Case study: Hazy tiles make multi-million dollar home unsaleable
A beautiful new home had been custom-built in Baulkham Hills NSW for the high-end market, and featured polished porcelain tiles throughout the ground floor living areas. Unfortunately the tiles were affected by optical hazing – the smudgy marks were so bad that potential buyers couldn’t overlook them, and the house had to be withdrawn from the market.
The marks on the floor were clearly visible to all prospective buyers
After Slique completed restoration, not a single mark remained
The builder of the property had noticed the problem as soon as he’d had the floor cleaned. He wasn’t able to clean the marks off, so decided to go ahead with listing the property.
Six prospective buyers went to the first open home, and they all said “what’s that?” As soon as they walked in the front door, they noticed the tiles looked strange. The problem was so obvious that the builder made the decision to withdraw the house from the market until the problem was resolved.
The builder was in a tricky situation: he had invested a great deal of money into building this top-spec home, but was now unable to get any return on his investment. Not only that, but the supplier of the tiles didn’t support his requests for assistance, telling him that the tiles were compliant with Australian standards. The builder says “The supplier said it wasn’t a problem. I was very frustrated with their advice – I didn’t find them helpful at all. They had their heads in the sand.”
The supplier was well within their rights, and an independent report commissioned by the builder showed that the tiles were 1st quality in accordance with Australian standards. Under these standards, optical hazing caused by factory-applied sealers is not considered a defect.
With no support and no other alternatives, the builder got an estimate to replace the tiles, coming in at a massive $75,000. He also approached four other contractors to look at restoration, and all of them told the builder that the problem couldn’t be fixed.
Eventually the builder discovered Slique, who were in the process of perfecting our new state-of-the-art Tile Polishing treatment to deal specifically with this problem. Slique quoted to restore the floor at just 10% of the cost of replacement, and Technicians completed a sample area free-of-charge to prove the result could be achieved.
Slique was duly commissioned to complete the work, and achieved 100% recovery of the surface with not a single mark remaining. The builder was ecstatic, and after a year of delays while he tried to resolve the issue the property was finally back on the market.
When Slique asked the builder if he could have done anything differently, he pointed out that there was no way he could have prevented it, saying “I did everything possible, I’m an informed builder, I’ve been in the business for 30 years, I knew about tile laying and all the possible problems, and it was very disappointing to have this happen”.
“Glowing references to Slique – you’ve got a great business”.
Read more about Slique's treatment to remove Optical Hazing, or contact us for a quotation.
