Cracked tiles

[ken birmingham]

Hi, I`m Ken from South Africa, I have a problem with floor tiles cracking when slight house movement occurs, ( House movement is the norm here ). Is there any method I can use when laying new tiles which will stop this happening again.

 

[Mike]

It depends how much movement. Sites matting would help with some lateral movement

tapatalk on my HTC

 

[ken birmingham]

Thanks Mike

 

[Mike]

ditra matting that was meant to say, predictive text on my phone sorry

 

[ken birmingham]

O.K.Mate, thanks again

 

[kilty55]

hello ken,when you say movement can you tell us the make up of the property?

i assume you have timber floors,have they been prepared for tiling...any info would be great on the substrate and make up of the floors

 

[ken birmingham]

Hi, The floors are solid concrete

 

[Yorkshire Tiling Services]

use a de-coupling membrane

 

[Ajax123]

Also depends on the typeof movement.if itis horizontalthen ditra or similar may be an answer. This will not however cope with differential horizontal movements. Wy does the floor move?? You say this is normal in SA so i assume it is some sort of ground heave or swell?

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Hi and:welcome: as above, reason for movment subsidence? expansion/ contration etc?

 

[White Room]

Hi and welcome..

 

[ken birmingham]

I`d like to say thanks to everyone who have replied to my thread, In the Pretoria area where I live the houses are mainly built on clay,in the summer the ground becomes hot with the sun for quite along period and in the winter it becomes very cold and sometimes we get frost. As today the temp is 36deg C, the water temp in the outside swimming pool ( I`m not swanking, it the norm here ) is 28deg C. In the winter it the temp outside can go down to - 2deg C. We also only get our rain in the summer and not the winter.

 

[ken birmingham]

Hi Phil, how`s Oldham these days, I moved from Failsworth 29 yrs ago to sunny South Africa, but now it`s so hot I wish we had some good old Oldham rain.

 

[kilty55]

hi ken are there expansion joints in the floors and are all rooms tiled adjoining with one another

also how are the tiles finished round the perimeter are they cut tight to boards and grouted or otherwise?

 

[kilty55]

also are they ceramics

 

[DHTiling]

Hello and welcome..

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Hi Phil, how`s Oldham these days, I moved from Failsworth 29 yrs ago to sunny South Africa, but now it`s so hot I wish we had some good old Oldham rain.

Hi Ken, Oldham is still wet mate, hope you can find some answers here. Keep the info coming, and I'm sure you will.

 

[White Room]

If it's clay ground it will shrink in the summer and expand in the winter months if and when you have rain..

 

[ken birmingham]

Hi Kilty, The house is tiled right through with no expansion joints, the skirting is tiled. All joints are grouted. The problem lies where one room meets another, the distance of the crack is 6 tiles in a straight line, so as you can imagine it is in the middle of a large tiled area, so lifting all the tiles is unfortunatly out of the question.If I remove the cracked tiles is there any method I could use to stitch across the area where I remove the tiles from.

 

[Mike]

the concrete can be stitch repaired with resin. it sounds like you need expansion joints throughout also

 

[ken birmingham]

Do I buy the resin in a kit, if I used a resin stitch should I also use flexible adhesive & expansion joints in the replaced tiles

 

[ken birmingham]

Do I buy the resin in a kit, if I used a resin stitch should I also use flexible adhesive & expansion joints in the replaced tiles

 

[kilty55]

hi ken.so the tiles are cracking in areas where one room meets another

i would install expansion joints inbetween all rooms where they join

yes use flexible materials imo,is there no other cracking apart from adjoining room areas?

 

[ken birmingham]

Just a few very small ones across doorways.

 

[kilty55]

install expansion joints in these area sif possible this may solve the issue