Hi all , posting this question on behalf of a work mate that had a kitchen fitted including tiling work which he does not seem too impressed with.

He has said the floor is making a cracking noise when walked upon also grout cracking around a few tiles.

What would be causing the cracking sound ??

Substrate : Floor boards with a thermal board overlay & warm-up heating

Adhesive & Grout unknown

cheers Ian

Sounds to me like the "cracking" sound is the grout "cracking"!

Do you know if the floor was properly prepared, i.e. solid and was the UFH turned on and heated up gradually?

The cracking sound will be the tiles debonding and the edges clicking, this will be due to poor prep and / or wrong adhesive and grout

I agree with the above posters.

There could be lots of things wrong here. Without more info its impossible to point the finger at any one area.
Firstly if the client is unhappy ( which they clearly will be) then tiles will need to be removed and investigate that way.

Originally Posted by grumpygrouter

Sounds to me like the "cracking" sound is the grout "cracking"!

Do you know if the floor was properly prepared, i.e. solid and was the UFH turned on and heated up gradually?

I don't know how the floor was prepared but I do know the heating was turned on gradually as per manufactures recommendations

Agree, floor was not properly preped. Under-lining problem, was initail floor boards secured? then over-laying boards were secured properly? right flexible adhesive'grout, what was the tile material? All adds to a bad job.

only mentions thermal board and no ply?

two words crap tiler didnt either do the prep work as required or wrong adhesive or grout