Geelong Gent

Thanks mate, just getting worried now my figures are out. Because we are also now going for concrete suspended floors any error in my calcs is going to blow the budget big time.

Have you guys any thoughts on polished concrete floors? I was going to use porcelain tiles but someone showed me a house with polished floors and they were superb.

Timber Floor Au

Soz mate was my maths and typos

We have polished porcelain !

Its fine, but you just gotta have the specialists in to remove the film layer that is on the porcelain.

Mine looks fine, but at some angles you can see where I didnt clean the film off properly.

Polished concrete, is very IN ! and can look absolutely stunning !!

youngy73

ive only ever seen polished concrete on top stuff and it looks fantastic. my only reservation is how long it will last. dont want to be negative but ive never seen concrete yet that doesnt crack. so it will look fantastic for a few months or even years but eventually i think you will end up with hair line cracks everywhere which i think will destroy the look.it is also expensive to do i believe. we are going for a polished porcelain (600x300 laid at 1/3 to each other) in the interior with with same unpolished tile on the patio and in the pool bathroom. these are costing $50 a metre (probably around $30 a metre anywhere else in oz) and probably $35 a metre to lay including grouting and adhesive. there goes another $30,000.

Timber Floor Au

We had quotes when we did ours, 500 x 500 porcelain.

Ranged from 5k cash to install ( labour only ) to...

wait for it....

$20k !!!!

We went with a little spanish fella in the end who did a fab job !

I wouldnt have it anywhere that can get moisture on it tho. Would be lethal.

Plus dont forget... to allow for stripping and sealing !! Cheapest we had quoted was $40 ! a m !!!!!!

So all up, about $120 a m if ya do it kosha !

Gallery here mate , takes a while to load .. but may give you ideas ( this is my place )

http://dayboro.com.au/gallery.php

Ste

youngy73

very nice timber. i like looking at homes that have quality fixtures and fittings and that have had a bit of thought go into them. personally not sure about your outside lights though. one of our dilemas at the moment is the tiling or should i say the tiling in the bathrooms. i am a believer in continuity throughout a home. the same tiles, tapware, paint on the walls etc. the same throughout. the polished porcelain i know is lethal when wet so we are having the unpolished version of the same tile on the bathroom floors but i am concerned about the transition from one tile to another. your tiles are very different between bathrooms and living areas. can you upload a few photos of the transition between rooms please? this is something that we considered but are sitting on the bench at the moment unable to make a desicion. the porcelain tiles we are getting have been pre sealed . (something i had not heard of before)

Timber Floor Au

Will try and take some fotos after work tomoz.

Im not sure on pre sealed porcelain. Not really heard of it, especially at sub $50 a metre pricing...

If they are pre sealed, that infers they are pre stripped. If they are pre stripped, what protects each tile from scratching the other?

ie. in transit?

We had approx 280 m2 laid, possibly a tad more. Weighing in at about 4 ton i think. Our tiler, who was bloody great, opened about 20 boxes, and measured every single tile. The standard discrepancy on porcelain is about +/- 2mm a tile !!!

Doesnt sound much, but then over a 20 m run the datums would be so far out that you would feel pissed walking up the wider joints !

We toyed with the idea of stripping prior to installation, and to be honest the suppliers, CTM i think, suggested that during normal installation, grouting etc, the film comes off...

Bull shit !!

I spent approx 3 weeks, full time, cleaning 120 sqm by hand using VIM kinda stuff with plastic scrubber. and.... drove me mad... in the end we used AMWAY ! Debs bought some over from the Uk.

Will try n upload pics tomoz

Ste

Geelong Gent

Just remembered to say


GREAT HOUSE

Timber Floor Au

Cheers Buddy

Havent had chance to do any fotos, have had other things to sort out .


Ste

youngy73

no worries timber. i have been busy myself this week and we have a lot more quotes now so hopefully the ball should start rolling a little faster. we did get let down by the dude doing our earthworks. he was supposed to have it all under control (sourcing the fill etc) and now just gives me lip service when either me or the builder call him so we have f%^&ed him off. probably cut off my nose to spite my face but i hate getting the run around.

Timber Floor Au

Withya on that... as a wise man once said, if they mess you about at the start, they mess you about at the end... and inbetween !

Hope you get another mud boy sorted !

steve`o

nice palce mate
we also used porcelain ( 400x400 ) and like you said bloody nightmare to get all the sealer off, took about 4 hrs to get 40 sq mtrs clean in the dining room, but sealing as a dodle only took 30 minutes,

Timber Floor Au

If i ever use porcelain again, which I will.. they are a dream to look at, bitch to keep clean lol... i will hire a machine to clean them !

youngy73

well all its done for the last 4 weeks is rain, then rain some more. then you guessed it, rained again. needless to say nothing has happened yet although we are already to get into it now. we ended up getting some crazy quotes to bench the land as we ended up needing 800 m3 of fill. $20000 to $24000 dollars. we are now going to cut the block. not ideally what we want to do but we would be crazy to pay that for the earthworks if we ever want to see that money again. anyway forecast rain all the rest of this week and poss the beginning of next week, then a week to dry out before we can even think about starting. on the plus side our dams are overflowing and everthing is greener than usual.

wanderingwombat

I would have thought the recent rain would have been the reason to bench the site rather than cut. You wouldnt want neighbours run off causing you problems.

WW

Timber Floor Au

Can you not re engineer the fotting and slab detail to be floating steel ?

That should be cheaper than fill, and also, will keep views aspects that you had anticipated mate ?

Ste