Hi,
I was hoping I might get some advice with a cracked tiling issue I am experiencing.
We had a new bathroom installed about a year ago, and noticed the other day that half the top two rows of tiles along an interior brick wall are cracked.
We had a closer look around the bathroom, and found that there are also odd tiles cracked all over the bathroom. Some cracked right across, some with just barely visible hairline cracks a few inches long, a couple are blown out, as if hit from behind.
We are somewhat stumped as to the cause of this.
3 of the 4 walls have cracked tiles. All walls are solid brick.
The ceiling was plasterboarded over and skimmed before the tiling was done.
There are Silicon joins in the corners around the bath/shower, but all other corners and joins to ceiling are grouted to the corners.
The tiles are 500mmx250mm from Tile Giant.
We contacted the plumber who oversaw the job, and he is as stumped as we are at the moment. He is going to talk to the tiler, and in the meantime is going try to find out if there have been reported issues with the tile type/batch, and contact the adhesive manufacturer to check for issues and possible reactions (?).
Although I trust he will get to the bottom of the issue, we are a little concerned and hoped to get some 3rd party independent advice from some of you as to what might be the cause.
The only thoughts I have are:
It could be a bad batch of adhesive, or expired adhesive (if that is a thing?).
Possibly some kind of expansion that did not have adequate gaps left?
A mistake made by the tiler?
Some, but not all, of the tiles sound hollow when tapped as if there is a gap or air pocket behind them. Could air pockets left between tiles and adhesive expand with enough pressure to crack tiles?
My final thought is that I have noticed that the tiles that are cracked are all on areas of the walls that were painted, not tiled when the previous bathroom was in. (The tiles only went halfway up the wall and the top half was painted. The paint was typical water resistant, wipable bathroom paint, and was done by previous owner, who generally did not prepare well before painting and so the layer itself may not have been particularly sound itself). Is it possible that if the paint was not removed/prepared/keyed/bonded/stabilised first that it could be coming loose and cause cracking? It would make perfect sense to me if they were falling off, but could this actually cause cracking? If this were the case, should the tiler have not dealt with the paint before tiling, rather than tiling over it?
Again, this is just an observation and could be just a coincidence.
Any thought on this issue would be gratefully appreciated.
Thanks in advance
James
I was hoping I might get some advice with a cracked tiling issue I am experiencing.
We had a new bathroom installed about a year ago, and noticed the other day that half the top two rows of tiles along an interior brick wall are cracked.
We had a closer look around the bathroom, and found that there are also odd tiles cracked all over the bathroom. Some cracked right across, some with just barely visible hairline cracks a few inches long, a couple are blown out, as if hit from behind.
We are somewhat stumped as to the cause of this.
3 of the 4 walls have cracked tiles. All walls are solid brick.
The ceiling was plasterboarded over and skimmed before the tiling was done.
There are Silicon joins in the corners around the bath/shower, but all other corners and joins to ceiling are grouted to the corners.
The tiles are 500mmx250mm from Tile Giant.
We contacted the plumber who oversaw the job, and he is as stumped as we are at the moment. He is going to talk to the tiler, and in the meantime is going try to find out if there have been reported issues with the tile type/batch, and contact the adhesive manufacturer to check for issues and possible reactions (?).
Although I trust he will get to the bottom of the issue, we are a little concerned and hoped to get some 3rd party independent advice from some of you as to what might be the cause.
The only thoughts I have are:
It could be a bad batch of adhesive, or expired adhesive (if that is a thing?).
Possibly some kind of expansion that did not have adequate gaps left?
A mistake made by the tiler?
Some, but not all, of the tiles sound hollow when tapped as if there is a gap or air pocket behind them. Could air pockets left between tiles and adhesive expand with enough pressure to crack tiles?
My final thought is that I have noticed that the tiles that are cracked are all on areas of the walls that were painted, not tiled when the previous bathroom was in. (The tiles only went halfway up the wall and the top half was painted. The paint was typical water resistant, wipable bathroom paint, and was done by previous owner, who generally did not prepare well before painting and so the layer itself may not have been particularly sound itself). Is it possible that if the paint was not removed/prepared/keyed/bonded/stabilised first that it could be coming loose and cause cracking? It would make perfect sense to me if they were falling off, but could this actually cause cracking? If this were the case, should the tiler have not dealt with the paint before tiling, rather than tiling over it?
Again, this is just an observation and could be just a coincidence.
Any thought on this issue would be gratefully appreciated.
Thanks in advance
James
