Bathroom Tile Crack - Tile Advice

[michelleallen988]

Hi All,

I'm very new here and a complete housing novice so I am hoping someone may be able to help.

A crack appeared in my bathroom a few months ago. This is a new build apartment at the time when I noticed the crack I had been living there for around 1.5 years and I moved in the day the building was signed off. I have attached an image of the crack itself and a photo I have (apologies its not the clearest) of the build 'mid completion'. Any advice would be greatly appreciated of why this may have occurred.

Michelle

 

[Tony_C]

Pretty hard to tell from those images to be honest. It could perhaps have been when the screen was mounted but thats a stab in the dark. Are there are further tiles cracked above and below?

 

[michelleallen988]

The crack is coming from the bottom right hand side of the TV and I can only see as far as where the tile joins to the bath, as without taking the bath out is impossible to know for definite how far the crack goes. Unfortunately as the tiles are now discontinued, and being a university student I am financially limited to what I can do it difficult situation as I'm not sure why this has occurred. The building has a 2 year warranty period but the developer obviously doesn't want to have to pay to redo an entire bathroom because as it wasn't initially a problem when I moved in they wont take any responsibility.

 

[CJ]

looks like (possibl) someone has fallen against the shower screen, and dragged the fittings to the right??

is the screen loose now???

total stab in the dark.

 

[michelleallen988]

The glass shower screen is not loose. :/

 

[demi34]

I think it’s more of movement of the building

 

[michelleallen988]

It is an adjoining wall, my neighbours cupboard backs onto it and they have a lateral crack, not hairline, on this wall and said that was there from their move-in.

 

[Tony_C]

If it was movement from the building i'd be expecting to see a crack all the way up the wall, that's why i was querying if there was perhaps further cracking up the wall. Tiles could have also been left with no movement gap off the bath. Was tricky to see where the crack actually was from the images. just all a guess really 🤷‍♂️

 

[Bond]

Suspect this is from movement , weight of bath water over time bearing on supporting batten fixed to wall under the bath lip. ( just a guess though).

 

[Boggs]

I would say the tile is cut too tight to the metal part of the tv, hot showers, metal expands, tile cracks.

 

[faceman]

It must be a structural issue to go through two tiles like that. Cutting around the tv would weaken the tile but not the one below. There is probably a stud down the side of the tv to fix it in and there has been some movement in it. I see floors and wall shrinking all the time. As far as repairing it, if it falls inside the warranty it's their duty to put it right. I do repairs for national builders and I've retiled loads of bathrooms as the tile has been discontinued.

 

[vaidehi22]

Hey, why don't you fix the crack. The most effective thing to do is add steel reinforcing bars when the concrete slab is poured. This will prevent formation of cracks in the concrete, which lead to “reflective” cracking of the tile. Another solution is to install a crack isolation membrane on top of your existing concrete subfloor.

 

[Steve6690]

Hey, why don't you fix the crack. The most effective thing to do is add steel reinforcing bars when the concrete slab is poured. This will prevent formation of cracks in the concrete, which lead to “reflective” cracking of the tile. Another solution is to install a crack isolation membrane on top of your existing concrete subfloor.

The crack is on a wall tile, not the floor.

 

[vaidehi22]

The crack is on a wall tile, not the floor.

Yes, but this technique will help to fix the floors as well as the wall tiles. I have used this on my rigid core vinyl flooring and also on my wall tiles.

 

[Belly000]

Thanks for the information.