Another Tiling Disaster

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Cantona7

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I had a tiler put wall tiles in our bathroom last year. Recently the tiles have seperated from the wall/"popped" away from the wall in parts of the room leaving a gap of 1/2 inch from the wall.

Of course the tiler has gone awol since..

Can they be salvaged, i think they will crack if i try and repress them against the wall

any advice appreciated.
 
Cantona7 said:
I had a tiler put wall tiles in our bathroom last year. Recently the tiles have seperated from the wall/"popped" away from the wall in parts of the room leaving a gap of 1/2 inch from the wall.

Of course the tiler has gone awol since..

Can they be salvaged, i think they will crack if i try and repress them against the wall

any advice appreciated.
Click to expand...

If it is just a few tiles that are affected, it might be possible to carefully take them down, scrape out all the old adhesive and grout, clean the tiles and start again.

If it is more widespread, then you will need to take down all affected tiles to the point that only sound tiles remain and start again!

Hope this helps.
 
thanks for the reply. better invest in a good diy book then!

theres a fair few that are away from the wall now.

wonder why does it happen?
 
Is it a case that the plaster that the tile was adhered to is sepereating from the wall itself? Or is it that the adhesive is seperating from the wall? Was the wall uneven to start with?

The only way to be sure is to remove a tile or two and see whats going on behind the scenes...

Feel sorry for you man, good luck with it.
 
Cantona7 said:
wonder why does it happen?
Click to expand...

If its a plasterboard wall then it could be that there is a bit of movement. Otherwise it could be that the adhesive was up too long and gone dry so that the tile didn'y stick properly to it. Would it be possible that the grout had cracked allowing some water behind the tiles?
 
it looks like if you got all the tiles stuck them together and pinned themto the wall.. like a lino roll.. because they have all seperated en masse from the wall right from the top to bottom.. like you got a knife and inserted in betw the tiles and the wall and prised off a complete line..

i doubt if water got it.. it looks, to a layman, that there wasnt sufficient adhesive to bind them to the wall.. i think!

either way its a mess now and it was not cheap in the first place.
 
Cantona7 said:
it looks like if you got all the tiles stuck them together and pinned themto the wall.. like a lino roll.. because they have all seperated en masse from the wall right from the top to bottom.. like you got a knife and inserted in betw the tiles and the wall and prised off a complete line..

i doubt if water got it.. it looks, to a layman, that there wasnt sufficient adhesive to bind them to the wall.. i think!

either way its a mess now and it was not cheap in the first place.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear it. Looks like your starting over though. Make sure you get someone better this time OR get out the DIY books as you said. It's not that difficult really!. Goo Luck with it.
 
Just to let you know we had the same problem. The water was getting in behind the tiles because of a crack in the grout. When I took the tiles off they came off easier than they went on! The adhesive was a complete wet mess behind. Our insurance co has now said they will pay for the water damage but not the replacement of the tiles as the leak was due to faulty workmanship! Bit unfair seeing as we bought the place tiled!
 
It looks like we are in the same boat.. its definietely a case of shoddy workmanship, i remember at the timethe builders were rushing to complete and they had these blowers in the houses to dry them out and the tilers were working flat out.I didnt know tiles would comes away from a wall so neatly! It has happened in the bathroom upstairs too so its for sure the tiler's fault.
 
Just be careful the ceilings aren;t damaged from any leaks. Track the builder down and see if he knows where the tiler is
 
Thanks Ned.. i have put a call in to the builder and am waiting for a reply. As it was all sub contracted work i'd say theres a chance i will find the tiler unless he's no longer with this builder.
 
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