Tile drama- poor workmanship

tangehayes

My floor tiles have been down for 3 years now (new build). We have a number of tiles that have cracked, one very significantly in that it would cut your foot if barefoot. We also have a large number of tiles that sound hollow underneath. We got a tiler to fix the broken tiles but he raised concerns that the whole floor may need to be re-done as believes they will all eventually start to cracks. He doesn't believe that there was any primer put on the concrete and nor were the tiles back buttered and very poor usage of paper (not sure what the correct term for it is!). The original builder (who was responsible for the tiling) says its not common to put down primer on concrete floor and that back buttering is not done anymore. I don't know who to believe! But ultimately tiles that have been down for 3 years shouldn't be cracking/hollow underneath. I don't think I have any comeback against the builder though? I don't know if I should just fix the cracked tiles now and hope that the others don't crack or do I look to replace all the floor now(v exp as tile is everywhere downstairs). Advice Please?!

Dr_Colossus

tangehayes wrote: »

The original builder (who was responsible for the tiling) says its not common to put down primer on concrete floor and that back buttering is not done anymore. I don't know who to believe! !

Don't believe the builder anyway, sounds like he's trying to avoid the situation.
Back buttering is the best method of ensuring full covering so his above statement is nonsense.
A primer should have been used also to prep the concrete floor and ideally a decoupling membrane (something like Schluter Ditra) especially on a new build as the concrete floor can settle over time yielding to cracked tiles as you've now got.

Were the cracked/damaged tiles easy to remove, tile adhesive stuck to tile or floor or neither? If you have replacement tiles I'd be inclined to replace the damaged ones provider tiler can make that look seamless and see how that develops over time. Replacing a whole floor could be very messy and expensive depending on area involved.

tangehayes

Dr_Colossus wrote: »

Don't believe the builder anyway, sounds like he's trying to avoid the situation.
Back buttering is the best method of ensuring full covering so his above statement is nonsense.
A primer should have been used also to prep the concrete floor and ideally a decoupling membrane (something like Schluter Ditra) especially on a new build as the concrete floor can settle over time yielding to cracked tiles as you've now got.

Were the cracked/damaged tiles easy to remove, tile adhesive stuck to tile or floor or neither? If you have replacement tiles I'd be inclined to replace the damaged ones provider tiler can make that look seamless and see how that develops over time. Replacing a whole floor could be very messy and expensive depending on area involved.

Thanks for your response. The tiles came up easily, there was some adhesive on the floor after but v little on the tile itself. Builder was having none of it when we showed him:-( we have replacement tiles so will drive on and fix the ones that are cracked. There are other tiles that are hollow sounding but not cracked and these tend to be at the edge of the room - we don't have enough tiles to fix all them so just have to cross fingers that they hold up. Very frustrating though that we have so little comeback

tangehayes

Dr_Colossus wrote: »

Don't believe the builder anyway, sounds like he's trying to avoid the situation.
Back buttering is the best method of ensuring full covering so his above statement is nonsense.
A primer should have been used also to prep the concrete floor and ideally a decoupling membrane (something like Schluter Ditra) especially on a new build as the concrete floor can settle over time yielding to cracked tiles as you've now got.

Were the cracked/damaged tiles easy to remove, tile adhesive stuck to tile or floor or neither? If you have replacement tiles I'd be inclined to replace the damaged ones provider tiler can make that look seamless and see how that develops over time. Replacing a whole floor could be very messy and expensive depending on area involved.

My tile drama continued tonight :-( 4 of the tiles popped up tonight and cracked, 6 in fact are affected. What caused the tiles to pop? I'm concerned if I go fix these that ill have the same problem again in another few months. I already went to the expense of fixing the other cracked tiles last summer and devastated to be facing into this now. These tiles run throughout the downstairs space so would be big deal to replace...

Underfloor heating ?

tangehayes

BrownFinger wrote: »

Underfloor heating ?

Nope, bog standard rads.

madmac187

My 2c tip all up and get someone to do it, you will have piece of mind. It would seriously annoy me tbh. With regard to builder forget him. He’s an asshole and will not repair/replace. You could get a solicitor and someone to do a report, but it’s all money. The one thing I would say is check your floor, had a similar issue before, turned out concrete floor was cracking goodo and just fell apart as it was mixed on site and poured over a day. The one thing I could say about this issue was it was covered with homebond.

Bonzo Delaney

Was it a liquid screed or concrete ready mix floor.
Liquid screeds can cause havoc with tiles if laid before the screed throughly dries out .

Rows Grower

tangehayes wrote: »

Nope, bog standard rads.

Were the tiles that popped over where the rad pipes run under the concrete by any chance?

tangehayes

Bonzo Delaney wrote: »

Was it a liquid screed or concrete ready mix floor.
Liquid screeds can cause havoc with tiles if laid before the screed throughly dries out .

Not sure to be honest I'm afraid, id say whatever is most common. We had a few delays during the build so would have thought plenty of time to dry up?

When the tiles came up this evening, the bottom of them was as clean as it would have been out of the pack, im guessing that's not normal?

tangehayes

Rows Grower wrote: »

Were the tiles that popped over where the rad pipes run under the concrete by any chance?

No i don't think so but can't be 100% sure. Should have paid more attention during the build! The floor isn't any warmer than any other part of floor if that helps.

tangehayes

What the tiles look like...

Rows Grower

tangehayes wrote: »

What the tiles look like...

Looks awful, it could be that the adhesive wasn't moist/fresh enough when the tiles were laid with it.

Could also be because it was a standard adhesive used instead of the more expensive flexible adhesive that should have been used.

Either way, just lift the rest of them and get it done properly.

tangehayes

Hopefully my last question! The tiles currently run under all the kitchen units, island etc. If we were to replace the tiles, how would that work? Do we have to take apart the kitchen units?

sydthebeat

tangehayes wrote: »

Hopefully my last question! The tiles currently run under all the kitchen units, island etc. If we were to replace the tiles, how would that work? Do we have to take apart the kitchen units?

Most likely the kitchen has removable kick boards...
So you can tile under with a full tile without to much issue. You may have to cut around the feet though.

tangehayes

tangehayes wrote: »

What the tiles look like...

Wow,
Thats some mess.
Did they break like that by themselves?
There has got to be some other factor if so,would take a massive amount of force to smash them .
Have you a long level you can put on the floor ?

tangehayes

BrownFinger wrote: »

Wow,
Thats some mess.
Did they break like that by themselves?
There has got to be some other factor if so,would take a massive amount of force to smash them .
Have you a long level you can put on the floor ?

The tiles tented up and cracked but then we cracked them further so we could take out the tiles complelty to make it safe and have covered it with a rug as have smallies around.

I have a screen grab from video we took when it happened initially, video is too big to upload - hopefully gives a sense of what it was like...

Bonzo Delaney

Similar observation to above
If the tiles broke like that by themselves I'd hate to say you've a bigger issue than the tiler at fault.
Looks like a concrete floor settlement issue. Or possibly could be a concrete slab expansion and contraction issue.

sydthebeat

I've seen something similar happen before in my house.

After exploring many avenues (leaking pipes, settlement etc) I finally came to the conclusion that it was simply down to wear and tear on the top of the tile, coupled with years of mopping, where the tiles absorbed moisture and simply popped off the ground due to expansion of the tile.
The tile that I had was ceramic with a "grainy" finish though, which may have been more prone to wear.
Your tile looks porcelain with a gloss finish?

tangehayes

So the tiles tented up into a pyramid and each of them had a substantial crack. We then subsequently cracked them further as couldn't leave it as it was - the first pic I posted if after we cracked them ourselves.. Perhaps the screen grab below shows what it looked like initially.

The house is only built 3 years so wouldn't expect wear and tear like that. Its just such a mess and either way we're out of pocket substantially. An engineer came out previously and said that all movement was within reasonable / expected levels. His other comment at the time was that the floor slab exceeded the max range of tiling in any one bay - the room is 12m x 5.5m and that tiles are large format with thin joints. Ill contact him again with this new issue but fear that he'll say the same. We built the house when assigned certification was in place (and cost us extra as result) and extremely frustrating that there's no comeback. Rant over :-(

Dr_Colossus

tangehayes wrote: »

What the tiles look like...

Rows Grower wrote: »

Looks awful, it could be that the adhesive wasn't moist/fresh enough when the tiles were laid with it.

Could also be because it was a standard adhesive used instead of the more expensive flexible adhesive that should have been used.

Either way, just lift the rest of them and get it done properly.

Jees that's bad, as mentioned above any idea of what adhesive was used?

Either way it's an application problem and tiles that size (60x60?) need to have been back buttered and all the trowel lines should have been unidirectional to prevent air getting trapped and preventing adhesion. Looks like the notched trowel was also very small for the size of tile, what spacing is between the lines (6mm?) Tiles that size needed a bigger notch for better coverage/bedding.

In terms of the adhesive I'm guessing quick set was used which is often common on floors so it can be walked on sooner but it's a bit of a pig to work with. Looks like too large an area was troweled and by the time the tiles were layed it was already half set. Tiles then just pressed on rather than rocked back and forth collapsing the adhesive ridges.

Could also have been the case that the adhesive had exceeded it's use by date causing it to set even quicker with little to no chemical adhesion with the tiles.

10-10-20

From the photo of the underside of the tile, you can see that the contact-area with the adhesive is probably acceptable (lets say 80% coverage), but it looks like the adhesive didn't bond very well with the tile (as there is no adhesive left on the underside of the tile). But that doesn't cause tenting/peaking alone. Back-buttering has nothing to do with the tenting, that has to come from a mechanical or thermal/expansion-related cause. But you might have two concurrent defects here - one being an adherence issue and the tenting may have a different cause.
I'd be going down the route of having a discussion with the tile manufacturer or importer and show them the images. See if they know the common failure-mode(s) for these defects.
I'd say that the engineer has well assessed the sub-floor, but do you have other recent defects around the skirting boards, walls or ceilings? Is this a one-off build, and if not, did other householders select and install the same tile; do they have similar issues? If possible, map out the locations of the tented tiles versus the hollow tiles. Also does this only occur during summer/winter months/ when the heating has been on for large parts of the day,/near windows/doors or in high-traffic areas, etc?
But I will add that your engineer might have a valid point alright - Perhaps the tile needs expansion at the joint, but I'd be waiting to hear that from the manufacturer/importer, and then take that up with the builder.

vintcerf

Could this be what happened?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oew4A3mK8jY

How to tile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Way5bMh-eYg

What you might need
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqBGHJzbd6U

Personally I'd rip them up, level the floor and get engineered laminate on (or retile). i know it's annoying to do pay twice

quietsailor

was your house insured under the homebond scheme? It would be worth contacting them and seeing if it was.

Here is a link to their claims webpage

witnessmenow

The tenting sounds like a expansion issue to me

Do you have any expansion joints installed? It would be a roughly 1-2cm strip in-between two rows of tiles, usually a soft silicon material sometimes in-between two metal strips. You should have one installed if you have over 8m (you have 12m right?)

https://www.tilefixdirect.com/blog/2015/06/when-to-add-expansion-joints-to-tiled-floors

tangehayes

witnessmenow wrote: »

The tenting sounds like a expansion issue to me

Do you have any expansion joints installed? It would be a roughly 1-2cm strip in-between two rows of tiles, usually a soft silicon material sometimes in-between two metal strips. You should have one installed if you have over 8m (you have 12m right?)

https://www.tilefixdirect.com/blog/2015/06/when-to-add-expansion-joints-to-tiled-floors

No expansion joints were put in :-(

witnessmenow

tangehayes wrote: »

No expansion joints were put in :-(

I'm not an expert so I could be wrong, but my Dad is a flooring contractor and I used to work for him when I was younger and I remember him telling me that you needed expansion joints on long stretches, I thought he said every 7m but I could be miss remembering (or maybe he is just more cautious than the website)

He has a big room that is tiled with similar tiles as yours, and he has at least 1 expansion joint in it (I can't remember for sure). He does have underfloor heating though

Doop

quietsailor wrote: »

was your house insured under the homebond scheme? It would be worth contacting them and seeing if it was.

Here is a link to their claims webpage

Doesnt homebond only cover structural defects?

Even then they dont have a great reputation for example the pyrite scandal

tangehayes

Thanks everyone for your input, very much appreciated. Would anyone be able to advise who we could get to come out and review the floor situation and advise on a plan of action, I.e. is it a tiler or an engineer? Thanks