Bob McMaster

I hired Bob because he had a low price. He explained that he was a semi-retired tile setter, who had worked setting tile for 20 years, then retired 3 years ago, and just started up again doing a few jobs for extra income. He gave me 3 recent references. Two of them said that they were happy with his work, and the 3rd never called me back. After looking at the job, he sent me a proposal, with a bid of $1243, and said that it would take 3 days, with him and a helper. Bob showed up on the 1st day (Monday) by himself. I showed him the tile. When he saw the bathroom floor tile, he said that he had forgotten that he was doing the floor as well, and had not included it in the bid. I looked at the bid again, and sure enough, it didn't mention the floor. He admitted that I had probably told him about it (I had), and he had forgotten, so he said he'd do the floor for only $200 more, and it would take him 1 more day. I thought this was more than fair, so I accepted the new bid of $1443. That first day, he layed the moisture barrier paper and chicken wire in the shower, and then told me that he was going to take the rest of the day to buy the rest of the supplies. I was a bid disappointed with that, as I would have expected him to have done that ahead of time, and actually layed the mortar bed the first day, but I didn't worry about it. The 2nd day, Bob arrived with his helper. It was a very cold day. They layed the mortar bed on the shower walls, and said that he had expected to lay tile that day as well, but due to the cold weather, the mortar wasn't drying fast enough, so that would have to wait for the next day. The 3rd day, Bob arrived alone again, and said that his helper had flaked on him, so he was working alone that day. He got started setting tile that day, and got the bottom half of the shower walls tiled, and part of the accent stripe. Everything looked very nice. Around 3pm, he said that he had to call it a day. At this point it was obvious that he wasn't going to finish in 4 days, and I had to call my other subs and push them back. The 4th day (Thursday), Bob arrived alone again. (I guess he fired his helper, because I never saw him again after that one day). He worked for a few more hours, finishing the accent stripe and doing some of the bullnose pieces. Around 1pm, he said that he'd done as much as he could that day, due to not being able to stack any more on top of the accent strip until it dried, and that he was coming down with a cold. The 5th day (Friday), Bob arrived and started setting some more tile above the accent strip. I went out to run some errands, and when I got back, my wife told me that he had left because he was feeling sick and needed to go home and sleep, but would be back the next day (Saturday). He had only worked about 3 hours. Saturday, he didn't show up, and didn't answer his phone (he has no cell phone and no answering machine). I finally got ahold of him Sunday evening, and he said he'd be back the next morning. At this point, I started noticing that his work was starting to get sloppy, and he was doing things like not matching the pattern well as he went around corners, and not lining the bullnose pieces up even with the field tile. Monday, he showed up, but after working for less than 2 hours, he told me that he was still too sick, and couldn't finish the job. He told me that he was going to call some other tile setter friend of his and see if one of them could finish the job. He said that he would pay them out of the money that he had already bid for the job. Tuesday morning, Bob showed up with another contractor, and showed him the job. Later that afternoon, the new contractor showed up with a helper. The new guys finished setting the shower wall tile that afternoon. Wednesday, they mortared and layed the shower floor and bathroom floor, and grouted on Thursday, completing the job. The new guys that Bob hired to finish the job were much faster, and did a great job. At lease as good as Bob was doing in the beginning, and much better than Bob was doing toward the end. I even had them re-do a few peices that I really wasn't happy with that Bob had done. The last day, Bob came back while they finished. He came down while they were working, and asked if we could renegotiate the bid a little. He said that the pattern of the accent stripe and the pattern in the upper half of the shower (diamond pattern) was more difficult than he had been thinking. I agreed that it was probably a bit complicated, though he probably should have asked more questions about the pattern before bidding. I offered to raise the price to $1650, which he accepted. Overall, I was mostly happy with the outcome. It was frustrating that it took more than twice as long as his original estimate. I also am not real thrilled with the lack of pattern matching around the corners, but by the time I realized it, it was a bit late to re-do it, and it would have delayed the project a lot more, even if he had agreed to it, so I didn't mention it to him. Even with the extra money I paid him, I still think I got a low price.