Walked on a newly tiled floor too soon!

Walked on a newly tiled floor too soon!

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TheRocketSurgeon

Original Poster:

70 posts

73 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
Howdy,

A tiler did a wetroom floor for us yesterday and said that it'd be walkable onable in "a couple of hours". I left the floor "a couple of hours" and then installed a shaver socket etc. Later on I look at the floor tiles and see grout has cracked / squished around a dozen or more tiles (7-8cm wide hexagons) and a few tiles, ones that feel raised compared to others, are totally lose and wobbly, outside of the mesh sheet they're stuck to.

So we left it alone as soon as we noticed, but... argh!

What's the best plan of action here? It's certainly not (visibly) all the floor by any means, maybe... 5% or the grouting? Is it a thing to remove the cracked drought by (with a dremel for example?) and reapply it and move on happily? Any other thoughts appreciated!

Burgmeister

2,206 posts

209 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
Get the tiler back to fix your mistake?

If you DIY then you may forever be looking at an imperfect result which would drive me crazy but your call obviously.

TheRocketSurgeon

Original Poster:

70 posts

73 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
Well I don't necessarily think it's my mistake, he said it'd be fine, it presumably wasn't...

Biggest reason for concern for me is that this is a wetroom, not just a regular bathroom, gotta be perfect right?! Does it sound fixable though?



Edited by TheRocketSurgeon on Wednesday 20th June 09:09

Squiggs

1,520 posts

154 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
I guess after a couple of hours it may have be 'walkable' - but as you state you started installing 'stuff'. when you install stuff you don't simply walk ….. you shift your weight from one foot to the other, shift your weight around on the sole of your foot. and all in in one 'standing space'. That isn't walking I'm afraid.
As it's a wet room I'd 'fess up to tiler and ask him to come back and fix it properly.

tim0409

4,354 posts

158 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
I use Mapei rapid set tile adhesive in powder form (I repaired a lot of large format tiles in a hotel) as it’s one of the quickest to set and it advises approx 2-3 hours for light traffic, and before grouting, which will also depend on temperature and thickness of the adhesive bed. Did he leave it 2-3 hours before grouting, then advise a couple of hours? I would have told you to leave it till the next day.

In any case, what’s done is done so I would carefully chase out the loose grout and redo.

ozzuk

1,173 posts

126 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
Problem you have if the adhesive was part set then disturbing it will have lost all the suction affect, you won't have a good bond. Fixing the grout is easy enough, but you might find the tiles move when you stand on them. If you are lucky then you disturbed them when they were wet enough to bond.

If they are moving its a case of take up the affected tiles and redo. You may be able to salvage them by scraping the adhesive off, not a fun job and any adhesive left could cause rocking.

I'm only a diy tiler though.


XMT

3,779 posts

146 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
Its a wetroom,

Get the tiler back and just get it corrected
Personally I wouldn't expect that to happen but we don't know the full extent of the prep work on the floor.


stanwan

1,890 posts

225 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
TheRocketSurgeon said:
Howdy,

A tiler did a wetroom floor for us yesterday and said that it'd be walkable onable in "a couple of hours". I left the floor "a couple of hours" and then installed a shaver socket etc. Later on I look at the floor tiles and see grout has cracked / squished around a dozen or more tiles (7-8cm wide hexagons) and a few tiles, ones that feel raised compared to others, are totally lose and wobbly, outside of the mesh sheet they're stuck to.

So we left it alone as soon as we noticed, but... argh!

What's the best plan of action here? It's certainly not (visibly) all the floor by any means, maybe... 5% or the grouting? Is it a thing to remove the cracked drought by (with a dremel for example?) and reapply it and move on happily? Any other thoughts appreciated!
I've been tiling our ensuite wetroom myself over the last few weeks and have just commenced grouting. I fixed the tiles with a thick bed of rapid set adhesive and the tiles were pretty much set solid and immovable after 30 minutes. 3 hours in this weather is more than enough time for it to go off. What adhesive did he use and what did it recommend as the minimum time to grout. A slow set should be left for an entire day before grouting.

Your tiler would have been walking over the floor to grout it anyway, plus he's probably washed it down serveral times to get rid of the grout haze - it shouldn't be moving or cracking.

Go and tap all the tiles to see if they are bedded down correctly. Do you have underfloor heating?

TheRocketSurgeon

Original Poster:

70 posts

73 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
stanwan said:
I've been tiling our ensuite wetroom myself over the last few weeks and have just commenced grouting. I fixed the tiles with a thick bed of rapid set adhesive and the tiles were pretty much set solid and immovable after 30 minutes. 3 hours in this weather is more than enough time for it to go off. What adhesive did he use and what did it recommend as the minimum time to grout. A slow set should be left for an entire day before grouting.

Your tiler would have been walking over the floor to grout it anyway, plus he's probably washed it down serveral times to get rid of the grout haze - it shouldn't be moving or cracking.

Go and tap all the tiles to see if they are bedded down correctly. Do you have underfloor heating?
There are certainly a few tiles that are lose in themselves, and they had gone down, i'd say, 2 hours before the grouting was started. The adhesive was either Rapid Set Setaflex, or Setaflex Standard, grout is Ultratile Flexjoint Premium. Appears to be more of the Standard adhesive used over the whole room judging by the rubbish he's left, so I could guess the Rapid was used on the small floor area? That would explain the shorter timescales he gave me?

Looking at some of the loose tiles, I've dug out some small spots around them and found the grout was very thin, air pockets under only 1mm in places, if that. I'd guess that would contribute to easier movement of the tiles than would be reasonable.

No underfloor heating here.

stanwan

1,890 posts

225 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
TheRocketSurgeon said:
There are certainly a few tiles that are lose in themselves, and they had gone down, i'd say, 2 hours before the grouting was started. The adhesive was either Rapid Set Setaflex, or Setaflex Standard, grout is Ultratile Flexjoint Premium. Appears to be more of the Standard adhesive used over the whole room judging by the rubbish he's left, so I could guess the Rapid was used on the small floor area? That would explain the shorter timescales he gave me?

Looking at some of the loose tiles, I've dug out some small spots around them and found the grout was very thin, air pockets under only 1mm in places, if that. I'd guess that would contribute to easier movement of the tiles than would be reasonable.

No underfloor heating here.
It shouldn't be difficult to reset a few loose tiles- the adhesive won't have cured fully so you can chip it away and use a small mix of rapid set spread on the back of tile. Use a bit of 4x2 to set them level with the rest of the tiles and then clear away any adhesive that squeezes out of the edge.

More importantly, check the rest has been done properly - fully bedded tiles in wet areas and fully filled grout joints.

LeadFarmer

7,411 posts

130 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
Personally I would have left it at least 24hrs, preferably 48hrs no matter what the tiler told me.