Tiling in our extension one wrong - any ideas??

[orchard]

We have had an extension done to make our kitchen bigger by about 1/3rd. The house is only 3 years old and the floor is a floating floor - the extension floor was matched and is also floating. We have had underfloor electric mat heating put in then tiled over the lot....

The 'old' kitchen area was tiled previously and had no problems.....

We are now having significant problems with excessive movement but purely in the extension area.... the tiles are not cracking but the grout is basically cracking away and coming out in various places presumably where they are moving excessively.

the Tiler is coming back on Friday to try lifting a couple to see whats going on but I have to say I am panicking that the whole thing will have to come up (this is also underneath my £25k kitchen!!!!) and we will have to replace with Amtico or the like....

has anyone any ideas how we might resolve this....

 

[Gazzer]

Tiling floating floors is not really advised due to the nature of the movement. While you may have been lucky with the original floor you cant be sure that the new area has been built in the same way. Something has moved to give this problem. As you state the tiles have not cracked only the grout it could well be the wrong grout has been used. Without knowing more details its hard to say but I think you will find that most tilers will not tile on floating floors.

 

[orchard]

Just to add we had the floor regrouted after it was first laid with a more flexible grout - We have laid large tiles 600x600 compared to the ones which were down beofre which were smaller -prob 450x450 not sure if this would cause or exacerbate the problem?

 

[Gazzer]

Was the original grout removed before hand ?

 

[orchard]

Not sure whole floor was done - not just areas of cracking...but have a feeling it was just grouted over except for the areas where the grout had totally come out...

 

[Gazzer]

Then it was pretty useless excercise IMO

 

[orchard]

OK.... any other ideas?

 

[Gazzer]

The grout should have been removed for the new grout to take hold in the joints. Its no good just going over the top of old grout.

 

[mikethetile]

they may have constructed the new floating floor to a different spec to the old one

there is excessive movement, unsuitable for tiling im afraid

 

[doug boardley]

I can only agree with the other guys, tiling on floating floors is a very risky procedure at best. Do you have any pics?