Information On Fixing A Bad Tile Job

bford

Good morning, a good client of mine wants to fix her tiled kitchen floor. Her problems with the floor were loose or broken tile and cracked grout all over. I removed 5 sq ft and the tile was not bonded at all. I could reuse the tile , it was that clean. Under the tile tile the thinset was bonded to the concrete subfloor that was installed over electric radiant floor heat over a wood framed deck. This job was installed 15 years ago and has had issues from day one. The thinset is randomly cracked and looks like it may be cracked down to the wooden sub floor 3/4 inch T&G plywood. I will remove the whole floor this week to inspect the whole floor but i expect ther same. This floor was installed in the winter and i expect that the thinset skimmed over becuase of the radiant floor heat causing the zero bonding. The cracks in the concrete maybe happed because the concrete was still green when installed. We would like to retile but we are not removing the concrete and electric heat in the concrete. When the whole tile floor is removed i will see if the concrete is bonded to the wood floor and solid to walk on. If that floor is bad we will not tile. If that floor is solid we would tile. Can i be confident that if i use a renforcing membrane over cracks and thinset the new floor in that it will proform correctly. We plan on not using the floor heat as it was not working well any way. Any help is Appreciated. Thanks bford

Tileworks

How thick is the concrete with the heating over the 3/4" ply? What is causing the concrete to crack? Is there room for expansion? How about joist span, etc?

I am limited in what I can suggest without actually seeing the job myself, but...

If you choose to tile, I wouldn't just reinforced the isolated cracks. I think I would use a sheet membrane from Noble or even Schluter Ditra over all the concrete floor.

(Mods may want to move this to the tile forum)

- Bob

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Classic Tileworks
http://www.classictileworks.com
Ohio Tile and Stone Installation Contractor in the Akron area serving Summit, Portage, Medina, Stark, & Cuyahoga counties in Northeast Ohio

bford

Thanks for the reply. 16 in centers 2X10 13 ft span. I did remove the whole floor and it was still solid with random cracks. not as bad as I thought it would be. Thinset is 90% bonded to the floor and all tile failed to bond.Concrete looks to be about 1 inch thick.. Thanks bford

genecarp

sounds like the primary problem was thinset falure

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Tileworks

Since the thinset bonded to the floor and not the tile, it could be that non-modified dryset mortar was used for this previous install. Sounds like the previous installer didn't back butter his tiles either.

If I could see this floor and determined that the 1" concrete was salvagable, I would use a sheet membrane over the entire floor and a good modified thinset to set the new tile.

- Bob

__________________
Classic Tileworks
http://www.classictileworks.com
Ohio Tile and Stone Installation Contractor in the Akron area serving Summit, Portage, Medina, Stark, & Cuyahoga counties in Northeast Ohio