J
Jodie
Hi everyone, Jodie here, I registered a few weeks ago but have waited until now to give you the full picture.
We are having an old building converted into a holiday property that is some 2.5 hours drive from where we live. We have been very pleased with the work that the builders have done, apart from the floor tiling, which is giving us sleepless nights, literally.The tiles were bought near to where we live and delivered to the site, along with the recommended adhesive that our tile suppliers suggested. As it didnt make sense for our local guy to travel, we asked our builder to find someone competent near the property to do the work. We have also had a ground source heat pump installed which supplies hot water to underfloor heating pipes. This system will pay back over the years but cost a considerable amount of money to install. The builder put the screed over the pipes (pipes laid by specialist company), so the screed is 3 inches thick, the first inch of which contains the pipe. A few months ago, we arrived to discover that the builder was using his own subcontractor (builder) to lay the tiles (£nearly 2.5 k's worth), a surprise to us as we had asked him to get someone locally. The work seemed to look ok, although the floor looked quite dirty. The builder told us that the adhesive that was supplied by our supplier had 'gone off too quickly' and it was 'a dodgy batch' and that he had had to use his own. Despite supplying him with 13 bags, he only gave us four back to return, which did raise a bit of a concern. We told our tile supplier this, who said we should check that there weren't any voids under the tile by tapping them with a coin. I have now mapped out the whole area 50 square metres and the voids are massive - clearly there should have been a leveller put down. This wouldnt be so bad if we hadnt spent approx 20k on the underfloor heating, which has just been put into commission a few weeks ago after we waited for the (professional heating) contractor to connect everything up. I would say that a third of the tiled area has air under it. It will undoubtedly be expensive to heat up these air pockets as the whole of the tile should be in contact with the adhesive!! Also, we are worried that the tiles could crack, many of them have more air than adhesive under them. Not only that, there is adhesive on a lot of the tiles that hasnt been cleaned off. We had thought that the builder could replace the worst tiles, but are now wondering whether the whole lot should come up??? The problem now is that we have scared ourselves witless by googling 'removing tile adhesive' - what if the old tiles bring up some screed with them and worst case scenario damage the underfloor heating pipes?? Also, the edge tiles can't easily be taken up as many of them have been laid up to Stone walls and the builders, who have done a good job on the whole of the rest of the property, have put a small concrete 'bund' as a finish between the edge tiles and the stone walls. PLEASE CAN YOU ADVISE? We are worried that if we let the builder sort it out himself, i e just replace certain tiles, then he will make even more of a mess. I will try to attach a picture of the problem, please bear with me. Relying on your professional opinion...kindest regards, Jodie. P.S should we live with a floor that has many voids under it? If we decide to keep it, how can the adhesive be removed that is on top of the tiles, not having been cleaned off?
We are having an old building converted into a holiday property that is some 2.5 hours drive from where we live. We have been very pleased with the work that the builders have done, apart from the floor tiling, which is giving us sleepless nights, literally.The tiles were bought near to where we live and delivered to the site, along with the recommended adhesive that our tile suppliers suggested. As it didnt make sense for our local guy to travel, we asked our builder to find someone competent near the property to do the work. We have also had a ground source heat pump installed which supplies hot water to underfloor heating pipes. This system will pay back over the years but cost a considerable amount of money to install. The builder put the screed over the pipes (pipes laid by specialist company), so the screed is 3 inches thick, the first inch of which contains the pipe. A few months ago, we arrived to discover that the builder was using his own subcontractor (builder) to lay the tiles (£nearly 2.5 k's worth), a surprise to us as we had asked him to get someone locally. The work seemed to look ok, although the floor looked quite dirty. The builder told us that the adhesive that was supplied by our supplier had 'gone off too quickly' and it was 'a dodgy batch' and that he had had to use his own. Despite supplying him with 13 bags, he only gave us four back to return, which did raise a bit of a concern. We told our tile supplier this, who said we should check that there weren't any voids under the tile by tapping them with a coin. I have now mapped out the whole area 50 square metres and the voids are massive - clearly there should have been a leveller put down. This wouldnt be so bad if we hadnt spent approx 20k on the underfloor heating, which has just been put into commission a few weeks ago after we waited for the (professional heating) contractor to connect everything up. I would say that a third of the tiled area has air under it. It will undoubtedly be expensive to heat up these air pockets as the whole of the tile should be in contact with the adhesive!! Also, we are worried that the tiles could crack, many of them have more air than adhesive under them. Not only that, there is adhesive on a lot of the tiles that hasnt been cleaned off. We had thought that the builder could replace the worst tiles, but are now wondering whether the whole lot should come up??? The problem now is that we have scared ourselves witless by googling 'removing tile adhesive' - what if the old tiles bring up some screed with them and worst case scenario damage the underfloor heating pipes?? Also, the edge tiles can't easily be taken up as many of them have been laid up to Stone walls and the builders, who have done a good job on the whole of the rest of the property, have put a small concrete 'bund' as a finish between the edge tiles and the stone walls. PLEASE CAN YOU ADVISE? We are worried that if we let the builder sort it out himself, i e just replace certain tiles, then he will make even more of a mess. I will try to attach a picture of the problem, please bear with me. Relying on your professional opinion...kindest regards, Jodie. P.S should we live with a floor that has many voids under it? If we decide to keep it, how can the adhesive be removed that is on top of the tiles, not having been cleaned off?
