Help!Advice needed,cracks in flooring

[deedlemilo]

Hi
We moved into a new house approx 16 months agur downstairs is water fed under floor heating and we have had limestone tiles laid.
Almost immediately cracks appeared in the door ways-the builder blamed our tiler who didnt put expansion joints in.On inspection,none of the door ways have expansion joints in the screed either so reading these forums it seems without these the tiles would have cracked regardless(please correct me if I am wrong!)
Since doing more research and pulling up the carpets in other rooms downstairs I can see very obvious cracks in the screed.
The tiles are now cracking across the rooms-in some cases through 5-6 tiles!
The house has a 10 year buildings guarantee on it but as we sub contracted the tiler I feel the builder is going to be passing the buck(as they have done about the cracks across door ways)
Any advice or info someone could arm me with would be much appreciated.I know that one of neighbours had a similar problem and was compensated but they used the builders tiler rather than finding their own.
The builder and someone from the buildings company are coming next week and I would really like to be prepared with facts to fight our case.
Many thanks in advance

 

[diamondtiling]

Hi welcome to the forums, Not many new builds have expansion joints put into the screed, If you moved in and you noticed problems with the tiles then I would be looking at the screed first, was it dry, did the tiler test it?, did you tell the site manager what you were having put down? he/she should have given you a best course to follow, ie, the screed is still drying so dont put hardwood floors or tiles down as yet, I did a hardwood floor about 6 years ago on a 2 month old house, the wood was in the house for two weeks to acclimatise, after 4 weeks it all lifted so much so that it actually lifted the skirting boards by 50mm, I was prepared to relay at my own cost until I found out about the schedule that the house builder recommends, I followed that schedule and they got it wrong, Your problem is so close to a job I am doing now, you dont live in Crewe do you??

:incazzato::incazzato::incazzato:

 

[doug boardley]

what area (m2) is the tiled screed?

 

[Ajax123]

Hi
The house has a 10 year buildings guarantee on it but as we sub contracted the tiler I feel the builder is going to be passing the buck(as they have done about the cracks across door ways)


All heated screeds should be jointed in door thresholds and at areas where there are significant changes to aspect ratio (length vs width changes e.g. L shaped room).
NHBC handbook used to say that heated sand cement screeds should be split into bays of 15m2 or room size whichever is the smaller. Its a while since I seen this as lost my copy but can't think why they would change that advice. If your 10yr guarantee is NHBC based it may be possible to claim on this cos it sounds like the builder won't want to know. Unfortunately the guideline from BS8204 pt 1 says bay sizes of 40m2 are acceptable. BS1264 reflects BS8204 - both are wrong IMO but that is the way they are. The cracks in the tiles will most likley be a result of the screed cracking. That is likely to be due to shrinkage and curling which is a natural part of cement based screed function. BS8204 Pt 7 for pumpable screeds is much more specific and clearly says joints are required acroos door thresholds.

Was the underfloor heating comissioned and run prior to the tiles being placed.

 

[doug boardley]

Hi
The house has a 10 year buildings guarantee on it but as we sub contracted the tiler I feel the builder is going to be passing the buck(as they have done about the cracks across door ways)


All heated screeds should be jointed in door thresholds and at areas where there are significant changes to aspect ratio (length vs width changes e.g. L shaped room).
NHBC handbook used to say that heated sand cement screeds should be split into bays of 15m2 or room size whichever is the smaller. Its a while since I seen this as lost my copy but can't think why they would change that advice. If your 10yr guarantee is NHBC based it may be possible to claim on this cos it sounds like the builder won't want to know. Unfortunately the guideline from BS8204 pt 1 says bay sizes of 40m2 are acceptable. BS1264 reflects BS8204 - both are wrong IMO but that is the way they are. The cracks in the tiles will most likley be a result of the screed cracking. That is likely to be due to shrinkage and curling which is a natural part of cement based screed function. BS8204 Pt 7 for pumpable screeds is much more specific and clearly says joints are required acroos door thresholds.

Was the underfloor heating comissioned and run prior to the tiles being placed.[/quote]
not to sound patronising or aloof, but Ajax is asking if the underfloor heating was gradually "turned up" prior to your tiles being laid

 

[Ajax123]

Hi
The house has a 10 year buildings guarantee on it but as we sub contracted the tiler I feel the builder is going to be passing the buck(as they have done about the cracks across door ways)


All heated screeds should be jointed in door thresholds and at areas where there are significant changes to aspect ratio (length vs width changes e.g. L shaped room).
NHBC handbook used to say that heated sand cement screeds should be split into bays of 15m2 or room size whichever is the smaller. Its a while since I seen this as lost my copy but can't think why they would change that advice. If your 10yr guarantee is NHBC based it may be possible to claim on this cos it sounds like the builder won't want to know. Unfortunately the guideline from BS8204 pt 1 says bay sizes of 40m2 are acceptable. BS1264 reflects BS8204 - both are wrong IMO but that is the way they are. The cracks in the tiles will most likley be a result of the screed cracking. That is likely to be due to shrinkage and curling which is a natural part of cement based screed function. BS8204 Pt 7 for pumpable screeds is much more specific and clearly says joints are required acroos door thresholds.

Was the underfloor heating comissioned and run prior to the tiles being placed.[/quote]
not to sound patronising or aloof, but Ajax is asking if the underfloor heating was gradually "turned up" prior to your tiles being laid

Sorry Doug - forgot to talk plain english when I got me degree in Applied Chemistry and became a tech manager. Will try harder in future. Mind you looking at my spelling think I should have took typing as well

 

[Fred]

They put the screed down and tiled it too soon, as simple as that. Its all rush, rush, rush in these modern times.

 

[White Room]

Any decoupling membrane laid between the two surfaces

 

[doug boardley]

I don't think it could've been Mark, I was sort of heading that way too

 

[doug boardley]

Sorry Doug - forgot to talk plain english when I got me degree in Applied Chemistry and became a tech manager. Will try harder in future. Mind you looking at my spelling think I should have took typing as well

lol Ajax, the only reason I mentioned it was that sometimes I'm guilty of talking "jargon" and then re-explaining myself to a baffled customer ( but my wife says it's 'cos I'm autistic!!)

 

[deedlemilo]

Thanks everyone for your valuable input.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it was a rush job to be honest!From memory the screed was down 3 weeks before the tiling began.
We made it very clear to the builder that we were having 600 x400 limestone tiles laid throughout.
The heating was gradually turned up before the tiles were laid,this was also turned up gradually after the tiles were laid too,just prior to us moving in as the house was baking when we got the keys.From the day we moved in cracks started to appear across doorways.
The hallway is a large L shape with a size of 28 m2,the kitchen/diner is 40 m2,downstairs loo 4.5 m2 and utility 6 m2.
No decoupling membrane was laid(its only from this forum that we have found out about this)Our tiler came highly recommended so we trusted his judgement and if he had suggested it we would have gone for it.
Oh and we are in Lincs,not Crewe diamondtiling.
From reading all of your advice it would appear we do have a valid case on our hands and fortunately we can pull up the carpet onto adjoining rooms to show the screed cracks.I just know we have a real fight on our hands with the builder taking responsibility.(Considering our snagging list took almost 10 months to complete!)
Once again,thanks very much everyone,its all very much appreciated:hurray: