Bathroom tiles soaking up water

[Mandie]

Hello,

I wonder if someone can please give me some tiling advice.

We have had a new bathroom installation. Everything looked great and I was initially really happy with the new bathroom which included a new shower enclosure with white tiles on the walls. Using the shower for the first time (after about 10 days since the grouting) I noticed that the tiles in the shower started to go gray at the edges. I thought this might be water seeping through the grout and getting behind the tiles.

I had the tiler and tile supplier come and have a look. They could not understand how this could have happened as the grout is waterproofed and the tiles glazed. I was given a can of spray and told to spray the grout lines as this would prevent water from getting behind the tiles. I haven't sprayed and tested yet as I was wondering if this is normal procedure? I'm not too happy that I should have to do this. I've had a look on-line but can't seem to find anything useful. Any advice would be very welcome.

Thank you.

/Mandie

 

[Stef]

Hi, I'm not sure about this but it does sound like water is seeping into the grout.
No grout is waterproof, grout is water resistant not waterproof.

 

[thompsonbrown]

On certain ceramic tiles the glaze can be of poor quality around the edges, thus allowing water to seep through the grout lines.
Using a grout sealer wont hurt but its a temp fix and not the cure.

 

[Chalker]

Could there be a leaking pipe behind the tiles.?

 

[TJ Smiler]

It's possible that your grout is sitting slightly to far back in the tile join and exposing a small amount of the clay backing that ceramics are made of, this could be sucking in some of the water.

Could be a few reasons but let it dry out and then put the spray on it and see how it goes.