builder used as well for the allowance for waterline tile. The good news is that there's plenty of choices for that price, and even if you go for an upcharge tile, the total sq/ft needed is not going to be very much, as the waterline tile only covers 6", which means a sq/ft is 6"x24". In order to determine how much tile you'll need, you'll basically divide your lineal ft by 2 and add 15% or so for scrap.