Discuss Advice needed - removing tiles from backer board after bad job in the Australia Tiling Forum area at TilersForums.com.

Andy Allen

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Perhaps I'm not explaining it clearly enough, or its just something I'm being fussy about. However, if you stand in the shower the grout lines don't point straight ahead but slightly to the left, with cuts getting smaller on the wall to the left, and cuts getting bigger to the wall on the right.
The small cuts by the brick wall don't bother me as they will be covered by boxing anyway.

How can you tell the walls are out? From a layman's point of view, it looks like the whole lot would have looked straight if he had worked off either the door or brick wall.

The timer admitted himself to that it was out, so whilst I do welcome further discussion does anyone also know how easy it is to remove the old tiles without damaging the backer board?
Many thanks

When you tile a floor you have to square it off of something looking at your photos if he squared off the brick wall it would look out of square in the doorway same on the opposite wall if he squared off the door wall looks to me like he's tried to avrage it out on both walls not worring about the small cut on the brick wall as it's being boxed in......
 
O

Old Mod

The answer to the setting out really is to set it out urself isn't it.
U can see basically how it will look from what's been done.
So if ur tiler is happy to change it for u then surely the resolution to the setting out will be for u to guide the tiler, and show him how u want it set, then there can be no more heartache.
This isn't a smart *** reply, it's just the easiest solution.
You can tell from the responses here that it's a close call, believe me if members thought there was something fundamentally wrong they WILL say!
Well if I was ur tiler, I'd want u to set it out for me!
 
G

gmt1981

I completely understand that you have to have some unequal cuts somewhere, but they should have been under the shower tray and in the back wall, both of which would have been hidden.

He initially set out his laser line along the brick wall showing equal cuts along the length of the wall. For some reason he then used the back wall as a base line which cause the tiles to be off.

The shower tray is square to the two longest walls. It's just the back wall (furthest wall in the photo that is slightly out.

If you were to have done the job yourself, and on the basis the two longest walls are absolutely parallel, wouldn't it seem logical to use these walls to set out rather than the back wall.

The tiler is a nice guy and if I'm being unreasonable then I may contribute to the rectification costs.
 
G

gmt1981

Another couple of photos to show the room appears perfectly square.
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
 
C

Colour Republic

I'm sorry to say put putting down a square like that proves nothing.

it appears the tray has been installed square off the door wall. There is boxing on the opposite shower enclosure wall which I presume is to hide pipe work and make the opening the correct size for the tray. That is not to say that the long brick wall is square like you possibly think. Get a long stright edge say 2m and but that hard against the tiles on the boxing. does that brick wall run true?

To be honest what ever you do you are going to have something that doesn't line up. Once you place the toilet against that back wall, the pan is going to go at a funny angle.. unless of course you build boxing behind it and square the toilet with the shower... but hang on, you're then going to see the top of the boxing run out... and so on

I notice you don't have any waste for the basin. I assume you're going to run this along the wall and in to the macerator behind the toilet... is that waste going to be boxed in?

You're looking at it in it's worst possible state as the room clear. By the time the WC and basin are installed you're going to see much less of the floor and other items to confuse the eye and not see just how un-square the room is.

If you wanted everything to run true then the room should have been altered beforehand. You have chosen to use the brick wall as a feature and as such everything should have been engineered off that. Be it with dot and dabbing plaster board or building studwork... altering door frames etc if need be. However seeing as you are tight for space as it is I guess that wasn't an option.

I'm not saying what your tiler has done is what I would have done, as unless I was in the room figuring out just exactly what walls were out and which aren't then it's a hard for anybody to say if he went with the least offensive layout. How you've used the square doesn't show us much as it's been used incorrectly like I say.

The quality of tiling looks OK from the pictures... the Silicon job not so sadly.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
G

gmt1981

The biggest mistake the tiler made was not to involve you in the set out......However that's not always possible.

The thing is that he did, showing equal length cuts along the brick wall which would be hidden by boxing. This would have allowed almost a full width tile in the door way.

For some reason he decided to do it differently by setting off from the wall opposite the shower tray. He admitted he could see them going off line but continued anyway, so there was little I could do.

With everything in the room there won't be much of the floor to be seen, so I'm tempted to just live with it although I just find it frustrating when you pay good money and aren't happy with the outcome.

Agree the Silicon in the wall tiles is not the best, but I will try and sort that myself as I have time and patience on my side!
 
S

Stocks Tiles

Taking them up is just going to remove this visual "mistake" and create another, it is running visually square to the door wall and once you've filled the brick wall side up with your sanitry stuff it's not going to look out of square as much. Your room is definitely out of square without a doubt, I personally would have set out differently with it being square but everyone is different! I think it's a mistake pulling them up to move it around 30mm or so as this will make the doorway look out by quite a bit and that's going to be a bigger eye sore and look like a real mess up!

To your question though, your boards should be fine if you make the tiler take the tiles up.
 
G

gmt1981

Taking them up is just going to remove this visual "mistake" and create another, it is running visually square to the door wall and once you've filled the brick wall side up with your sanitry stuff it's not going to look out of square as much. Your room is definitely out of square without a doubt, I personally would have set out differently with it being square but everyone is different! I think it's a mistake pulling them up to move it around 30mm or so as this will make the doorway look out by quite a bit and that's going to be a bigger eye sore and look like a real mess up!

To your question though, your boards should be fine if you make the tiler take the tiles up.

Thanks - I think I may just try and live with it.

Out of interest, why would the door way look odd if they are re-laid? If they were to be re done, I.e. twisted to the right by 30mm, the tiles by the doorway would be narrower on the right, and probably unchanged on the left. This would mean they would then roughly equal sizes and in my mind, look normal. Or am I completely missing something?

Thanks again for everyone's help!
 

AliGage

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With everything said, if you knock the tiles round 30mm then the broken grout lines will then look out visually looking into the room. Which could be a bit more unsightly.
It's a tight space, as CR has said, once it's all fitted up you will not see any deviation.

It's rare that any room is 100% square and true. Personally I think your tiler has done a reasonable job.

Find a straight line in the door way and set your square down. If it runs true to the grout lines there, then there is no doubt your room is wonky donkey.
 

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Advice needed - removing tiles from backer board after bad job
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