Has an expert done this job? - Tile Advice

[Reggiethethird]

So, the general consensus seems to be that I'm not being overly picky.

It was suggested that I give the contractor the opportunity to rectify at his expense, which they are doing now, if this turns out even worse, which is my gut feeling at the moment, we will have to make a decision on getting a professional in.

With hindsight we should have delayed our kitchen install and ripped and replaced. We have been without a kitchen now for nearly 5 months and delayed the install twice already. I feel we went ahead almost out of desperation. We are genuinely gutted about this floor. To answer some questions.

The floor is approx 55m2.
We had 12 bags of 25kg adhesive originally and ended up ordering another 10 bags.
The adhesive has been laid thick on tile and floor.
No substrate has been used, tiles laid directly on concrete screed.
Our kitchen installer had to adjust the island as they noted a 6mm deviation covering 1.5m on the tiles.

Regarding the comment about doing our home work, that's fair and one of the main reasons we wanted to work with a contractor we trusted. We spent a year working through detailed quotations to select someone reputable. Apart from the tiling most other trades have been decent. This is the first renovation project I have done and with hindsight I would need to vet every trade... I stupidly assumed if I was paying for a ceramic floor to be laid, it would be installed by a tiler....

Your comments and suggestions are all much appreciated. I'll update with pics after the remedial work is finished.

 

[Reggiethethird]

Yes this is bad and I hope that this chap fixes what tiles he has done wrong. But maybe a picture of the kitchen floor panned out may not look too bad? And it may be a handful of tiles that need refining...........nevertheless it's your dream kitchen so I hope you get this resolved

Here is a pic of the floor from a wider perspective.

 

[Reggiethethird]

After day 2 of remedial work to fix the issues here is the good the bad and the ugly. Thankfully our decorator and joiner have taken a look and feel confident they can disguise the huge gaps where the architraves have been cut. I'll let you guess which were cut by the plasterer/tiler whatever he is and the joiner.

 

[Chris Gibbs]

something similar

 

[John Benton]

It looks like it could be salvageable cosmetically for the time being, but unless you know how the tiles were fixed you will not know the longevity of the tiles. You may be lucky and they stand the test of time. You will probably notice the grout cracking first as an indicator as to if they were fixed correctly.

Apologies for being a little harsh in my first response but a lot of customers come on here and complain about tilers work and on a lot of occasions, all they have done is choose the cheapest quote, which generally is a disaster waiting to happen. As you said you thought that the contractor would bring in the relevant trades to complete the works, which is a fair assumption. It's always better, but not always possible to meet with the different tradesmen prior to starting, and you should get a feel for them.

You could buy the plasterer/tiler a tape measure as a parting gift

 

[Time's Ran Out]

You could buy the plasterer/tiler a tape measure as a parting gift

Oooooh you are awful!

 

[John Benton]

Oooooh you are awful!

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Exactly!

 

[ttt tiling]

The builder is a disgrace , how dare he imply that tiling isn't a dedicated trade , the blokes a pillock and deserves all he gets.
The tiling is the icing on the cake and gives any project the look people are after , it is the face of the job.
Needs to be done properly though , cos a bad job can be an absolute eyesore

 

[Old Mod]

The builder is a disgrace , how dare he imply that tiling isn't a dedicated trade , the blokes a pillock and deserves all he gets.
The tiling is the icing on the cake and gives any project the look people are after , it is the face of the job.
Needs to be done properly though , cos a bad job can be an absolute eyesore

We know

 

[Reggiethethird]

something similar

View attachment 93121 View attachment 93122

Looks awesome and a little depressing to see what we could have had.

 

[On one]

We had 12 bags of 25kg adhesive originally and ended up ordering another 10 bags.

So where did the extra 10 bags of adhesive go? (I wonder)
Approx 1 bag per 2m2 and 25kgs at that!

 

[Reggiethethird]

So where did the extra 10 bags of adhesive go? (I wonder)
Approx 1 bag per 2m2 and 25kgs at that!

Genuinely no idea... I can only assume they used this to level out the floor somehow.

 

[John Benton]

Did you see the plasterer use a notched trowel when fixing tiles or just put blobs of adhesive on floor to fix and level?

 

[Reggiethethird]

So I'm pretty sure the grout on the reinstalled tiles is dry now and it appears to be a completely different colour even though it's exactly the same porcelanosa product. I spoke to porcelanosa and they said if he used a dirty or contaminated mixing bucket this could change the colour. My guess is he used the same bucket he used for the adhesive. This is after 24 hours of drying, I'm just hoping it gets lighter to match the rest of the grout. Right now we have a lovely two tone floor. You couldn't make this up!