Fixing a cracked porcelain kitchen floor tile .

[WindyCommon]

Some quality work (years ago, not me…) in my kitchen has led to a cracked floor tile. I don’t have a replacement, so need to finesse a fix.



I have managed to lift the small corner piece out. The good news is that it’s quite a clean break. I think it can be re-inserted with superglue along the crack line to effect a repair.

However, the reason for the crack is also clear. The corner of the tile - and the corners of the three adjoining tiles are entirely unsupported by adhesive.



There is space to slide a solid plate of some sort - perhaps a 40mm x 40mm piece of plastic, or even a piece of ceramic tile - under the area where the four tile corners meet.



I’m thinking of:

1. cleaning everything up and removing as much grout and adhesive as possible from all surfaces
2. positioning a (glue-covered) plate under the point where the corners meet
3. filling the remaining area with some sort of non-expanding filler or tile cement(?)
4. carefully re-inserting the tile fragment, with glue of some sort along the break
5. re-grouting the joints

So, some questions if I may…

A. What sort of non-expanding filler or cement will be most effective?
B. What glue will be best along the crack to reattach the fragment
C. What have I missed? Is there a better way to fix this???

Thoughts and advice sought, and welcomed! Thank you in advance.

[Puzzles]

You can get a guy in and it should be almost undetectable, or you can try a repair kit yourself but I think for me I’d need a guy

[mart 63]

Just mix some flexible tile adhesive quite thick, and keep pushing it under the tiles that are down with a scraper. Then set the tile piece down with tile adhesive. Personally I would leave a slightest gap as possible on the crack and use some light grey grout just on the crack.

Edited by mart 63 on Wednesday 11th March 05:38

[bennno]

You can use sticks like x to glue the tile back down to the floor, get yourself some tile spacer / levellers from Amazon in the correct width for the grout lines. Once glued you can then re grout it,

[tim0409]

mart 63 said:

Just mix some flexible tile adhesive quite thick, and keep pushing it under the tiles that are down with a scraper. Then set the tile piece down with tile adhesive. Personally I would leave a slightest gap as possible on the crack and use some light grey grout just on the crack.

Edited by mart 63 on Wednesday 11th March 05:38

That’s what I would do. Use Mapie adhesive that you mix yourself (not readymix) and push it as far into the gaps in the surrounding tiles. There is a specific cartridge glue that you can inject into the gaps; I tried in once to fix a similar problem in my friends bathroom and it’s rubbish/doesn’t set, so avoid it.

My wife used to a run a high end hotel that had recently been built/renovated and a few years later the bathroom tiles (large format) started cracking. I used to go in once a week to fix them and it was a nightmare. The “tilers” who did the work had used dot and dab in the areas where the floor wasn’t level, so in between guests staying I used to have remove the broken tile then fill the surrounding gaps with as much adhesive as I could before replacing the tile.