Professional Tiling How is it done

[spudas]

Hi,

I've just had some tiles working on my bathroom. It is half finshed and for the moment I have asked them not to come back until I have come to an agreement with the manager on hoiw professional tiling should look like.

In my book, you would spread the adheshive on the wall/floor first with a notched spreader and the press the tiles into that.

The way these gyus have gone about it is spreading the adheshive on the back fof the tiles and then pressed the tiles onto the wall. The adhesive has sometimes been squeezed out in the gap between the tiles but more often than not it has not and thus left the edges of the tiles hanging in mid air.

On the floor I have underfloor heating and I can see the wires o the UFH between the tiles.

The manager of the company claims that this procedure is perfectly acceptable but I am claiming that this job is not performed professionally.

I would need some sane word from you guys to support either mine or the company's view. What's you take on this?

/Spud

[Scott]

Some spread the back of the tile for wall tiling but nor for floors. British standards is 100% coverage. The method you describe sounds like dot and dab which is not an acceptable method of fixing tiles. You were right to stop them.

[TheWrightTiler]

agree, for walls i believe its 65% COVERAGE and floors are 100%

this sounds like dot and dab which imho is unaccepatable, you are right to stop work and seek alternative views, where in the uk are you, perhaps admina can point you in the right direction for a local tiler etc

what size are the tiles and what type of adhesive was used as certain adhesives are no good for tiles over a certain size

cheers

andy

[Scott]

Just another bit of info for you, the under floor heating is supplosed to be encapsulated in ither tiles adhesive or self leveling compound so it doesnt burn out.

[Dan]

If it is dot-and-dab on the floors, you were right to stop them, as said above.

You say the UFH cables can be seen through the grout joints, is this all over the floor or just in the odd area?

When tiling walls in a wet area I believe it needs to be 80-100% covered. And in the dry areas 60-80% (can anybody confirm this?) so if they have back-buttered the tiles on the walls rather than applying adhesive to the walls, you may be okay. Especially given the fact that adhesive has been forced out of the grout joints, suggesting they're quite covered on the back. Whilst the way they've done it isn't the best, if they washed off the tiles properly to leave a clean grout joint, you should find the tiles are pretty fixed.

Though they could dot-and-dab (so put four big blobs of adhesive on the back of the tiles) and still cause the adhesive to ooze out in the corners, but the tile in this case may not have the correct coverage. Best thing to do, is pull one or two off to check.

As for the cables in the floor, if it is just the odd one across the whole floor, it too could be not as bad as you think given the fact the grout will be forced into the odd isolated area. Though if you can see ALL the cables. That's pretty worrying. And given the fact air pockets under the tiles should not only not be there, they will act as insulation in some sense and stop the heat dispersing evenly across the floor, and could stop the tile be warmed well where there are air pockets.

You could do with lifting a tile somewhere where it won't damage the cable and taking a look at the back of the tile.

If you can take pictures, that'd be great as we'd be able to see a bit better.

[TheWrightTiler]

saddle up and ride your pony comes to mind lol

[user123]

Sounds a mess

[williamraff]

Hi, in response to your question - in Law you have the right to expect an acceptable / reasonable level of competence from those purporting to be professionals.

Any individual or organisation representing themselves as such are bound by this and can be held accountable on this basis if goods, services or advice supplied by them are deemed to be of an unacceptable / unprofessional standard.

The problem with this is - who decides what is aceptable / reasonable?
Building Regs and British Standards are a good place to start, also quoting the relevant best practice from B.R.E ( British Research Establishment) will help.

Trading Standards and ultimately a suitably qualified Legal professional may be your last recourse but hopefully it will not come to that.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but wherever possible the choice of your contractor or service provider should ideally be made based on sound evidence of past work, satisfied clients, no track record of complaints to Trading Standards and evidence of attainment of the appropriate qualifications or accreditaion to a recognised trade association.

I know much of this may be of small comfort to you now but it may help in the future.

I would also just add that the majority of tradesmen are no different to any other walk of life; most are hard working, intrinsically honest individuals who will do their best to accomadate any client worries or isssues and to whom a job well done is the ultimate aim.

I trust that your current concerns can be adressed and / or rectified and hope that this can be done without resorting to legal action.

Kind regards, Will Rafferty BSc Hons Building Surveying and Property Management .

[mikethetile]

you were right to stop the job, hopefully payment is still outstanding pending correct fixing of tiles

[Pebbs]

Why dont you post some photos and then we can have a better look? I dont like jumping on the 'done wrong' band wagon without seeing what we are discussing.

Pebbs

[diamondtiling]

spreading the back of the tile is not the right way at all, were they building any areas out?

[macten]

Nothing wrong with spreading the back of the tile (not dot and dab obviously) for walls, just time consuming for the tiler but if that's how he likes to work then so be it.

[david campbell]

i recently done a splashback with red 200 x 100mm brick effect tiles and had to spread adhesive on the back of 75% of them due to the walls being such a mess,not my normal practice but sometimes it needs to be done

[Dave]

agree, for walls i believe its 65% COVERAGE and floors are 100%

this sounds like dot and dab which imho is unaccepatable, you are right to stop work and seek alternative views, where in the uk are you, perhaps admina can point you in the right direction for a local tiler etc

what size are the tiles and what type of adhesive was used as certain adhesives are no good for tiles over a certain size

cheers

andy

65% coverage is kitchen work and other dry areas , in bathrooms it is 100% coverage and floors it is solid bed fixing..

[Dave]

Hi,

I've just had some tiles working on my bathroom. It is half finshed and for the moment I have asked them not to come back until I have come to an agreement with the manager on hoiw professional tiling should look like.

In my book, you would spread the adheshive on the wall/floor first with a notched spreader and the press the tiles into that.

The way these gyus have gone about it is spreading the adheshive on the back fof the tiles and then pressed the tiles onto the wall. The adhesive has sometimes been squeezed out in the gap between the tiles but more often than not it has not and thus left the edges of the tiles hanging in mid air.

On the floor I have underfloor heating and I can see the wires o the UFH between the tiles.

The manager of the company claims that this procedure is perfectly acceptable but I am claiming that this job is not performed professionally.

I would need some sane word from you guys to support either mine or the company's view. What's you take on this?

/Spud

This is pure guess work to what fixing method has been used.. they can spread the back of the tiles on walls as long as they get the coverage.

We could really do with some pics to see what you are seeing.

[TheWrightTiler]

65% coverage is kitchen work and other dry areas , in bathrooms it is 100% coverage and floors it is solid bed fixing..

ta dave knew i read 65 somewhere lol

andy

[Dave]

ta dave knew i read 65 somewhere lol

andy

I think the updated BS is now 75%.. i will check.. tomoz if i remember..

[TheWrightTiler]

after a few slurperoonies mate nahh

[spudas]

Thanks for all your advice. Sorry for not coming back to you until now. I've been away.

Your advice gave me confidence to confront first the installation manager of the company, who just shrugged and then later told me over the phone that he didn't see any issues. I got hold of the project manager who was on vacation at that point and told the story. We agreed that she would take a look when she got back. She did take a look and also had an independent tiler to assess the work. The independent tiler came to basically the same conclusion as I had done. I.e. a bodge job. To cut a long story short the original tilers had basically done everything in the book wrong. All the tiles have been ripped up and replace apart from the floor which will be ripped up later this week. This is becasu the electrician discovered that the UFH was damaged and didn't work.

The project manager did speak to the owner of the company and he has now decided to cover all the extra costs involved.

So we are sort of, back on track but I didn't count on being without a shower for 9 weeks.

Thanks again for boosting my morale.

[timeless john]

Thanks for the update and we hope its 2nd time okay!
On the UFH side there should be a continuity monitor on the floor to check for any breaks in the wiring as the job progresses.
I'am assuming it will be different tilers next time round.

[mikethetile]

good im pleased you got this sorted out

[velcro]

65% coverage is kitchen work and other dry areas , in bathrooms it is 100% coverage and floors it is solid bed fixing..

Apologies for a stupid question, but is there a difference between 100% coverage & solid bed? I'd always assumed that they were just different ways of saying the same thing.

[whitebeam]

Yes, thats correct

[doug boardley]

yep, I've always said 100% coverage and solid bed were same

[Dave]

Well.. 100% is every point of a tile has adhesive on it but may result is small voids.. so ok for walls..

Solid bed is simply no voids .. so full bed of adhesive..

[velcro]

Thanks Dave. A subtle distinction.

[pjc]

Nothing wrong with spreading the back of the tile (not dot and dab obviously) for walls, just time consuming for the tiler but if that's how he likes to work then so be it.

i must disagree we all have to do it with a few tiles now and again but i have personally always found that it dose not adhere as well thats why the manufactures always tell us to spread it on the wall first then notch it had this discussion with several tech departments thats my opinion i know not everyone agrees