11/06/2023
I tried to make a quick $1000 and I ruined a customer's floor.
"Hey Tanner, you don't know anyone who can remove tile do you? I have someone to lay it, they just don't do removal"
The customer said to me as we were finishing up painting the interior of the house.
I had seen videos on tile removal and it didn't seem too bad. I didn't have a job next week and I thought I could bang out a quick tile removal.
And then, the infamous 4 words that bind all business owners and teach more lessons than anything uttered out of my mouth"
"I can do it"
"Yeah? How much?"
I quickly googled price per square foot tile removal and shot out a price quickly over the phone of $1000.
Because we did such a great job painting the interior, the customer didn't bat an eye and promptly agreed.
"Great! Now I can get this off of my to-do list. When can you start?"
"Uhh.. how about tomorrow?"
The remainder of the night was spent googling the tools I'd need to do a tile removal for an entire living room.
I found a local home-depot that had a rental department and shot there first thing in the morning. I called a dumpster and had one delivered. I was ready to go.
"I need a jack-hammer like thing with a blade on it to chop up the tile." I said to the clerk who had no clue what I was doing or what they were doing.
"This?" they asked me.
"uh...yeah. I'll take it."
So, I stuffed it in the back of my Honda Accord and made my way to the house completely oblivious of what the following 7 hours would entail.
I began chipping up the tile.
But something was off. It was taking FOREVER to get a piece of tile up.
One hour in, and I maybe have 2% of the job done.
My helper started chipping it by hand.
Dust went everywhere. All over the freshly painted walls. (I definitely didn't account for all the dust.)
All over the countertops...
All over the appliances...
"Hey guys, I brought lunch!" the excited homeowner popped in hoping to see major progress on the tile removal...
"Guys! Dust is everywhere... what's going on?"
I began to sweat.
"We're having a little issue, i've been at this for hours and I can't seem to get these tiles up. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be."
The guy looked at the machine I was using.
"Tanner, you're using the thin-set remover. Not the chisel. You need the chisel to get this tile up. I thought you said you knew how to do this sort of work?"
All of my credibility built with this customer had quickly faded. He went from an extremely happy A+ customer to a very frustrated and angry customer.
I went to the store and grabbed the right tip for the hammer-drill. The tile started to come up much easier. 7 hours later we had all the tiles completely removed from the floor. It was starting to get dark.
The customer returned to check our progress.
"Tanner, I thought you said you'd have this done today. You still have to remove the thin-set"
"The thin-set?" I said to him ... re-thinking to myself I probably shouldn't have questioned him out loud.
"Yes! You have to scrape the thin-set and then level the floor. Are you not planning on leveling the floor?" He looked at me with confusion and anger.
I finally came clean.
"Honestly sir, I shouldn't have taken this job. I haven't done this before and I really apologize. I was trying to help and I let my over-confidence get the best of me. I'm sorry."
I told him he didn't owe me anything for the work I did, and I wrote him a check for $650 to cover the cost of getting someone else in there to fix the mess I had made. I agreed to wipe down all of the furniture and walls from the dust.
This story happened within the first two weeks of me being in business. I learned a very valuable lesson to stick with what I'm good at and never jump at the opportunity to make money.
(Pic is me actually removing tile with a thinset remover... lol)
