Easy Job, Gone Wrong? - Tile Advice

[dynamictiling]

I can't be the only to start a job and get stung with the amount of work in it.

Typical bathroom renewal. Typically 5 days start to finish.

This one has been anything but! Normally takes a day, day and a half max stripping all the old tiles off. Marble on the walls, so I knew this would take a bit longer. Partition wall to come down aswell. Well shortly after stripping some tiles of I quickly realise that the tiles are stuck on the wall with latex based adhesive. Bad enough in its own right. Next comes the realisation that the walls are 18mm marine ply!! Never in my life have a seen this in a bathroom.

2 and a half days to strip it down with 3 men on site. Plumber comes up for his first fixings. Shower pipe and radiator pipes are hooked up to the mains. Which so happens to be a communal boiler system located in the basement. We had to turn the heating off for the entire building (it is a art deco block of flats) and then drain the whole system. This took nearly 4 hours to do alone!

So 8 days later the spark was in today, then the plasterer. Wee bit of tiling to finish and lastly plumber is back for his final fixings.

Anyone else had a nightmare experience from what was ment to be a simple job?

 

[Rick-o]

Haha yes quite often!! Had a kitchen floor to strip up and re tile over Christmas period.. Only 5m2... Started ripping the original terecotta tiles up November, end of January all the walls in the kitchen and dining room next door striped right back due to damp, external doors out as they were originally fitted too low and water was getting in from outside when it rained and half the sub floor dug up due to a leaking pipe!!

 

[dynamictiling]

Sorry about the lack of updates, busy as always.....

anyhow here is the finished result. customer was an interior designer, brief was easy "clean lines, functional, low maintenance, full tiles everywhere (I know, because no tiler has ever used a sigma or rubi right?!?!?)


On a more positive note, that shower fitting kit was that handsome, that it was almost a crime assembling that shower screen. I have never seen such a nice, neat fitting kit. Even the interior designer said it was a beautiful German engineered piece of kit.

 

[Stef]

I had a bit of a nightmare on the job I finished last week.
I had them booked in for 7 days & I ended up on the job for 14.
They were fine about it & the price readjustment was spot on for me.
Do you not put your heat mats into a slc?

 

[dynamictiling]

No, if the slc fails the tiles are gone. 24mm marine ply down (I replaced the floor boards due to leak damage) I use a plastic 12mm serator.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

No, if the slc fails the tiles are gone. 24mm marine ply down (I replaced the floor boards due to leak damage) I use a plastic 12mm serator.

Direct to plywood, no slc, plastic trowel, inch gap to the ceiling - everyone to their own but I'd do it differently.

 

[LM]

No, if the slc fails the tiles are gone. 24mm marine ply down (I replaced the floor boards due to leak damage) I use a plastic 12mm serator.

Plywood is a fire Hazzard with eufh!

 

[hmtiling]

no insulation either?

 

[specren]

Sorry about the lack of updates, busy as always.....

anyhow here is the finished result. customer was an interior designer, brief was easy "clean lines, functional, low maintenance, full tiles everywhere (I know, because no tiler has ever used a sigma or rubi right?!?!?)


On a more positive note, that shower fitting kit was that handsome, that it was almost a crime assembling that shower screen. I have never seen such a nice, neat fitting kit. Even the interior designer said it was a beautiful German engineered piece of kit.

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seems nice job. However, two things. no slc over heating element and on top of ply??.

why?

 

[dean.diy]

that's ruined his weekend.
Lovely tiling though.

 

[Flintstone]

Same as others have said. I looked through a dynamic tiling media album not so long ago and saw a few bits on there also. Up your game!

 

[LM]

Enoughs enough folks, I think the guy has heard enough for one weekend, give him a break

 

[Time's Ran Out]

No need to make those comments!
Everyone has their own opinions but if you can't be constructive keep the forum friendly.

 

[White Room]

Direct to plywood, no slc, plastic trowel, inch gap to the ceiling - everyone to their own but I'd do it differently.

I've a ufh supplier recommend up to 160w ufh onto ply, the one I posted about they have 200w onto ply but not used yet.

 

[dynamictiling]

right guys, thanks for the constructive comments.

I have used SLC for a few UFH jobs and it is truly up there with some of the worst products i have ever came across. After 48 hours, walking over it. it sounds like your are walking over broken biscuits. You can poke your finger through it even after 48 hours drying (in a heated room). It crumbles like wet paper. Try doing that to a sand and cement screed after 48 hours. You wont have any fingers left. Floor screeding and wall rendering was once part of a tiling apprenticeship. Get a job like that and you can charge what you like! more often than not i have made more off of screeding than i have made off of tiling! Personally i couldn't trust the SLC as far as i could throw it. Basically water down screed, you expect that to have the same strength as a traditional screed? What is Surprising is the amount of people that have faith in watered down cement? surely i cant be the only not to?


Anyhow after a difficult conversation today, i have agreed to reimburse the customer the cost of the ufh, controller and the sparks wages, in order to cut the cable and do away with the UFH. As appose to strip the whole floor and start again. Controller wasn't wired up, i have a spare probe. So i can return that.

I think that it is ironic that the thread description of simple job wrong has came to prove, that this is a simple job gone wrong.


15 year tiling, i have never seen a bathroom sheeted in 18mm ply on the walls. in 15 year i have never had to drain a 5000 litre heating system ( to move a heating pipe 50mm!)

The lesson to take home here kids, is....


"Always expect, the unexpected"