Thanks again for your replies. Attached are pics of the regrouting done about 10 days ago which we are not happy with. Difficult maybe to see as it's all white but there is silicone/grout where there shouldn't be.
One of the posters asked if it was a wet room. No it's a shower with sliding door on marine plywood, over three walls. Some mat tiles from Fired Earth, with a mosaic band about two third up the wall. Products used to fix/grout the tiles were Fired Earth.
First we had plumbing problems as soon as the shower head was in place - described in previous post. Then water carried on leaking down in the room below but apparently not from a plumbing problem.
It appeared water was going through the grout.
About 2 weeks after that, a total of 8 wall tiled cracked over the 3 walls (all below the mosaic) with 2 tiles cracked on the left wall, 5 on the wall facing the shower screen, 1 on the right hand wall (where the shower head is). The tiles were cracked in half, apart from one on the left wall which is cracked in a corner. On the wall facing the shower screen, there was a linear line emerging in the cracking. However, on the other walls, there was no particular pattern. In addition, the grout was cracking in many places in the shower, both horizontally and vertically. It looked like the grout has coming away from the tiles.
The builder didn't want to remove cracked tiles or investigate further claiming we needed a guarantee from the tile company that it wasn't the tiles or their grout. The tile company agreed to send someone who concluded to bad workmanship/substrate movement.
We put that to the builder who said his tiler would remove cracked tiles and an area of tiles on the wall where it appeared the grout was soaking the water and have a look. He also said he would remove the grout and regrout. Tiles were removed and replaced but not the grout. The builder didn't mention it to us when he left for the day. We noticed it and phoned him that evening. He then explained the 'old' grout was like cement. We insisted that he had agreed to remove any areas of cracked grout - the following day a small proportion of 'old' grout were removed but new grout was applied (or should I say smeared) on top of the old.
The leaking has apparently stopped or maybe another layer of silicone was applied somewhere we don't know. But it seems to us that water is still probably getting behind the tiles (there are still cracked grout in area + there is a tiny hole in the new grout) though we can't prove it as there is no leak.
Your views on
- quality of workmanship on regrout-- we think it's bad but don't want to be unfair.
- what to do next - having agreed that he would only replace the tiles/regrout, and not the substrate, can we now turn round and say it's not satisfactory ...
- do we need to give him another chance to correct the regrout?
Thanks in advance and apologies for the waffling
