Help, Grout Has Cracked In New Bathroom. Now What?

[Sienna]

I've had serious problems with a tiler I found on mybuilder and what I've been left with is a bathroom floor which has a heck of a lot of movement and the grout has all cracked.

It's a high water area so obviously I'm extremely worried and it all has to be ripped up. It's a tiny space - only 18 x 33cm square tiles - but the tiler said he would come back twice and then disappeared. He also tiled the WC, and there is movement there too but the grout hasn't cracked (I'm less worried about the movement as there is no shower or bath in this room, but maybe I should be worried?). The problems, I think, are these:

1) He didn't secure a loose floorboard. He then blamed me, saying 'I expect a customer to know their own floor'!!! God forbid he ever works with any of our elderly in this country, or anybody who isn't a tiling expert in fact!

2) He used ditra on top of floorboard and that's it.

Should the floorboards have been removed entirely and replaced with thick ply? As it is, there is a ledge and floorboard and ply would leave a ledge of about an inch!

Would Hardie backer work on top of the existing floorboards? Or not thick and secure enough?

Is the safest way to replace the floorboards with 25mm marine ply (and with ditra as a decoupler on top? Or no ditra?)

I've heard some people say that ply, even marine ply, is inappropriate in a bathroom. What then is appropriate?!

 

[Flintstone]

Sienna, you shouldn’t need to come on here to gain this knowledge. Sounds like he’s a bit of a rogue. Usual practice is to screw any loose floor boards down, over board with cement board such as hardie, or no more ply, or even ply wood but 18mm thick. Post up in the find a Tiler section on here, some one off the forum might be able to help. If there is movement, there’s no way to fix without taking it all
Up and redoing properly

 

[Sienna]

Dear Localtiler thank you very much for this information! And I didn't know about the 'find a tiler' board. I will post there as I'm also going to need an assessment letter for a small claims court unfortunately. They're going to skip off back to Romania I know, but it's worth a try getting some of my money back.

Glad to know that either ply or cement board is dependent on whether movement or not! Thank you!

 

[Flintstone]

There not dependant on movement or not. There should be absolutely no movement whatever you overboard with. My advice regarding small claims court is don’t waste your time, the money you spend arranging that, will cover the cost of having it done correctly, and save you a lot of head ache

 

[Sienna]

Oh as in I meant, if floorboard screwed down with cement board is movement free I'm fine, and if it's not movement free, then I have to rip everything out inc floorboards and lay thick plywood? Or am I misunderstanding?

The small claims court is not about the money. Mybuilder have advised me to do it and I'm genuinely really hurt by these people. I was so nice to them, I gave them a huge tip, I let them into my home and it's just the feeling of betrayal. I wouldn't want them to do this to anybody else.

 

[Dan]

Love a good poll I do lol