Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is liftin

[Herindoors]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

Yes, the UFH temp was first turned up to 17 degrees (& left that way for the entire summer).

 

[Dan]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

I've now registered hence a reply not coming from unregistered.

I'll try and answer the questions raised.

Yes, the tiler has said he'll remove the tiles and replace them & remove what adhesive he can but that the finished floor level will increase by 5mm, so I'm assuming that there will be some old adhesive left behind that is causing the floor level to increase. He is not replacing the UFH.

We can categorically prove that the UFH was not connected or commissioned for 4 weeks after the mat & and tiles were laid. Has anyone heard of adhesive requiring longer than 7-14 days before the UFH is first turned on or that thermal shock can occur well after this?

Would you expect Granfix to have confirmed in writing to the tiler that they believe the failure to be down to thermal shock and would that include some level of explanation behind why that is the case i.e test report on sample adhesive?

Yes, the problem is on both the old and newly screed floors but is patchy, there are also other areas of the floor that have UFH which are fine.

If I were you, for the sake of a couple of hundred quid, I'd pull up the heating too, and replace it at my own cost, and start again with a fresh floor - just for peace of mind.

You could perhaps write to Granfix yourself and ask for their opinion in writing perhaps. But if it ever went to court I would imagine they have proof that it is thermal shock if they are saying that's what it is (might be worth you getting it in writing though as the tiler could perhaps be saying that?).

The 5mm increase will perhaps be down to the fact that the heating cables have been covered in self-levelling-compound, the tiler wont want to dig into that else he could damage the heating cables. I can't imaging how time consuming it would be to get the adhesive up without damaging SLC though. Perhaps hence the increase in height as he'll avoid digging into that.

If it's coming up anyway, take up a tile yourself and take some pictures for us and perhaps we can help a little more. Though it sounds like you're near a solution to be fair. Just replace the heating at your own cost (perhaps speak to Varme see if they can discount it for you given the situation) and get the tiler to rip the lot up (would be much quicker to do that) and start again.

If you're unhappy with the granfix thing, consider using Mapei or some other adhesive brand maybe.

 

[Dan]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

Yes, the UFH temp was first turned up to 17 degrees (& left that way for the entire summer).

I was always told to turn the heating on to the temperature the floor is already reading, and leave it at that for 24 hours. Then increase it by a degree every 24 hours until it reaches it's maximum temperature after a week or more, then leave it a couple of days, then use it as you wish. Some even bring it back down a degree or two once it's reached it's maximum so you've slowly got the floor to it's warmest temperature and also back down to normal temperature.

Sticking it on to a certain (quite highish) temperature from cold (especially if adhesives are still curing) will shock the floor.

That all said, your floor could have been 17 degrees perhaps from the start so maybe it was okay to set that temperature?

 

[Rookery]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

I've had 1 heated floor fail on me in many years of tiling. When I lifted the tiles, it was evident that thermal shock was the cause as you could see the continuous crack in the latex and adhesive exactly following where the cable was underneath. The customer maintained he followed my commisioning instructions though I doubted it and still do. In the end I rectified the problem at my expense to maintain my reputation.

 

[Herindoors]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

The UFH temp was set at 17 but it was quite a warm summer that year & I recall the electrician telling us that he had to take the UFH at commission up to about 20-21 to match the floor temp as measured by the UFH sensor/probe in the floor, this was just to check it worked, they then took the temp on the thermostat back to 17 which I assume had the effect of turning off the elements until the floor temp fell below 17 (at night maybe?), as previously said I don't think the UFH fired up that much until we started increasing the temp gradually a couple of months later.

 

[Herindoors]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

Thanks for that, is cracking of the adhesive a common symptom of thermal shock?

I am pretty sure there was no cracking to the adhesive, the only thing I remember the tiler commenting on was that the adhesive had a funny orange tinge to it and that he'd never seen it before, nobody spotted (or commented on) any cracking.

I know I need to get a tile up, we'll get there!

 

[Herindoors]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

Will definately write to Granfix, if only to see for myself that somehow we've caused it (& be ultra cautious in getting the UFH commissioned as described by another poster), will replace UFH at our cost too as have no desire to go through this again.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Herindoors]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

Been a while, but we've had a couple of tiles removed (these tiles could be rocked/moved easily, had a hollow sound when tapped on most of the tile surfaces). See attached photos, any comments/advice gratefully received.

Tiler has still failed to provide a copy of any report from the samples he took & Granfix have been helpful and can't locate any report ref. adhesive samples concerning our address, we will be supplying them with these photos and some grout and adhesive samples for test.

Of the tiles removed, the grout was very easy to scrape out with a Stanley knife and could be easily crushed into powder betweenour fingers, there was no adhesive stuck to the underside of any of the tiles (they were not damaged whatsoever during their removal) and we were able to lever chunks of adhesive off the backer board that is beneath the tiles & adhesive fairly easily (only tools used can be seen in the photos). The partial tile has no UFH beneath it, the whole tile (40x40cm, don't know how I got to 60x60 as stated in one of my previous posts) has UFH to half of the tile. Some of the adhesive has gone an orange colour, some is still grey, not sure if this is significant.

 

[DHTiling]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

Pic 2 say's it all...

 

[White Room]

Re: Help, what could be wrong with my porcelain tiled floor that is li

How thick are the dobs of adhesive.....