Floor tile question

[jswift2000]

My wife and I are retiling our kitchen floor - about 250 sq/ft. We're removing all the old tile (not too hard), scraping the old mortar off and then will begin laying the new tile. Since time MAY be an issue, we began bidding the tile job out to contractors. Keep in mind this is a labor only job - we're getting all the materials and doing all the demo work.

We had a vendor come over today and give us a price of $1500 to lay the tile over a Ditra (Schluter-DITRA - Schluter-Systems) underlayment. . Needless to say I was a little shocked at this price (comes to about $6 sq/ft). Is this a normal price to lay tile (remember - we're purchsing all the materials)? I know it varies by region and we're in CT if this helps.

Looking to see what others have paid.

Thanks.

Jeff

[Accumulator]

This is a crappy answer but it's been a while since we had ours done and I forget the specific costs, but:

Yeah, it can be one very expensive job to have done *well*. I dismissed my builder's tile people because their work wasn't good enough for me and I was lucky enough to find somebody *really* good. But he charged an arm and a leg and worked at *his* pace. Turned out super though.

Your $6 does sound much higher than what we paid, but the size of the job probably factors in (ours took many weeks- quantity discount/economies of scale/etc.) and IMO the most important thing is to have somebody do a good enough job that you won't have problems, no way to put a price on that...tile floor problems can be a real PIA. We learned that the hard way at our previous house and I woulda gladly paid $6 per for *that* floor to have been OK.

[Konadog]

That is about the right price

[jswift2000]

Thanks guys... Thats what I'm learning. It just caught me off guard.

[red4.8]

Is there a reason that you are using Ditra? It's nice stuff but super $$$$$. Dura-rock and/or hardi-backer is a lot cheaper...