The Brew Cabin

We recently changed our indian stone supplier due to bad qaulity we were told by our new supplier that he only sells the undersized flags as these are redressed on site to produce a better quality. The first few orders we recieved of him were better quality but now we are back to square one, does anybody know if what he says is true or is there another reason for undersized flags ie: correcting mistakes at the quarry ? thanks for any replies Alan.

What do you mean by under-sized? Do you mean the 560mm units, rather than, say, a 600mm unit.

yes 560 s etc

The 560mm units are all based on a 140mm module. So, the 560x560s are 4 units by 4 units, the 420x560s are 3 units by 4 units, the 840x560s are 6x4, etc.

I've never worked out why they used a 140mm module, though. When the flagstones first started coming over, one importer told me it was a mistake, as the original instruction had been to use a 150mm module but to allow for a 10mm joint. The quarry operators in india took this to mean a 140mm module, rather than, f'rinstance, a 590x590mm flagstone.

How much truth there is in that, I'm not sure, but the 140mm module is now the most popular size range, although there are some types supplied in the more traditional 150mm modulur sizes (300-450-600-750-900mm)

Where are you buying from?

Thanks for that it makes more sense than his explanation, not that i think indians are stupid but it could be badly translated off paper. We were buying of NW reclamation but now off Bridge St stone

Mmmm...not the first mention of suspect quality from NW Rec, I'm afraid. :(

why does that not suprise me, you would think with the growing amount of importers and suppliers that competion would result in a better quality but most people seem more concerned with keeping there costs down. can you reccomend a reliable supplier in the nw. we use a lot of imported materials so somewhere with a good stock and range of quality materials would be appreciated.

Try Julian @ Stonescape in Wiggin. He seems to be more 'on the ball' than most of the other firms. There's also Nicky @ Riverside in Bowt'n who has branched out into the Indian stuff to supplement his impressive range of reclaimed yorkstone...

Stonescape - 01942 866666
Riverside - 01204 533141

...mention my name so I can bully them into buying me a pint the next time I see them. :)

Just thought I would relay a conversation I had with Andy Dix, Sales Director of Stoneflair. He reckons that there is a lot of sub-standard indian paving being offered, (e.g chap in Sheffield offering product at £12.50 m2!) he says it is either as second grade due to being too soft, or thinner, and he is expecting people to complain of delamination. He claims his stone is from the best quarries and is all of a durable thickness and hardness. Does anyone think there is any truth in this?

Oh, indeed there is! As margins have dropped, the pressure to find ever-cheaper sources have resulted in some right old rubbish being sold, usually by those "retail outlets" than know buggerall about paving in the first place, but can see a nice profit margin from 2 miles away.

Some of the stuff I've seen at Garden Centres, and some of the photos sent to me by disappointed clients, is only fit to be smashed to smithereens with a toffee hammer and used as a fill material, but because it's being sold ex-docks at, say, 4 quid per square metre and the GCs know they can sell it for 20-30 quid to their unsuspecting clientele, they don't give a toss about quality.

To be fair, it's not solely the GCs - there's a number of suppliers who really ought to know better, but have decided to be driven by profit margin rather than quality, and we're just beginning to see the first signs of a deluge of complaints. We've previously discussed problems of picture-framing and delamination here in the Brew Cabin, but now I'm getting calls about honeycombing, scary colour effects, crumbling, immovable lichens, excessive breakages....and I don't even sell the stuff (or owt else, for that matter).

The general impression from the Great British Public is that, when they've gone back to their supplier with a complaint, many of them feel they've been fobbed off with jargon or bollocks, so they go on t'internet to find out more and end up calling me.

Anyway, the good thing is that there are a number of companies that are playing the long game and realise that it's better to insist on quality and build up a rep for supplying only the best, rather than make a quick few bob by selling sub-standard shite and then getting a spotty 18 year old sales trainee to field the complaints while they hide in the back office counting the money. The Contractors with repeat orders will eventaully discover who's worth dealing with and who should be avoided, so in, say, 5 years time, there'll be a nucleus of quality suppliers serving the trade while the rubbish will be relegated to the peripheral trade, such as the small GCs and fly-by-night cowboys.

I do try to identify those companies that have a demonstrable policy of "quality first". If I hear of compaints regarding a particular company and their supplies, I will remove them from the links page, as has already happened with 3 companies since last summer, including the company originally mentioned in this thread.


So, if you;ve any recommendations, let me know the company involved and I'll happily include them in the listing, but if you know of any shysters selling rubbish, contact me by email and if I get more than 2 'complaints' I'll remove them from my listing and add them to the blacklist.