Chippy who thought he could tile

[theyomper]

Hi all, I would like some advice and suggestions.
I have a customer who had a day room built and the builder told her that the Chippy could lay the floor tiles!! Well he laid them and it looks like the steps on the great wall of china. There are lipping tiles every where! The tiles laid are travertine. When she told him that she was not happy he took an angle grinder to some of the really high spots.....you can imagine the result. The area is about 26 square meters.

My suggestion to her was that I could hire a floor polisher and grind the whole lot back and re seal them. I used one several years ago when working on terrazo floors. Would this be the way to go or does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance

[CBTC]

If you're experienced in doing re-finishing I guess thats a starting point for remedying it without getting the pros in. Check the soundness of the fixing first to make sure the tiles are going to stay fixed through the regrind process.
good luck

Colin

[CJ]

Why are YOU doing anything?

Get the guy responsible to sort it.

Sounds like the whole lot will have to come up, and replaced? Then relaid by a pro

[craig t]

If the lippage is as bad as you say then yes this can be fixed by "grinding' the floor using diamond abrasives and a polishing machine. You have some major problems though as it is not as easy as you may think. I take it when you used the machine on terratzo the floor was pretty flat and you were basically honeing any minor lippage and polishing the grout off the tiles. This job differs as the lippage is so severe the grit on the diamonds must be rougher to grind away the lippage. Then you must gradually reduce the grit or "roughness" of the diamonds to close the pours of the stone. This is a time consuming expensive and in all honesty dangerous process if you do not have experience in doing this as the rough diamonds are basically like using a drill . Make a mistake or miscalculation and you could end up drilling a hole in the floor. There are specialist companies in this field and can fix this mess but i would imagine it would cost more than the initial installation of the floor as they went with a joiner rather than pay a natural stone fixer! Although the floor is 26m2 it will need 4 or 5 differant diamonds used on it so in effect it will be over 100m2 and i would reckon even and specialised company would be there for 5 days minimum. If I were you I would pass on this job unless you can find a company near by who may throw you some fixing work in your area as a "finders fee" I think I have seen a couple of guys on this forum but am pretty new so perhaps you can search previous posts!

hope this helps Craig T

[d c tiling]

Hi Yomper, have a chat with TILINGLOGISTICS on this forum , he specialises in this field, otherwise stay away and let the chippy come back and sort his mess.

[craig t]

Yip that the one Tilinglogistics I knew there was someone on here in this field!

[ross lewiss]

what are terazzo floors?

[theyomper]

Thanks to all who have replied. I will contact tiling logistics. So although it has been some time since I used a grinding machine I think I will steer clear of this job and recommend someone else.

Terrazo flooring is what you see in the likes of Asda ~ Sainsburys etc.

[sWe]

Terrazzo is a flooring material made from aggregate, usually marble or stone, but other materials like glass can be used as well, set in mortar or epoxy. You can either cast/mold it directly on a floor (requires specilist gear), or use ready made tiles from it.

It's also called "poor man's marble".

[TilingLogistics]

Thanks to all who have replied. I will contact tiling logistics. So although it has been some time since I used a grinding machine I think I will steer clear of this job and recommend someone else.

Terrazo flooring is what you see in the likes of Asda ~ Sainsburys etc.

Just got back from sunny Spain my contact details are in my signature block or PM me

Kev

[hillhead]

Hi Swe,
tell me does that terrazo flooring(tile type) wear out diamond blades quickly??
i lost a 300 dia blade last week cutting that sh** i think !! was cutting more today but used my animal of a marcrist grinder blade !!! had an effect on it for sure,tamed it by the looks of it,lol.

Terrazzo is a flooring material made from aggregate, usually marble or stone, but other materials like glass can be used as well, set in mortar or epoxy. You can either cast/mold it directly on a floor (requires specilist gear), or use ready made tiles from it.

It's also called "poor man's marble".

[sWe]

There are different types of diamond blades. I haven't worked much at all with terrazzo, but if I'm not misstaken, terrazzo is a more abrasive than ceramics.

The bonding agent for the diamonds in a blade meant for ceramics, will be relatively soft, as ceramics isn't particularly abrasive (ie it's a really hard material).

Marble is softer, and thus more abrasive than cermics, and the bonding agent will thus need to be harder. Mortar is probably even more abrasive.


Try a blade meant for marble rather than cermaics to begin with.

[sWe]

The Marcrist Turbo-Ten is a general purpose diamond blade. The specs state it's suitable for concrete, reinforced concrete, natural stone, pipes, slabs, roof tiles, bricks, clay pipes and terrazzo. All of those materials are fairly abrasive, so using a blade meant for ceramics on on those, is bound to result in a destroyed blade.

[Pawelzik]

what are terazzo floors?

Explanation by sWe, please find 2 samples pictures attached, regards, Martin