Help!: 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....

[Sir Ramic]

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?

[Sir Ramic]

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...

[Sir Ramic]

Then it was pretty useless excercise IMO

[orchard]

OK.... any other ideas?

[Sir Ramic]

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?

[Bathfix Bob]

If I were your tilier I'd be round straight away, otherwise I'd be prolonging the agonny!
Its every tilers worse nightmare to get a call like that.

[andy allen]

i was asked to price a job last week on a floating floor....45m2 trav

i refused to quote even when the customer showed me the hallway that had been tiled 5yrs ago and showing no problems.

this is the problem with floating floors, for every floor thats tiled with out any problems theres another 5 that have failed.

very hit and miss and not worth it imo

[orchard]

He is subcontracted through my builder however is due back on Friday essentially to take a look at a couple of the tiles tak them out and see if they can identify problem...However everything I seem to be hearing is that the whole floor is essentially flawed...in particular extension area perhaps because of inconsistent matching of materials.
Someone did suggest potentially adding some sort of corrugated matting over the boards to try to reduce the movement or else to try fixing the boards to make it less 'floating' as it were...

[mikethetile]

I dont think a decoupling mat will help in this situation as it wont stop the floor moving

mats work with lateral movement between disimilar substrates by isolating the floor from the sub floor but the sub floor needs to be stable for it to work

[orchard]

Ahh right - I am becoming at expert at this now.... It now appears that architects had actually specified a screed floor for the extn area and not sure why th decision was made to not do this.... what about trying to secure the boards in some way using noggins(?) or something else ( not actually sure what noggins are.....) : - ) then relaying the tiles may this help???

[mikethetile]

noggins are the pieces of wood that are fixed between joists to stop them flexing

it makes sense that the architect specified a screed floor for a kitchen extension as the prefered floorcovering in a quality kitchen is tiles or stone

removing the floating floor and laying a screed is the best long term solution but its expensive to remove and refit a kitchen

is there any chance of getting the builder back and ask him 2 questions

why did you lay a floating floor when a screed floor was specified

where did you get the spec for the floating floor if the architect didnt specify one

[Dave]

Hi and welcome..

Firstly..IMO Floating floors should be banned full stop..

Back to your floor, was in over boarded in anyway and if so what with and what thickness.?

The floor could be pulled down tighter by screwing and plugging it to the block beam/screed structure underneath.. but again not a guaranteed fix.

The idea of tiling to wooden substrates is for them to be virtually deflection free before tiling commences.

So a few question like mike mentions need to be answered as well..

[orchard]

Thanks I think this is what we are looking at - luckily the area of extension has no kitchen units on just our table so this may not be as disruptive as may first seem...

[Bathfix Bob]

Sorry for my question but how can a floating floor be identified?

To my knowledge I've yet to come accross one.

[doug boardley]

basically Bob, it's like a big stud partition wall laid on the concrete slab without any fixings, or just t&g laid onto kingspan type insulation board.