Granite Floor Restoration

ron schenker

Customer has a granite floor in the front entrance hallway that looks beautiful but feels uneven under bare feet. Some corners are not the same height (off by about 1/32 lippage) and other tiles are slightly low along the edges. Rather than redo the whole floor, would a restoration job work? Grinding, honing, and polishing isn't cheap but probably less messy and expensive than tearing it out and laying new tile. I have little experience with this restoration process and will contract it to a pro....

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ron schenker

Here's a picture.

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Teetorbilt

I think that you answered your own question. Call in the pro's.

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reveivl

How 'bout tell 'em to relax, ignore it and send them a bill for consulting? I mean 1/32"? What are they doing on it? Playing shuffleboard?

I know, I know, the customer is always right bla bla. Just venting, Rich.

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415moto

nah, i agree. 1/32 lippage? holy hell. 1/16 (if thats a 1/8 grout line) to 1/8 yeah i can see. but 1/32. go to a mall thats likely done with union setters and take an edge to the floor, youll find spots with even 1/8 of lip...and thats likely with a 1/4 grout line.

ron schenker

Very picky HO in a $800,00 home who loves to keep up with the Jones's and if they can't slide along the floor in their stocking feet smoothly, they're not happy.
BTW, there are some spots that are up 1/16"
Is there some kind of hard acrylic type sealer that can be applied and kinda self level the floor without grinding, and honing.

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jvcstone

Ron,
You might find some sort of acrylic top coat for the floor, but that would be the absolute worst thing that could be done to the stone, and lead to all sorts of other trouble down the road. In my mind, that is not excessive lippage for tiles of that size.( well the 16th might be) Home owner wants a perfectly flat surface--than only thing that can be done is a grind in place and re-polish. It will cost $$$$.

JVC

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John VanCamp
www.jvcstoneworks.com

ron schenker

JVC...have you got a rough idea on the cost to grind and polish 220 sq.ft.

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MattCoops

unless they plan on ice skating on it, I don't think a 1/32" difference is all that severe
The reason for this is simply the tile was laid with improper thin-set application. There can be spots (such as corners) where there was a glob too much of thin-set applied.

If they are that much perfectionist, mark the tiles that need to be "leveled" and come up with a price per tile to rip up, scrape sub clean, lay tile, grout, clean, and seal.
If the homeowner has a box of the tile hanging around, get product # and head to local tile supplier to get price

grinding, polishing will be very much a headache
and you'll probably end up with more work to do

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Matt with Cupan Custom Tile & Paint of Lowell, Massachusetts
Design and installation of ceramic tile and natural stone for floor, wall, and countertops
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jvcstone

Ron, this is something that I don't do, and the price would vary from location to location. Since there is a policy about mentioning other sites here, I'll PM you a link.

JVC

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John VanCamp
www.jvcstoneworks.com

hipo.wong

I agree with reveivl,that's not a big deal

Bud Cline

Let's examine this issue for a moment or two. First of all this lippage occurance probably IS NOT the result of "a glob too much of thinset applied". That makes no since. When thinset is spread globs or no globs the viscosity is going to be the same. When using a notched trowel there are no globs as a rule. Granted an abubdance of thinset in an area could result in an elevation variable but not very likely. The thinset will disburse itself along the plane of the tile bottom fairly evenly, globs usually wouldn't be present and if they were they wouldn't necessarily be a problem.

I should mention that 1/32" lippage variable is within industry tolerance and frankly this conversation is just for fun cause there is nothing wrong with that floor.

Moving along......
1. The problem is more than likely either a variance in the thickness of the stone slab (tile) as it comes from the manufacturer, which also has acceptable tolerances.

2. All stone tiles have the ability to warp. Warpage by-the-way also has acceptable tolerances within the industry. It would not be at-all unusual to have some granite tiles with which the corners are experiencing some warpage.

3. The substrate may have been out-of-plane (which is probably the true cause) or the lippage may be occurring at a seam location if the subfloor was originally wood and CBU was applied. If the subfloor is concrete then God knows how flat (plane) concrete is and that some measures to plane the surface are usually required before installing a stone tile.

All-in-all I am reasonably sure that "globs" are not the cause and that the floor is within acceptable standards set-forth by the industry. If it doesn't meet the "socks test" that doesn't mean redoing the floor will result in anything better than what exists now. I doubt it will.

In my personal opinion, this is one of those jobs that a guy should stay away from. Right now (ron) it isn't your worry and if you contract to redo an already acceptable job you have then bought the next failure lock-stock-and granite.

This stuff is all in books and readily available to anyone that cares to make a small investment in their future and their trade. That floor is a good one, if it ain't broke don't fix it!

www.tileusa.com (tca publications)

A137.1
A108.1A3.3.7

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