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Posted by John Hines on December 1, 2006, 9:53 am
>Anybody here ever do mail order for such a heavy item? Where do
>contractors find theirs?
The others have contributed their fill, I'll add mine.
NO. Tile is too heavy, and fragile for mail order. Thinset is cement,
it doesn't ship well either.
Other home centers similar to Home Depot exist, like Lowes, and Menards,
and possibly more. There are discounters like HOBO that sell overstock
as well.
There are tile shops that sell nothing but tile and supplies. The real
pros shop there, because they get better service.
The image of a letter carrier struggling with a box of ceramic
decorative tiles, and dropping it with a crash on the doorstep comes to
mind.
--
Silly sig to prevent isp ad
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Posted by thetiler on December 1, 2006, 10:38 pm
John Hines wrote:
> NO. Tile is too heavy, and fragile for mail order.
True, especially a "cheap" tile. The breakage would be very high and
would offset any savings.
Also no shipper will deliver a several thousand pound pallet or two
of material without a receiving dock or forklift, which the average
homeowner doesn't have.
Both Homey Depo and a tile dealer will have delivery trucks with
forklifts and can drop it where you want near the door.
> Other home centers similar to Home Depot exist, like Lowes, and Menards,
> and possibly more. There are discounters like HOBO that sell overstock
> as well.
The problem with a discounter like Big Lot's or "Price Cutters" who
sell closeouts is the delivery issue. 1000# of tile would be two
heavy
trips for a full size truck, and 3 hard trips for a small truck.
> There are tile shops that sell nothing but tile and supplies. The real
> pros shop there, because they get better service.
Better service is the #1 reason and covers many aspects of the
business,
from sales/showroom people to the warehouse personnel, which is
usually 5 times better than the box stores.
But also important at a true "tile distributorship" is the fact that
they
major in _tile_, not 5000 other types of product. Important if you
don't
recognize a brand of tile and want to know the technical data on it.
The Home Depot/ Lowes/ Dept.Store salespeople will say "oh it's a
grade 4", which means nothing- you have to trust their word.
The tile distributor has expert buyers, knows the products, has a
relationship with the manufacturers, and can whip out a technical
data brochure on the product that will list all the relevant data on
the
tile- Glaze scratch resistance- MOH scale data- Break strength data.
> The image of a letter carrier struggling with a box of ceramic
> decorative tiles, and dropping it with a crash on the doorstep comes to
> mind.
I once had a load of roofing metal get run over by the dopey forklift
driver at Lowes. They stored it right out in the open in the yard,
and
some blind employee ran it right over flattening out a strip the width
of
the forklift tire. Took me 20 days to get it replaces.
thetiler
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Posted by John Hines on December 2, 2006, 4:20 pm
>The problem with a discounter like Big Lot's or "Price Cutters" who
>sell closeouts is the delivery issue. 1000# of tile would be two
>heavy
>trips for a full size truck, and 3 hard trips for a small truck.
Yeah, but that didn't stop me from finding the tile for a bath there,
and some cute listellos, all of which were easy enough to take home with
the car.
I'm just saying, look around and see what they all have.
--
Silly sig to prevent isp ad
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