Is this ok? Natural stone floor not level after tiling - TilersForums.com

[Time's Ran Out]

Just to be clear - and everyone can have their own procedure - all stone is different .

Now having fixed a few stone floors over the years I'd put my 6d worth in.
White Limestone, Terracotta and Encaustics I always seal as I take them out of the crate. Honed stones I work clean ( not as clean as my son apparently) and seal when fully dry 48 hours later.
This particular marble I would have worked clean but sealed before grouting.
Not that anyone listens to old people these days.

And seal when fully dry!

For a number of years before I sold tooling I owned a stone import business. We predominantly imported marble and limestone from Portugal and Spain and without exception every crate or box of tiles we ever handled would have been packed at the production factory whilst it was still wet.

This is the main reason why it's not generally sensible to seal any of these products in any way before they are fitted and allowed to dry naturally. As in most cases you're trapping in production moisture on top of moisture being drawn in from whatever adhesive is being used.

Also consider that an already moist stone is not going to absorb any form of sealant to a degree that will allow it to perform to it's design standard.

Imho - if you know your stone you will not have the issues!

 

[WaltWhite]

So to recap, my 7 months pregnant wife ordered the tiles over the phone from Fired Earth. She wasn't given any guidance at all about the nature of the stone we were using. Of course the email confirming the order did say "check the terms and conditions". The website showing the bridghampton tiles says in a small box "Extreme Variation" : I would have no idea this meant more variation than you would normally expect with a natural stone, being our first time ever buying these sort of tiles.
Fired Earth are have told me they would not normally give guidance to customers other than this as they have been told this is rude by previous customers in the past. There is also guidance on the invoice but in very small writing which we were not directed to, again we are novices at this but would have appreciated a little bit more help here. They also say because we ordered samples from the website they would have assumed we did not need any guidance when actually ordering. Hmmmm.

Our tiler did not indicate any problems with working with these tiles, he says he opened 4 of the six boxes and mixed them up. He also refuses to believe this is a moisture issue, and says it is colour variation as some other tilers I have asked believe. As when he finished he did not clean the tiles, I'm wondering if excess sealant was left on the tiles, which could have darkened them. But it does appear to be in places whole sheets that are darker.

If particular sheets of the tiles were darker the tiler did not ask us if we were Ok to use these. He said he thought that was the mix.

I'm really annoyed with the attitude of Fired Earth, I have asked if someone could come and look at the floor and they have refused. We had the tiles unopened for quite a while, we were delayed with our renovation and had the small matter of my wife being knocked down to contend with so this delayed our project. I feel let down by the installation and frankly the attitude of this company (Topps Tiles better customer service in my opinion)

I still owe the tiler a third of the money. He feels he is being criticised because of Fired Earth's lack of help with this, and that he should be paid all of his money. I asked him to come back and improve the floor. He has offered to cut out the darker sheets and put the unused sheets in but offers no guarantees it would be better (thinking he would use a disk cutter, difficult to do neatly?). Im not sure exactly how he can do this with hexagon tiles and it look ok?

Regarding the earlier photos of the "Hamptons " floor ( that looks brilliant btw) this is also classed as Extreme Variation but looks very similar to fired earth photos and their samples. As opposed to what we have.

Our baby is due this week so could do without this hassle!
Sorry for long message but that is the current state of play.....

 

[WaltWhite]

BTW some people are saying the floor looks OK, I dont know.....

 

[WaltWhite]

Found these photos a couple of hours after they had been sealed. Floor is not clean mayb the application of the stainstop is the problem

 

[RealEarth]

that mosaic looks absolutely nothing like they advertise on their website. Yes.. there is scope for 'natural variation' in stone - but that's ridiculous.
Have we established that the tiler hasn't used a grey adhesive? (sorry.. i've not read every post on this thread) - that would be a major contributing factor to the greyness in the tiles.

This is Hampton Marble hexagon mosaic I supplied recently.. together with matching brick on the walls. This was from Silver Lion Trading (not Fired Earth) - but essentially the same product. Never had any issues with them ever.



It's saddening to hear of the end users being brushed off with small print, hoping that they'll go away and stop bothering them - but sometimes problems need to be addressed and put to bed in a professional manner that you would expect from a high end brand such as theirs. It would be worth going straight to the top with your complaint and asking the question as to what they would consider acceptable to their samples / website image and what you have received. I would be interested to hear their response.
Good luck.

 

[WaltWhite]

I know it's not quite the same (bridgehampton rather than easthampton) but that is also extreme variation and at least there's some similarity to website / samples. The tiler says he didn't use grey adhesive. I'm wondering if it's the sealant? But anyway fired Earth are now not returning my calls. Don't really now where to go from here

 

[Concrete guy]

Your issue here is with the supplier of the marble, not the installer. I would be taking this up with Fired Earth.

This is the very reason we used to encourage customers to come and view/pick the product they were having fitted. Natural stone has variations, it's natural after all. It's up to the supplier to provide enough opportunity for the end user to see what they are buying and make sure they are happy with the product.

 

[WaltWhite]

I feel like both may be at fault. The earlier posts here suggest moisture may be an issue with the installation. The floor was not cleaned and may have been sealed with dirt on the marble. There is adhesive on part of the floor. I have been informed that leaving an excess of sealant on the marble can darken it. I don't think the marble was buffed dry after allowing the sealant to impregnate the required period of time. The tiles were only given two days to dry out

Regarding Fired Earth they have not given us any advice with this product and are currently washing their hands of us now they have our money. They now will not return my calls. I don't know if their tiles were the problem but the floor looks quite a bit different to what we expected

So a bit fed up with this now to be honest, I don't blame the installer entirely but we haven't ended up with what we expected. Surely if the sheets are looking very different to some of the other sheets and the customer was around all day, all be it in a different room someone might ask them if they were happy?

 

[One Day]

I like solvent based sealers , takes me back to my teens

Try Universeal rapid all-in-one. Too much of that and it'll send you to sleep - permanently!

 

[hmtiling]

I feel like both may be at fault. The earlier posts here suggest moisture may be an issue with the installation. The floor was not cleaned and may have been sealed with dirt on the marble. There is adhesive on part of the floor. I have been informed that leaving an excess of sealant on the marble can darken it. I don't think the marble was buffed dry after allowing the sealant to impregnate the required period of time. The tiles were only given two days to dry out

Regarding Fired Earth they have not given us any advice with this product and are currently washing their hands of us now they have our money. They now will not return my calls. I don't know if their tiles were the problem but the floor looks quite a bit different to what we expected

So a bit fed up with this now to be honest, I don't blame the installer entirely but we haven't ended up with what we expected. Surely if the sheets are looking very different to some of the other sheets and the customer was around all day, all be it in a different room someone might ask them if they were happy?

I think you should have gone through the sheets yourself. You havea genuine gripe with fired earth but should pay the tiler in full Imo. It would be easier to take your frustration out on the tiler by not paying him but he has fixed what you had be supplied and I'm not convinced he's done anything wrong having seen this sort of stone darken when sealed by the book.