What's wrong with these pictures?? - Tile Advice

[Ezarb123]

Good Evening Folks.

I'm going to post a few pictures & would like to hear some feedback from tried & true industry pros. I have tried to point out the issues that are staring me directly in the face, but the other two parties involved are denying they exist, can't reconize them & are feverently insisting "grouting" will make it all go away, while im insisting all work must stop until this is addressed. It's one of those situations where your being told "don't believe your lying eyes", "no no, that didn't just happen", "nothing to see here, move along folks".

If what I'm pointing out is "Normal" like the GC & Tile Setter suggests, then please let me know as this is causing conflict between me & the customer; whos lack of understanding, I believe is being completely taken advantage of.

Please advise on what you see wrong.
Please advise on whats passable.
Please advise on what the ultimate solution would have to be.

Please forgive if there are a couple duplicates as I'm doing this on the fly & didn't realize they continued on today installing more time, thus making the possible border issues harder to address. Was that on purpose, idk..

Apparently, my concerns weren't taken seriously & the GC convinced the party to continue. Following pictures are from work done today.

I could repeat this picture of the level all over the Border of this job. In other words there are many many many, (countless actually) areas which read the same. If this is normal, then fine, but I believe it's the root of all problems here.

Apparently this corner below was supposedly reset today along with a few other areas. I heard the work happen, yet it all still looks the same to me, nothing matches up, gaps are buggered, tiles still crooked or bulging.

The coins I'm using here are only trying to show how uneven it is layed down. There's little ledges i can rest the coin on EVERYWHERE, throughout the entire border. It's as if there's mountains & valleys if product under there.

Thanks for any help here. Im really just looking to see whether any of this is acceptable workmanship, as I feel aa though this paying customers lack of trade knowledge is being wildly taken advantage of. Personally, I'm of the mindset do it once, do it right, so those not in the trades see me as a bit of a "perfectionist", which is kinda a downside as sometimes people think your just being picky. In this case, the customer is being convinced to ignore the red flags I'm showing, as "normal".

 

[Kaffee]

I'm not a pro, but for me, that work is unacceptable. Are they certified tilers?

 

[Dave]

The mosaics are tilting back and lack some finesse.
How ate the tiles fixed ? Dot and dab by any chance

 

[Ezarb123]

I'm not sure what you mean by "ate".
I'm not exactly familiar with Dot & Dab, this really isn't my trade, however I believe the term used in these parts is thinset.

All i know is this border installation looks nothing like any of the other Small tile I've seen installed anywhere. I'm my mind, I'm under the impression that the gaps should all be at least 95% consistent with each other, they should all line up with without overlap & most importantly they should all be sitting with the same surface height like they are when they're sitting on your kitchen counter or on display in a showroom.

Where i see gaps touching, theres very little thinset, where i see huge gaps there's tons of thinset. In other words "mountains & valleys" all over the place affecting each tile a little different over the span each grid. It's hard to see on camera but some are bulging outward towards the shower space & then not even a foot away, they're collapsing inward toward the wall. This inconsistency repeats itself across the entire border, over & over.

Below is a picture of what I was expecting to see, it just happens to be on a horizontal plane. Not perfection, but passable in my opinion (35yrs old too!). If that border in question is grouted, do you think it will look as conststant as this? The GC & Tile Setter trying to convince customer it will...

 

[eddcottee]

Unfortunately no amount of grouting will sort those issues out. The grout gaps are inconsistent, many tiles not set straight and they are tilting inwards and outwards. Grout can sometimes help things, but it wont help that. They need removing and putting on properly I'm afraid. It's also easier to do that now before it gets grouted up

 

[Ezarb123]

Unfortunately no amount of grouting will sort those issues out. The grout gaps are inconsistent, many tiles not set straight and they are tilting inwards and outwards. Grout can sometimes help things, but it wont help that. They need removing and putting on properly I'm afraid. It's also easier to do that now before it gets grouted up

Hello Eddcottee.

If you don't mind, I have a couple questions.

Lets assume for a moment the wall is somewhat plumb under there & there aren't pre-existing deviations....

1. Could you please explain what the root of the problem is here?

2. And possibly how they got so buggered, what "basic 101" checks & balances were skipped or outright ignored (Spacers, plumb level, etc)?

These infos are is important as the GC & Tile setter are still arguing that nothing is wrong here. To convince against my opinion, they ran around w/a level yesterday selectivley showing the true spots while avoiding the high spots in the border or completely spanning over the low spots & obfuscating the open gap under the level before the customer could take notice.. Hard to explain.. But clearly selective placement of level in front of the Customer. It's truly infuriating to watch happen. I've never actually seen a contractor straight out lie like this when confronted with something as obvious as the sky is blue. I know it's crap & he's knows it's crap, I just don't know how to expose it as such because the "norm" has been flipped on its head & the customer don't know good from bad.

 

[eddcottee]

Hi,

Just looks like a rushed job to me and a lack of attention to detail. It's really quite simple. Give them a 2mm or 3mm spacer, whatever they should have used and tell them to push it in between the gaps of some of the tiles which are clearly on the **** and butted up to each other. Some of those you wouldn't even get a 1mm spacer in between!

They can use all the lasers they like, but the evidence is there, as clear as day. Would need a blind man not to be able to see that it's unacceptable. And don't get me wrong, we all make mistakes, but you put them right. This isn't a mistake, it's just shoddy work in my opinion, at least on the border tiles anyway.

Is this tiling in a wet area?

 

[Ezarb123]

Hi,

Just looks like a rushed job to me and a lack of attention to detail. It's really quite simple. Give them a 2mm or 3mm spacer, whatever they should have used and tell them to push it in between the gaps of some of the tiles which are clearly on the **** and butted up to each other. Some of those you wouldn't even get a 1mm spacer in between!

They can use all the lasers they like, but the evidence is there, as clear as day. Would need a blind man not to be able to see that it's unacceptable. And don't get me wrong, we all make mistakes, but you put them right. This isn't a mistake, it's just shoddy work in my opinion, at least on the border tiles anyway.

Is this tiling in a wet area?

Thank you for your detailed response. That the spacer idea is great! I've been wondering to myself if they were even used to begin with because theres a can of them sitting right there next to the work. However, aside from the buggered up gaps they kinda hard to fit any of the normal'ish sized gaps to begin with, so their either the wrong ones for that specific tile, or I've just never experienced how much effort they should take to push in when sized correctly.

Either way, I've conveyed this too the customer & I am sure it will be a much easier way for him to expose the hackery in the face of denial.

Yes, haha..wet.. yes, this is indeed a shower, I don't think i mentioned that, I apologize. Why? Is there another glaring issue you see defined by whether it's wet or dry?

 

[eddcottee]

Sorry, I hadn't read your initial post fully as I missed the fact that you are not the customer.

What is your position here?

The fact that it's a wet area is more concerning as the chance for water ingress is high, particularly given the poor workmanship which will ultimately leave poor grout joints and also it looks like they have tiled directly onto bare plasterboard? Is that the case? If so, it should really have been tanked or a suitable tile backerboard used.

 

[Trigger]

Some bits are unacceptable and need to be redone, some bits won't jump out at you if using a grout colour that is similar to the colour of the tiles. However if you are paying good money you are entitled to have it done right.

Did you get to see the tiles prior to them being fitted? Some tiles are poor quality and are not uniform in size which can throw things out of level a bit sometimes but if you know what you are doing you can overcome this. Mosaics are normally glued to a mesh backing sheet and again it is not uncommon for some of them to not be glued on square, but again this is easily overcome.

 

[bsc ceramics]

I agree with Dave on this it a bad bad job. I think the tiles are dot ans dabbed. No exess adhesive to the edge
of the tiles. As for the mosaic very bad. the walls have to be straight and true for these as you cant pack
out at all. Should be laid and tamped gentle with something, i use an old grout float. the thing is they will
look even worse when grouted with the bad joints and lips. need to come off and start again with a flat wall.
And i would be asking about there fixing method for the wall tiles.

 

[Kaffee]

Also, you could put a big level against the wall (or anything that's 2 meters long and straight) and show the gaps in the uneven wall.

 

[Ajax123]

Looks fine apart from the rubbish tiling

 

[Discothetiler]

I cant believe theres even a question if this is an acceptable job... that mosaic work is horrendous. How did the customer choose the tradesman? This tends to be what happens when you pick the cheapest quote. Accept nothing but strip and redo

 

[Ezarb123]

Oh geez.. Many more responses here now, where do i begin.

To answer a few questions -

- The board underneath is Go-Board, it is indeed a waterproof substrate as far as i understand. Seams were sealed up to the border (saw it happen in person.) Border is 6ft + up off floor.

- The tiles are indeed on a mesh backer.

- Existing Imperfections in Tile/Mesh... I had pulled a few random squares out from the boxes to try & contrast what he has hanging on the wall vs what they are supposed to look like when installed correctly. To do this I used the completely flat, completely true, completely level surface of a table top.. When i did this, all the tiles lines, heights, profiles, flushness, etc, were uniform the same way I expected to see them once install on the wall & the same way that type of small tile is installed in the rest of the house or anywhere for that matter. Now, Im sure if you put a Caliper or Micrometer to them, you could find imperfections & make some sort of weak argument, but from a manufacturing/installer perspective they looked 100% to me when on that table.. like i expected them to.

- I keep hearing dot & dab mentioned. I really don't think they are, but i could be wrong, it could just be part of my blind spot as this is not my trade. Upon seeing everything up close, It left me with the impression that there is constant layer of "thinset" underneath (I'll keep calling it that until yall correct me blind spot here again). I believe this layer was not flush/plumb/etc & because of that, it caused mayhem with the mosaics.

- Yeah, I agree... I ponder what they're fixing method was for the rest of the job & when they'll start falling off the wall.. Honestly, at this point, I stopped caring, as long as this border stuff looks legit after being removed. If they chose to be lazy again & I can point out the same hack work, then they're just proving the point I've been making to the customer all along that this crew needs to go!! If it is still hacked (which I'm betting it is), it will be noted & hopefully customer will choose a different GC for the rest of the house.
(The amount of pushback I got on calling this hack job out was mind blowing, I've done what i can against serious, serious disagreement, without at the same time giving the homeowner a nervous breakdown. While also, by doing so, hopefully putting the installers on notice that unacceptable bs hatchet work won't be tolerated). What sucks is, I know both these people, both GC & Tile Setter are intimately interweaved within my network of friends. So it sorta came down to... Which is thicker? Blood or Water? Ya know?