Retro fit ufh & Hydrogen gas causes floor failure.

[Andy Allen]

How many tiles you replacing ?
If it all going to fail are you not just put a sticky plaster over it....

 

[WetSaw]

So now that the foil has had a coating of adhesive and the chemical reaction has occurred is it that, for want of a better term, it's all burnt out and it has nothing left to react?

To quote Nick Knowles "Tiling is easy, any old fool can do it"

 

[Dumbo]

Yes

It seems very hard to understand this when you beat around the bush when somebody asks you question

 

[Old Mod]

How many tiles you replacing ?
If it all going to fail are you not just put a sticky plaster over it....

Bout 10 Andy, yes quite possibly.
All the indications are that it will ultimately fail, but you know how it goes
"I've been using hardboard on my floors for 20 years, never had a problem!"
Sometimes that's true, sometimes it's not.

 

[Old Mod]

So now that the foil has had a coating of adhesive and the chemical reaction has occurred is it that, for want of a better term, it's all burnt out and it has nothing left to react?

To quote Nick Knowles "Tiling is easy, any old fool can do it"

It's not been down very long Paul and aluminium is still visible in places, and everything we've read would suggest that it will continue to react until either the aluminium or cement has been removed.

This reaction is actually used in a controlled way in certain circumstances.
Heavy machinery supports for example, when the support legs are concreted in they use a grout made up of cement and aluminium powder.
When the elements react and the expansion takes place, it fills any voids remaining in the concrete.

 

[Simons70]

It's not been down very long Paul and aluminium is still visible in places, and everything we've read would suggest that it will continue to react until either the aluminium or cement has been removed.

This reaction is actually used in a controlled way in certain circumstances.
Heavy machinery supports for example, when the support legs are concreted in they use a grout made up of cement and aluminium powder.
When the elements react and the expansion takes place, it fills any voids remaining in the concrete.

Oh no,
We have to go back to school to learn chemistry,Mendeleev...

 

[Old Mod]

Oh no,
We have to go back to school to learn chemistry,Mendeleev...

You may be correct Ed.

 

[Italy]

Is it similar to this ?

 

[Old Mod]

Tractor Antonio.

 

[Italy]

Tractor Antonio.

I laid a bathroom floor ....

 

[Italy]

I leaned, a 6 mm panel, cement type. Then, h40 extreme (epoxy) adhesive.

 

[Old Mod]

Ok, so to the temp fix we came up with, I say temporary because we just don't know how much it will help. Maybe too little, too late.
After removing all the actual broken tiles, we cleaned the areas as best we could and replaced them using the specified adhesive, Kerrabond T and isolastic two part adhesive, which does not require priming.
We then cut control joints every 5 courses, full width of the room, and added a cold joint in a colour match Silicon to lessen the impact of the joints visually.
In the areas where tiles were crunching underfoot but not broken, we opened up the joints in what we hoped was strategic points and flooded them with a very runny mix of Isolastic and Kerr bond T.
We had tried it the day before in the cloakroom and it appeared we had had some success with the idea.
How effective it will be long term is anybody's guess, but far short of a complete rip out we felt it was our best chance of giving the client some time to sort out what they want to do further down the line.
They're fully aware our efforts could be a waste of time, but it'll give them some breathing space.

It's also worth mentioning that the tiler said that expansion joints in this floor were not needed!
Another issue that we disagreed with.





Finished floor.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

You can only do your best! !

 

[Old Mod]

You can only do your best! !

We couldn't actually make changes John, as they're still assessing their position with the main contractor and so on.
We didn't change the integrity of the floor, such as it is, just replaced broken tiles.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Understood!
Could be short term but what you did hopefully provided an answer to the way forward.