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VT23

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Hi my tiler screeded my bathroom floor 4 days ago and it hasnt fully cured in places. There also a white powdery residue on top.

In some places where its thinnest it has set. In other places not so well - you can walk on it but i tried scraping some of the white residue and slithers of screed would come off with it.

The temperature in the bathroom has been about 17- 18 degrees. There's no heating in there yet.

He used Nicobond Fibre Flex.

Do you think the mix was too wet?
 
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S

Spare Tool

Sounds like too much water in the mix, if it's not dry after four days there's something very wrong, no fixing it now, all up and start again I'm afraid...
 
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F

Flintstone

Poor air flow, too much moisture or poured exceeding the thickness that leveller is rated to or a combination of those. Any photos ?
 
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V

VT23

Hi LocalTiler,

You might remember my post regarding my woes with Warmup DCM PRO. Well Warmup recommended that i SLC over the thermal insulation baords before relaying the matting.

So i got a tiler rnd to do it. See below for images. the first 2 where taken 10 minutes after the pour. The last one was taken a few minutes ago. I was surprised at how much surface water there was! 1-2mm sitting on top. The tiler didnt open the window so i had to wait 3 days for it to dry up enough to walk on before i could reach it. The door was left open.

The lumps in the photos are unmixed compound. My tiler said to chisel them off when dry. Surely this isn't right!? You may notice i started doing this in the last photo. Some of the marks are scrapes (top left). I did this yesterday (3 days after application) and had to be careful not to scrape off chunks of compound.

Im panicking at the thought of having to redo this!

IMG_5344_zpscrihc2e5.jpg

IMG_5345_zpszid2zs26.jpg

IMG_5410_zpshml2kowi.jpg
 
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D

Dumbo

I think I would hook it up now . It will be easier than when it is dry . The longer you leave the harder it will be
 
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T

Time's Ran Out

If your ‘tiler’ tipped it, then he should sort it ( lumps and all) before you put your boards down. Any tiler worth his salt would prepare the whole job!
 
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V

VT23

The edging strips where done by me! All he had to do was pour the stuff down!


The tiler messaged me last night and said he might scrape up any wet areas and redo it. I said I need to think about the best way forward. Surely the whole lot has to come up?


If we have to lift it all how are we going to avoid damaging the insulation boards? These are 6mm foam with a cement face.


Ps does anyone have any idea what the white residue is?
 
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S

Spare Tool

Its laitance from too much water in the mix, not a chance of getting the leveler up without damaging the boards, had to take a bit up I'd done last week and it ripped the top coating off the boards.. There's a slight chance it could be salvaged.. If you use a steel ruler or similar flat edge scrapper and scrape off the loose powder and any flaky bits then soak it through with primer and give it another skim over with leveler (mixed properly this time) it might end up stable enough for you to fit the matting before tile..
 
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W

Waluigi

You paid for a professional to do a job which he didn’t manage to do. It’s now going to cost you money to put it right.

Personally I’d not pay him a penny and get someone in who knows who he is doing.

Even if this Tiler says he will sort it out, alarm bells are already ringing as to why he didn’t mechanically mix it or use the correct quantity of water. If he can’t get something as simple as that right then that would be it for me. Goodbye ‘tiler’ it’s time to get a pro in.
 
OP
V

VT23

So the tiler came round last night to see floor. To be fair on him he held his hands up and admitted he’d screwed up.

I told him the SLC must all come up. He wasn’t on-board with this solution. He was concerned that he would damage the insulation boards and he has a point. I took a video of myself scraping up the softest area of the floor (see below). It crumbled quite easily but so did the cement face of the insulation board.


534E031B-CEFD-44A6-9331-A61A9D8F96D3_zpsm5mnmrrq.jpeg


He suggested grinding away the white residue and scraping off as much of the SLC before we hit the insulation or the solid areas of SLC. Then prime and re-apply SLC with correct mix.

My issue is I have no confidence in this guy doing this. I could ask for my £80 back and let him walk away but then I feel he walks away lightly leaving me with the mess to clear up.

I asked him if he had liability insurance; he said yes but doesn’t want to go down that route. To fix this mess properly the SLC, insulation and possible timber floor must all come up! Including the 1700 stone shower tray! This would have to be an insurance job.
 

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