R
rhgnag
Hi Guys,
Thanks for putting together a great site it has answered many of my technical questions about the proper way to go about things. My reason for posting is I am afraid not because I have any great expertise to offer you but that I have a major problem with the tiling installation in my new bathroom and shower room.
We have been renovating our house for several months. He recommended a tiler who appears to have been very conscientious and careful about his installation. He installed tiles in our downstairs loo, kitchen floor and 1st floor bathroom and shower room. The tiler says he has used the same general approach for all the suspended floors in terms of using a mat and a high quality flexible adhesive.
The kitchen floor seems rock solid even though it is a suspended floor it is on a brand new 25mm ply with new treated joists, and the floor was reinforced so it could take the worksurfaces in the kitchen. The tiler used a ditra mat in the kitchen.
The bathrooms on the first floor which have the problem (on the floor only), on the other hand are on an existing suspended wooden floor, albeit one that was partially braced by the builders. The builders overlaid with 9mm ply as a base for the tiles. I asked them at the time if this was enough, as I have some amateur experience several years ago from our last renovation project before mats were so widely used where we used 12mm ply. I was told that in combination with a mat it would be fine, and they had also fixed any loose board before putting down the ply.
The bathroom floors were laid about 3 months ago, and due to the invasive nature of the renovation we have only been back in for about 6 weeks. A couple of weeks ago I noticed some creaking / crunching in the floor, and this seemed to be spreading. The grout was not visibly cracking and no tiles were lifting, but the floor was moving so figured they would. I then noticed a couple of hairline cracks a few days ago.
I spoke to to the builder about it as I suspected the ply was not fixed or was flexing and convinced him we needed to lift some tiles to see what the problem was. Well when we lifted a couple of tiles the crunching / flexing appears to have been coming from the mat. It appears the mat used in the bathroom which is not Ditra and looks like Genesis G-Matt, but could possibly be something else has separated into two sections. The bottom section is very firmly fixed to the ply to the point that it would be very difficult to remove at all, and the tiles seemed to be well adhered to the top of the mat.
When the installation was done in those rooms, there was no heating in the house, and the room was damp after plastering and adhesive etc. It was also quite cold, but I doubt below 5 Celsius inside.
The general consensus was that the mat had failed. However I am concerned that this is not the whole story. The ply does seem generally well fixed, although there is possibly some very small amount of vertical movement from the area exposed from lifting the tiles. The trouble is I now have a hard time to convince the builder to prepare the floor again, and TBH removing the ply is not going to be pretty. Does anyone know what could have caused this? Could it just be a manufacturing fault on the mat, or is this just a symptom of the real failure? Also what should I do from here rip all the ply out even if it is sound or could be improved by further fixings. This would probably involve tiling over the bottom half of the old mat as it is so firmly adhered.
Any help or advice on this would be very gratefully received.
Rob
Thanks for putting together a great site it has answered many of my technical questions about the proper way to go about things. My reason for posting is I am afraid not because I have any great expertise to offer you but that I have a major problem with the tiling installation in my new bathroom and shower room.
We have been renovating our house for several months. He recommended a tiler who appears to have been very conscientious and careful about his installation. He installed tiles in our downstairs loo, kitchen floor and 1st floor bathroom and shower room. The tiler says he has used the same general approach for all the suspended floors in terms of using a mat and a high quality flexible adhesive.
The kitchen floor seems rock solid even though it is a suspended floor it is on a brand new 25mm ply with new treated joists, and the floor was reinforced so it could take the worksurfaces in the kitchen. The tiler used a ditra mat in the kitchen.
The bathrooms on the first floor which have the problem (on the floor only), on the other hand are on an existing suspended wooden floor, albeit one that was partially braced by the builders. The builders overlaid with 9mm ply as a base for the tiles. I asked them at the time if this was enough, as I have some amateur experience several years ago from our last renovation project before mats were so widely used where we used 12mm ply. I was told that in combination with a mat it would be fine, and they had also fixed any loose board before putting down the ply.
The bathroom floors were laid about 3 months ago, and due to the invasive nature of the renovation we have only been back in for about 6 weeks. A couple of weeks ago I noticed some creaking / crunching in the floor, and this seemed to be spreading. The grout was not visibly cracking and no tiles were lifting, but the floor was moving so figured they would. I then noticed a couple of hairline cracks a few days ago.
I spoke to to the builder about it as I suspected the ply was not fixed or was flexing and convinced him we needed to lift some tiles to see what the problem was. Well when we lifted a couple of tiles the crunching / flexing appears to have been coming from the mat. It appears the mat used in the bathroom which is not Ditra and looks like Genesis G-Matt, but could possibly be something else has separated into two sections. The bottom section is very firmly fixed to the ply to the point that it would be very difficult to remove at all, and the tiles seemed to be well adhered to the top of the mat.
When the installation was done in those rooms, there was no heating in the house, and the room was damp after plastering and adhesive etc. It was also quite cold, but I doubt below 5 Celsius inside.
The general consensus was that the mat had failed. However I am concerned that this is not the whole story. The ply does seem generally well fixed, although there is possibly some very small amount of vertical movement from the area exposed from lifting the tiles. The trouble is I now have a hard time to convince the builder to prepare the floor again, and TBH removing the ply is not going to be pretty. Does anyone know what could have caused this? Could it just be a manufacturing fault on the mat, or is this just a symptom of the real failure? Also what should I do from here rip all the ply out even if it is sound or could be improved by further fixings. This would probably involve tiling over the bottom half of the old mat as it is so firmly adhered.
Any help or advice on this would be very gratefully received.
Rob
