T
The D
Ok the saga begins 2 years ago with a call from a client complaining about a crunching sound when they walked on their tiles. The tiles had been installed in March 2011 on to an anhydrite screed with wet UFH. The screed was sanded vacuumed and primed. A decupling mat was installed using a cement based adhesive.
After receiving the initial call I went to the house to remove a tile to see if I could determine what was going on. Incredibly I was able to remove a tile without breaking it as the plastic side of the mat had separated in its entirety from the fleece side of the mat with no signs that it had ever been stuck.
I advised my client that I had been hearing of the same type of failures from other Tilers from all over the country. So we contacted the supplier of the mat and they immediately passed us on to their supplier and they sent a rep to have a look at the job and take a method statement from me.
With that we heard nothing for some weeks so my client contacted them again and again until finally they agreed to send a team to resin inject the floor. This process was supposed to flow under the floor rebonding the mat and solving the problem. The resin team and my client identified the problem areas some 20-25% of the 160m2 floor. The team spent a week drilling and injecting but after a few weeks more areas started crunching so the team came back and spent another week drilling and injecting. By this time the floor was peppered with drill holes some of them were also full with resin.
I re-grouted the floor but to be honest it was a mess you could still see the holes as the main floor was now over a year old and the grout in the holes was fresh. There were some holes full of resin so they just looked black and there was resin smeared across the tile and joints.
I was asked to price for re-grouting the whole floor but I declined as that would have taken longer than re-tiling it and it never got that far anyway as more problem areas were presenting themselves on a daily basis and my client now wanted the floor replacing.
A specialist flooring inspector was sent by the mat supplier to assess the installation and determine the cause of the failure. His reportwas that the floor had been prepared in the correct manner and the finish ofthe installation was of a high standard. However the tests he had done on the floor showed a high level of water and that the installation had failed due to the floor being too wet prior to the installation. The term wet was used about 30 times in his report but only mentioned the mat failing 1 or 2 times. He also reported that there was no bond found between the fleece side of the mat and the screed.
The failure of the mat was explained away with the presence of 12.0% moisture in the screed there for the floor was too wet for the mat to be installed.
This did not seem right to me. If the floor had been wet I would not have tiled it. I must admit that I did not do a moisture test but the correct period of time had lapsed from the installation of the screed to the installation of the tiles. The UFH had been commissioned and running to force dry the screed and when things that had been sat on the floor were moved there was no sign of damp patches so I had no reason to think the floor was not dry.
Unhappy with the report from the flooring specialist I contacted Mr Alan Jackson to ask his expert opinion and I have to say he was very helpful and gave me the name and number of another independent expert in the field that could come out and do some tests and right a report of his findings. The test that had given the reading of 12.0% was soon highlighted as being inaccurate as the test equipment was an electronic protimeter for testing moisture in wood.
Another tile was removed by the expert that Alan had recommended and my client had commissioned and he found that there was no bond between the plastic side of the mat and the fleece side of the mat but there was a bond between the plastic side and the tile and more importantly there was a bond between the fleece side and the screed. He then tested the screed for moisture by way of a carbide bomb test and the result was 1.0% moisture. A further tile was removed in another area and the same mat failure was documented and the carbide bomb test result in that area came back as 0.8%.
The literature from the mat supplier stated that the mat could be installed on an anhydrite screed with a moisture content of 2.0% and could be used as a DPM.
This report was sent back to the mat supplier and in turn was sent to the company that supplied the mat to my client. After a few more weeks of toing and frowning they have now decided that the floor can be removed and replaced at no cost to my client.
After receiving the initial call I went to the house to remove a tile to see if I could determine what was going on. Incredibly I was able to remove a tile without breaking it as the plastic side of the mat had separated in its entirety from the fleece side of the mat with no signs that it had ever been stuck.
I advised my client that I had been hearing of the same type of failures from other Tilers from all over the country. So we contacted the supplier of the mat and they immediately passed us on to their supplier and they sent a rep to have a look at the job and take a method statement from me.
With that we heard nothing for some weeks so my client contacted them again and again until finally they agreed to send a team to resin inject the floor. This process was supposed to flow under the floor rebonding the mat and solving the problem. The resin team and my client identified the problem areas some 20-25% of the 160m2 floor. The team spent a week drilling and injecting but after a few weeks more areas started crunching so the team came back and spent another week drilling and injecting. By this time the floor was peppered with drill holes some of them were also full with resin.
I re-grouted the floor but to be honest it was a mess you could still see the holes as the main floor was now over a year old and the grout in the holes was fresh. There were some holes full of resin so they just looked black and there was resin smeared across the tile and joints.
I was asked to price for re-grouting the whole floor but I declined as that would have taken longer than re-tiling it and it never got that far anyway as more problem areas were presenting themselves on a daily basis and my client now wanted the floor replacing.
A specialist flooring inspector was sent by the mat supplier to assess the installation and determine the cause of the failure. His reportwas that the floor had been prepared in the correct manner and the finish ofthe installation was of a high standard. However the tests he had done on the floor showed a high level of water and that the installation had failed due to the floor being too wet prior to the installation. The term wet was used about 30 times in his report but only mentioned the mat failing 1 or 2 times. He also reported that there was no bond found between the fleece side of the mat and the screed.
The failure of the mat was explained away with the presence of 12.0% moisture in the screed there for the floor was too wet for the mat to be installed.
This did not seem right to me. If the floor had been wet I would not have tiled it. I must admit that I did not do a moisture test but the correct period of time had lapsed from the installation of the screed to the installation of the tiles. The UFH had been commissioned and running to force dry the screed and when things that had been sat on the floor were moved there was no sign of damp patches so I had no reason to think the floor was not dry.
Unhappy with the report from the flooring specialist I contacted Mr Alan Jackson to ask his expert opinion and I have to say he was very helpful and gave me the name and number of another independent expert in the field that could come out and do some tests and right a report of his findings. The test that had given the reading of 12.0% was soon highlighted as being inaccurate as the test equipment was an electronic protimeter for testing moisture in wood.
Another tile was removed by the expert that Alan had recommended and my client had commissioned and he found that there was no bond between the plastic side of the mat and the fleece side of the mat but there was a bond between the plastic side and the tile and more importantly there was a bond between the fleece side and the screed. He then tested the screed for moisture by way of a carbide bomb test and the result was 1.0% moisture. A further tile was removed in another area and the same mat failure was documented and the carbide bomb test result in that area came back as 0.8%.
The literature from the mat supplier stated that the mat could be installed on an anhydrite screed with a moisture content of 2.0% and could be used as a DPM.
This report was sent back to the mat supplier and in turn was sent to the company that supplied the mat to my client. After a few more weeks of toing and frowning they have now decided that the floor can be removed and replaced at no cost to my client.
