dot and dab and the tile association

[Spud]

I am putting this in here as its part of a court case where the builder has asked Don Slade from the tile association to be an expert witness in a court case against a tiler ,the case is finishing tomorrow and the buider called me today to hgive me a brief outline of how the proceedings went,
first a backgrund of the job
1000 x 1000 tiles tiled to the ground floor of a house in cockfosters rd, hadley wood I wont mention the tiling contractors name albeit he is very experienced and does deliver a top finish to his work but uses dot and dab as his method of fixing,
his last 3 jobs have failed for this builder but this job was used as a test case and the bulkder is trying to recover £30,000 pounds to replace the floor
so 1m x 1m tiles on fibre re-inforced screed with wet system ufh as I say the tile association have supplied a report and Don slade appeared in court where he was cross examined by the defence barrister ,when he was asked if dot and dab was a satisfactory method of fixing he replied its not the best method but it is an acceptable method, when asked if it caused the failure of the floor he replied it wasnt but may have been a contributing factor asked when the tiles should have had a 100% solid bed he replied 80-100% is recommended and at the coverage you could drive a forklift over but 50 % is okay as the adhesive strength is pro rata to which the defence barrister said so you could drive half a fork lift over which he agredd ,his final reply was that in 30 years of fixing experience he had never seen a failure that has been caused by dot and dab fixing
The contractor has claimed thermal shock which has caused the failure there is no more evidence allowed to be submitted at this stage and the judge makes his decision tomorrow ,which will be very interesting for all in the industry ,
The bulider who now uses me as his tiler is going to forward me the report and will be forwarding me the transcript from the court case as this is all second hand information i am relaying from the telephone call we had this morning ,the builder feels like he has been kicked in the balls by the tile association who are supposed to be trying to eliminate the cowboys out of the tiling industry and it seems are now endorsing dot and dab as a method of fixing on underfloor heating,please can we keep this in the Trusted advisors forum until after the court case is finished

 

[Gazzer]

Bloody hell....who would have thought it ?

So what is this all about, Is dot and dab fixing OK?

"
[h=1]Is dot and dab fixing OK?[/h] No!
The British Standard for tiling, BS5385, the code of practice for fixing wall and floor tiles offers guidance on how tiles should be fixed. The guidance below is taken from The Tile Association guide to DIY fixing, Tile it Right, and encompasses the guidance in the British Standard.
[h=2]Walls[/h] Spread the wall tile adhesive using a tile adhesive trowel onto the wall. Work in small areas a metre at a time, so that tiles are fixed before the surface of the adhesive forms a skin. Press and twist the wall tiles into the adhesive starting at the bottom and working upwards, one row of whole tiles at a time, using spacers (if required) to ensure a uniform joint. Check the horizontal and vertical lines with the spirit level every few rows.
[h=2]Floors[/h] Mix floor adhesive as per manufacturers' instructions and spread with the recommended notched trowel to give a ribbed adhesive bed on the surface to be tiled. Butter the back of each tile with a thin layer of adhesive immediately before bedding it firmly into the fresh ribbed adhesive bed with a slight twisting motion to ensure a solid bed and prevent voids under the tile.
Some "solid bedding" trowels and pourable adhesives are available that allow the floor tile to be solidly bedded without the need to butter the back of the tiles. If you want to be sure of a good quality tiling job, use the services of a Tile Association fixer member."

 

[Stewart]

If that's true then the TTA are a sham.... Is this tile contractor a member of the TTA Gary, if so, then they may be trying to defend one of their members with disastrous consequences IMO. Once the precedent has been set, then cowboys have won...!


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[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Very strange that Gary, I will be seeing Bob Howard on Wed, at the fixer training committee. As Bob is one of four people along with Don in the UK who are supposedly qualified to do a report for the TTA. I will ask him about this case, are people paying £1,000.00 to be told dot and dab is an acceptable fixing method?.:mad2:

 

[Spud]

I know Neale and the bulider oriuginally asked me to be his expert witness ,I remember Phil saying that there were only 2-3 tilers who had the relevant quailifications to appear as expert witnesses so I told the builder to use the tile association and mentioned that Mr. Slade was the person Phil had mentioned as being qualified ,the tiles have not been back buttered it is pure spot fixing at its worst and the coverage isnt even 50 % the tiler has argued that this is an acceptable fixing method and it seems as if Mr Slade is in agreement ,I have told the builder that i disagree and asked him to forward the report and case proceedings as it may be that the barrister asked yes or no questions in a clever way to get the answers he wanted but from what the builder says its seems as if the 30 years fixing tiles and never seen dot and dab fail was his opinion on this matter

 

[Spud]

If that's true then the TTA are a sham.... Is this tile contractor a member of the TTA Gary, if so, then they may be trying to defend one of their members with disastrous consequences IMO. Once the precedent has been set, then cowboys have won...!


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No Not a TTA member

 

[Spud]

Very strange that Gary, I will be seeing Bob Howard on Wed, at the fixer training committee. As Bob is one of four people along with Don in the UK who are supposedly qualified to do a report for the TTA. I will ask him about this case, are people paying £1,000.00 to be told dot and dab is an acceptable fixing method?.:mad2:

I will P.M you the details of the contractor and builder

 

[hillhead]

Unreal, I have lifted quite a few floors now in my 7 years tiling career that were dot and dabbed and was even asked to do it by a customer once.lol.
Walls I rip off too are quite regularly dot and dabbed with no bloody problems.
Keep us up to date with this Gary and thank you for letting us know.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Thanks Gary, as I said in my reply I don't know Don Slade personally, but if he is letting a smart *** lawyer put words in his mouth, he is in the wrong job. I will let you know Bob's opinion on this.

 

[nybor62]

1. 0 to the lawyer so far, i have a bad feeling of the outcome of this trial

 

[Colour Republic]

:mad2::mad2::mad2::mad2::mad2::mad2::mad2:

 

[DHTiling]

Not good news... look forward to the outcome..

 

[White Room]

This ai'nt looking good....

 

[Olz]

Presumably the builder got a copy of the TTA report before they ended up at court though, what did the report say caused the failure and about dot and dab, the same as what the guy has said in court or has he changed his stand point when questioned by the solicitor?

 

[Dan]

This is shocking! I could write a good blog about this once it's all over!

 

[Spud]

I thought I better clear this up and get the info straight from the horses mouth so to speak
I called Don Slade today and had a chat about what the builder had told me and to be fair to Don he did a very thorough and fair report with the information he was given,he is extremely knowledgeable and does not think Dot and dab is an acceptable method of fixing and does not endorse its use ,basically the floors in question the substrates were not suitable for tiling and were in places 20-28mm out of level and the tiler was told just to tile them, the tiler had infact spread adhesive onto the screed and then tried to build the height up by dotting on top of this using multiple spots of adhesive hoping that these would spread to give 100% coverage( again Don did not endorse this method of fixing but understood why the tiler atempted to do this way) it wasnt until the last day of the court case that photos were produced showing 50% coverage, it was at that time he was asked if 50% coverage was okay and he replied if no other stresses were involved 50% coverage may be sufficient to keep the tile bonded and he had witnessed many jobs that were done like this in domestic situations which did not fail but if other stresses were involved then this may not be enough ,
To the tilers defence the under floor heating was on when he was working and one day he could not even kneel down it was so hot but he didnt refuse to tile the job which is what we would all have done in the same circumstances so it isnt a defence really ,
from our telephone conversation I gathered Don acted as a totally independant witness and just answered questions on what he found and on the information given and I found him very knowledgeable and fair to both sides , the judgement in this case may take several weeks so it is better left alone until after the judge decides what the outcome is
And what I will say the builder didnt fully explain to me all the facts

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Thanks for the update Gary.

 

[Rich]

Thanks for sharing this with us Gary. Can you keep us posted

 

[nybor62]

thanks gary keep us informed, im sure we could all harp on about what we would have done with a floor so out of level ,but no point i suppose wait untill the outcome

 

[Gazzer]

Quite a relief actually I think.

 

[DHTiling]

It is a relief and just goes to show how only hearing one side of a story can be bad for one party.. So thanks for the update Gary...

 

[The D]

So what I am taking from this is it is another one of them jobs we all get where the builder has done a sh it job of the floor and wanted the tiler to get over it. The tiler got over it by using more adhesive than is recommended and a fixing method that is not recommended. Then when it hit the fan the builder tried to blame the tiler for getting over his shoddy work. Personally I hope the builder gets his pants pulled down

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

I think you got it in one Dean.:mad2:

 

[DHTiling]

So what I am taking from this is it is another one of them jobs we all get where the builder has done a sh it job of the floor and wanted the tiler to get over it. The tiler got over it by using more adhesive than is recommended and a fixing method that is not recommended. Then when it hit the fan the builder tried to blame the tiler for getting over his shoddy work. Personally I hope the builder gets his pants pulled down

Too right, and i hope they are full of rubbish..to the brim... deffo passed the buck big time.

 

[Spud]

There is more to it than what you think, the tiler is a serial dot and dabber and has the nick name Mr. blobby form the local tile shops, he is greek and gets some lovely work from the greek community in north london but has fallen out of favour with alot of people because so many of his jobs have failed and a lot of the high end tile shops warn customers against using him,
The case in question was part of 3 floors this guy has had failed for the same builder which is why the builder went after him through the courts so the tiler is a liability and his arguement in court is that his fixing method isnt what caused the failure,the expert witness doesnt know any of this and just gave evidience on the information he was provided and was put on the spot on the final day of the proceeding with the 50% coverage pictures

 

[hillhead]

Courts are a funny old place at times, the whole story is often not allowed to be told to jury's etc !!
It'll be good to see the outcome of this, keep up the good work Gary.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Thanks Gary, I do agree about Mr Blobby and his methods. But as we agreed on the phone, if these builders would use decent screeders or let the tiler do the screeding, we would just use a solid bed trowel, back skim the tile and fix once. We could get some serious m2 down.

I am sick of following bad screeders, one job I did not long ago, I struggled getting the floor flat/lip free, when I asked the client why he had not asked me to price for the screeding? he replied " I didn't know you could screed".:mad2:

 

[jay]

If the tiler tiled on to a shoddy floor it becomes his problem (should i duck now)

 

[Dan]

Thanks for the update! Interesting reading!

It proves you should walk off jobs if they're not right, and not just think of the cash.

 

[Stewart]

Have to agree Dan. Every time a tiler agree's to make good and get on with it, he's leaving himself wide open in the blame culture we now live in and saying you need to pay the mortgage no longer cuts it in my opinion!


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