Fixing botched floor tiling

[epymsam]

My bathroom fitter - in his professional wisdom laid the porcelain floor tiles I supplied using what he claims to be "part 1" adhesive and grout. (What does part 1 mean?) When the grout started cracking out from between the tiles he claimed that he had mixed it "dry so it would go off quicker" - astounding!

Some of the tiles on the floor are a little loose and so I think I'm going to have to lift these. What is the best way to:

a) remove the grout? Also, do I have to remove it all as the toilet and pedestal are resting on the tiles
b) lift the offending tiles and refix them
c) regrout the area

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[gcol]

Are you sure he said "part 1"? If he did say Part 1, that refers to a German standard for laying tiles - DIN 18157 Part 1 deals with what's called combined laying, where you spread the adhesive onto the floor and also on the back of the tile. There are specific adhesives for this method but they're not what are used generally. What was the subfloor? (What kind of surface did he lay the tiles on? Concrete, floorboards, ply wood etc)

 

[PilotPete]

Or did he just mean one of those 'unirversal' adhesive and grout tubs, i.e. all in '1 part' and no mixing! From my limited research doing my personal tiling project I would hazzard a guess that there was a more suitable product out there!!

 

[gcol]

Single part adhesives or one part adhesives refer to bags of powdered adhesive like this: http://www.building-adhesives.com/bal/bal_products/single_part_flexible.asp
Two part adhesives are, as the name suggests supplied in two parts - the adhesive in a bag and an activator (usually in a tub).

If the poster's tiler was defending his tiling by claiming he was using one part adhesive then that doesn't really mean much - if he was defending his work by saying that he's used adhesive recommended for use with DIN 18157 Part 1 then that's different, but so we can find out what's gone wrong we need to know what the subfloor was that was tiled.

Obviously, if the tiler did what PilotPete said he might of done and used premixed stuff then we need look no further.

 

[epymsam]

Thanks for the reply.

the subfloor is floorboards which have been over-boarded with 12mm waterproof ply. I'm pretty sure that it was a powdered mix, that apparently was flexible. however, it appears that he managed to lay all the tiles and then grout them quickly. He claims that the bathroom is hot and this, combined with the fact that he didn't use much water when mixing the grout means that the grut dried out too quickly, shrank and cracked. Is this possible?

We're not on the best of terms following this botch and so either I'm going to have to fix the tiles myself or get another prefessional tiler in to do it. I guess what I'm looking for is how do I best go about doing this. They are porcelain tiles and so should be pretty strong, but there is definitely some individual movement of some of the tiles, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to relay these at least.

So frsutrating!

 

[gcol]

Well there's flexible adhesive and there's flexible adhesive. I'd like to bet that it wasn't Bal rapidset flexible that he used. http://www.building-adhesives.com/bal/bal_products/rapidset_flexible.asp You have to be so careful with what adhesive you use on wood, some "flexible" stuff is garbage - Granfix flexible adhesive is one such product in my opinion.

Did he use plenty of screws to fix down the ply?

Regarding the mixing of the grout. You never mess about with the product - just mix it as you know you should (peanut butter consistency). The grout contains cement which needs moisture and time to set. If you start limiting that amount of moisture, you'll end up with a weak grout. If you heat the grout it'll dry out before the moisture has fully had chance to react with the cement and again, you'll get a weaker grout. You need to use a decent flexible grout too. Typically the grout isn't as flexible as the adhesive so you can add admix to the grout to improve its flexibility and reduce its permeability - however, the admix is expensive so you'd be as well just going for a very good flexible grout.

If you're sure that the subfloor was screwed down properly (every 8" all over the sheet surface) then just re-fit the loose tiles. If not, then I'd recommend taking up the tiles, screwing down the ply and re-fitting the tiles (if you can salvage them) with Bal Rapidset adhesive and Bal Superflex grout. http://www.building-adhesives.com/bal/bal_products/superflex_wide.asp

If there's one thing that people get wrong when tiling on wood, it's that they try and use cheap adhesive. It's simply a waste of time and money.