Assessing the quality of a laid tile floor

[Nickfromwales]

On 5 March 2017 at 16:20, Russell griffiths said:

With regards putting a straight edge on it and measuring under it this is only any good if the slab is level in the first place, adhesive is not designed to compensate for an unlevel floor slab. 

 

On 5 March 2017 at 16:36, Steptoe said:

I'd tend to agree with that,

I don't think you can put too much blame on the tiler for unlevel,

 

Absolute nonsense.

A tiler is bloody well 1000% responsible for levelling and laying a flat floor, REGARDLESS of the state of the slab. If the slab was that far out, which I doubt it was, then the tiler should have ascertained that BEFORE OPENING A BAG OF ADHESIVE !!!

At that point they should have advised that the slab needs feathering with latex and should have done so prior to laying 

Ill bet my left nut that this guy has laid the tiles worse than the slab was in the first place. 

The skirting / up stands should have all the vertical grout lines lined up with the grout lines in the floor, unless it's a different tile. 

 

This was over my mates brand new liquid screeded floor in his Persimmon home, and in the kitchen I had to use about 9 bags of self leveller . 

Have a butchers at that lot. 600mm x 600mm rectified edge porcelain, a rough as toast screed, and you could play snooker on it after I left. There is no excuse.   

 

[Steptoe]

22 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

 

 

Absolute nonsense.

A tiler is bloody well 1000% responsible for levelling and laying a flat floor, REGARDLESS of the state of the slab. If the slab was that far out, which I doubt it was, then the tiler should have ascertained that BEFORE OPENING A BAG OF ADHESIVE !!!

At that point they should have advised that the slab needs feathering with latex and should have done so prior to laying 

Ill bet my left nut that this guy has laid the tiles worse than the slab was in the first place. 

The skirting / up stands should have all the vertical grout lines lined up with the grout lines in the floor, unless it's a different tile. 

 

This was over my mates brand new liquid screeded floor in his Persimmon home, and in the kitchen I had to use about 9 bags of self leveller . 

Have a butchers at that lot. 600mm x 600mm rectified edge porcelain, a rough as toast screed, and you could play snooker on it after I left. There is no excuse.   

 

I'm not arguing the tiling is rough as (expletive deleted), but, if he has been brought in on a price to lay the tiles on a finished surface, its not his problem if the customer hasn't levelled the floor sufficiently to their satisfaction.

Does he lose his time that he has allowed to lay the floor,? Who is paying him? 

The job is a disgrace, I don't think anyone can disagree that,

but the OP hasn't yet told us the terms of the contract.

Was he contracted to screed/level and tile,? or simply paid per sq m to lay some tiles,?

Either way, I wouldn't be paying him for tiles laid like that anyway.! 

 

[Nickfromwales]

What your saying seems to contradict itself. Laying tiles with an adhesive gives you between 4 and 8mm of bed to play with. I can tile over unfinished, unlevelled bare concrete and get it perfectly flat, it just uses more adhesive and puts the rate up, but if the job needs doing properly you state this before proceeding ( as you'd need to go and buy more adhesive too before starting ). Following the floor is one thing, but kickers every other tile??? NOPE. 

Sorry to disagree but would you get any work if you stated to your customer "I'm happy to lay on that for £20 a square metre but it'll look like I did it when I was pissed. That be ok?"  You'd be out of the door with my foot up your arse if you said that to me. . 

There is no defence for this guy, his work is just bad. I bet he couldn't tile a pool table, so no sale, sorry.

Time to stop making excuses for him and to get the worst of it taken up and redone or bin the lot. The PM needs to step up and take the blame for not stopping him half way through, and contribute towards the renewals as it was their recommendation and even Stevie Wonder could have seen where this was going. 

[Steptoe]

21 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

What your saying seems to contradict itself. Laying tiles with an adhesive gives you between 4 and 8mm of bed to play with. I can tile over unfinished, unlevelled bare concrete and get it perfectly flat, it just uses more adhesive and puts the rate up, but if the job needs doing properly you state this before proceeding ( as you'd need to go and buy more adhesive too before starting ). Following the floor is one thing, but kickers every other tile??? NOPE. 

Sorry to disagree but would you get any work if you stated to your customer "I'm happy to lay on that for £20 a square metre but it'll look like I did it when I was pissed. That be ok?"  You'd be out of the door with my foot up your arse if you said that to me. . 

There is no defence for this guy, his work is just bad. I bet he couldn't tile a pool table, so no sale, sorry.

Time to stop making excuses for him and to get the worst of it taken up and redone or bin the lot. The PM needs to step up and take the blame for not stopping him half way through, and contribute towards the renewals as it was their recommendation and even Stevie Wonder could have seen where this was going. 

Errrm, didn't I say that each tile should be flush to its neighbour,?

Anything less is unacceptable, 

But I disagree, you shouldn't be using the adhesive to make up for an unlevel floor to that degree, a few mil, but not to the extent of what has been said looks like 20mm.

Yes, it should all be ripped up and relaid at absolutely NO expense to the client, unless, the slab needs leveled if it really does run out at the extent of 20mm, which is yet to be confirmed. 

But then the client should only be allowing for the levelling, if that hasn't already been agreed in the original contract. 

 

[Oz07]

Fake news it's actually a great job. They're all having it done like that now!

[Nickfromwales]

4 hours ago, Steptoe said:

Errrm, didn't I say that each tile should be flush to its neighbour,?

Anything less is unacceptable, 

But I disagree, you shouldn't be using the adhesive to make up for an unlevel floor to that degree, a few mil, but not to the extent of what has been said looks like 20mm.

Yes, it should all be ripped up and relaid at absolutely NO expense to the client, unless, the slab needs leveled if it really does run out at the extent of 20mm, which us tet to be confirmed. 

But then the client should only be allowing for the levelling, if that hasn't already been agreed in the original contract. 

 

I've been tiling for a bit over 23 years, and assure you that you can easily take as much as 5mm undulation out without having to start billing more, and most of that tiling is at most 5mm or less out in the overall lay. The kickers ( corners proud / sunken ) on this job are all avoidable in the regular expected price of laying.

Fwiw, I can't see anywhere where this floor required 20mm of making up. For a job like this where the focal point is the sliding door, that's where you should start laying from. That way you can get that main focal line nice and flat using the least amount of adhesive and then work back into the room, course at a time. 

Fyi for a slab that's only got 3-5mm undulation leveller will not improve it, it'll actually just cost money and most likely make it worse, as the leveller will just sit on the high points and make them higher as at that thickness the leveller sticks and doesn't completely run away, like it would if it were thin like water . 

 

[PeterW]

My thought would be you're paying a PM to manage this sort of thing anyway - he should know to assess the floor and check if there is an issue and advise the client - i.e. You - accordingly that there may be a problem. 

 

 PM and tiler at fault here in my book ..!

[ProDave]

15 hours ago, Steptoe said:

I'd tend to agree with that,

I don't think you can put too much blame on the tiler for unlevel,

Actually I think you can. I know a good tiler, and if the floor is not level, he will tell you, and tell you what needs to be done to make it level before he starts tiling.

[Jeremy Harris]

FWIW, our tiler spent around 40 minutes checking the floor levels before starting, as he wanted to be sure that he started at the highest point, and where the lowest point was, and how much lower it was.  He reckoned that he could make up for a few mm here and there with the adhesive OK, but it turned out that the slab was dead level and flat everywhere.  He did warn us right at the start, when he gave us the price for the job, that if there was a problem he'd have to level the slab with levelling compound before he could start laying the stone. 

 

The adhesive thickness allowance was 6mm for estimating quantity, IIRC, but we ended up using a lot less, as our slab was dead flat and level, having been power floated when laid.  We ended up with around half the adhesive I'd bought left over.  A lot of self builders have to buy the materials, in order to be able to claim the VAT back, as a lot of trades people aren't VAT registered, as in our case, and if doing this there needs to be a clear understanding as to whether or not the person using those materials is happy wth them, before they start work, not afterwards.

 

As above, there's no excuse here at all.  If there was a problem with the tiles then the tiler should have raised it before laying them, not just carried on.  Likewise, it's the PMs responsibility to make sure that subcontractors do a decent job, even if they happen to be friends or relatives. 

 

 

Edited March 6, 2017 by JSHarris

[Alex C]

My tiler is just finishing off laying 120msq of 1000 x 500 tiles on my passive slab where he had to use adhesive to make up for undulations in the floor up to about 5mm. The result is absolutely perfect. There was one day where he had some help in, the result of which was less than perfect, but I just made him take the whole lot up and do it again, and told his help not to bother coming back. My tiler has told me that in over 20 years of laying floors there has only been two occasions where he has not had to make up levels at all, as even what appears to be a level floor can vary by a couple of mm which with a large tile will be noticable. It is a real shame that your pm left it so long to put a stop to this as it should have been obvious on day 1 that your tiler was rubbish.

[Barney12]

Just to echo what everyone else has said, this IS the fault of the tiler. Full stop.

I have  done a fair bit of tiling on a DIY basis but wouldn't not even begin to consider myself an expert. The picture below is the garage floor at our place which I laid. The builder that put the concrete slab down did so with a yard broom and length of 4x2! Frankly it looked horrendous. But, it actually wasn't out by more than 10-15mm  across various points but just generally very rough. As others have said it's just a case of assessing everything ahead of the job.

i wouldn't consider the floor below a "snooker table" but it's flat with equal grout lines. 

What's more disappointing is that you've paid a PM who should prevent you having this pain. 

 

 

Edited March 6, 2017 by Barney12

[Declan52]

Doesn't really matter if it was the tiles being out or the floor being out or the tiler being less than ok you have employed a PM to manger your job and it is up to him to oversee the job. You need to tell him you aren't happy with the work and want it sorted ASAP. He lined the tiler up so it's his responsibility to make sure the end product is good which going by the pics it's not. So tell your PM that it needs ripped up and relaid. Don't except a few tiles getting replaced. The whole floor has to come up and it won't be at your expense.

[jamiehamy]

8 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

 

 

Absolute nonsense.

A tiler is bloody well 1000% responsible for levelling and laying a flat floor, REGARDLESS of the state of the slab. If the slab was that far out, which I doubt it was, then the tiler should have ascertained that BEFORE OPENING A BAG OF ADHESIVE !!!

At that point they should have advised that the slab needs feathering with latex and should have done so prior to laying 

Ill bet my left nut that this guy has laid the tiles worse than the slab was in the first place. 

The skirting / up stands should have all the vertical grout lines lined up with the grout lines in the floor, unless it's a different tile. 

 

This is was over my mates brand new liquid screeded floor in his Persimmon home, and in the kitchen I had to use about 9 bags of self leveller . 

Have a butchers at that lot. 600mm x 600mm rectified edge porcelain, a rough as toast screed, and you could play snooker on it after I left. There is no excuse.   

 

You've got the job,  when can you start?  :-p

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, jamiehamy said:

You've got the job,  when can you start?  :-p

Stuck at home with work and family commitments at mo sorry, and I've had plenty of offers too ?

Self employed = all, or bugger all ?

Lessons to be learned here folks, just a shame it's happened really.

best to explain to your chosen trades at the outset that your looking for a quality job or no dollars will be changing hands at the end. Any sign of a quivering lip, move onto the next choice. 

[Fallingditch]

Thanks all - appreciate the comments.

The relationship is that I hire the PM. He hires the subs. I supply the materials.

To date, all has gone OK - work has been carried out to a very high standard and I am very happy with it.

This is the first major problem. Its very unfortunate indeed that it wasn't spotted earlier.

It is a big ticket item and I should have double checked early on.

Hopefully, other self builders following this thread will learn from my mistake.

* * * * * * * *

A dispute has been opened. I will post on progress.

[Fallingditch]

Sidebar: How flat should a tile be?

 

I have had some feedback, and that is the fact that the tiles were slightly dished. (I do recognise that the time to complain about the tiles is not after they have all been laid, but set that aside for now).

 

We chose these spanish import 450 x 450 porcelain tiles because they were a pleasant light grey, they were available from a local supplier, and they came at a good price c. £17 psm. Perhaps one reason for the competitive price is because they are not 'flat'...

 

I have laid them face up on a flat surface and it is true they do rock a little.  That I assume can be compensated for with tile cement. However when I put a spirit level across the surface of the tile, I find that one or two corners do 'bow down' away from the flat edge, leaving a gap of about 1mm between the top of the face and the bottom of the level. (Maybe the worst ones have a 2mm gap).

 

Questions:

How 'flat' should porcelain tiles be?

What is the typical tolerance on a 450 x 450 tile?

If tiles are irregularly shaped, would good tilers compensate for this by (say) using a wider gap? 10mm?

Should I consider using these tiles again? or does this 'bowing' mean I should avoid them at all costs? (I don't really want to start the search again for this particular colour)

What guarantees do tile suppliers typically make regarding flatness? (if I were to buy from a mail order supplier - how bad would they have to be before I could send them back?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Trw144]

Going to throw it in the mix as it may suit both of us....I have some left over tiles from my project that look a pretty similar grey. They re 900 x 900 made by Living Ceramics in Spain, and I ve had 300m2 of them laid and no issues with being unlevel. They retail at around £60m2 and I was looking for £20 to get some of my money back. Can send pics if required - will be putting them in the sales part of this forum and then eBay shortly.

[drliamski]

Porcelain tile size variations

Porcelain tiles are a slightly different story. The manufacture of porcelain tiles starts out with a combination of various materials in dust that are pressed into a mold under high pressure then fired in kilns. The finished product is a tile in the shape of the mould. Porcelain tiles are often sold straight from the mold and have a slightly angled edge, the same shape as the mould - known as a natural edge or moulded edge. The tolerance to European standards on these kinds of tiles is up to 3mm. They don’t normally vary this much but these are the tolerances that are quoted. As such, a joint width of 3-5mm is recommended for natural edged porcelain.

Porcelain also comes rectified like natural stone. This is where the tiles are processed through machines that trim the edges off the tiles leaving a sharp, square rectified edge. The tolerance on the machines cutting these edges is very small indeed, making each tile practically the exact same size as the next one. As with rectified natural stone tiles, there is always a tolerance but that should be more like 0.2mm. Even with rectified porcelain tiles, it’s not recommended to install these with less than a 2mm grout joint as discussed above.

Tile thickness variations.

Natural stone tiles will often vary in thickness as well. +/-1mm is acceptable and any decent tiler will be able to take this into account by adjusting the tile in the bed of adhesive to suit. If a tiler complains about the varying thicknesses of tiles that are within this tolerance, then they are probably trying to deflect attention away from the fact the tiles they have laid aren’t all flush with each other and you have what is known as "lippage". Lippage is only ever down to poor installation and nothing else.

From https://www.refin-ceramic-tiles.com/porcelain-tiles/installation-advice/

Edited March 7, 2017 by drliamski

[drliamski]

From the US but still possibly useful

https://ctasc.com/expert-answers/what-is-the-acceptable-tile-grout-joint-width-and-tile-lippage-for-tiles-with-one-edge-larger-than-15-inches/

[drliamski]

Answer from BS5385 Pt1 2009: 

"7.1.9.2 Across joints
There should be no appreciable difference in level across joints
(commonly called “lipping”) and the maximum deviation between
tile surfaces either side of a joint, including movement joints, should
be as follows.
a) Joints less than 6 mm wide, 1 mm.
b) Joints 6 mm or more wide, 2 mm."

[Fallingditch]

To put this to bed:

• I have reached a satisfactory agreement for compensation with the people involved
• all tiles will be lifted
• I am sticking with using this tile design (the alternative would be another chunk of change, and the change is running out)
• spare tiles, new tiles, and any tiles which can be recycled and are in A1 will be used
• I have clearly specified to what standard they must be laid
• tiles in key areas will be dry laid so that I can agree appearance

As I have said - appreciate all the comments :-)

[Nickfromwales]

Same tiler ?

[Fallingditch]

No. He is now banned.

 

Its all been relaid to acceptable standards - I think all in all I took a £500.00 hit on an area of 50 sq m but could have been a whole lot worse.  Have to say that in hindsight, the tiling in all aspects has been one of the biggest problem areas (for different reasons, including us not being able to make our minds up).

[Nickfromwales]

59 minutes ago, Fallingditch said:

No. He is now banned.

 

Its all been relaid to acceptable standards - I think all in all I took a £500.00 hit on an area of 50 sq m but could have been a whole lot worse.  Have to say that in hindsight, the tiling in all aspects has been one of the biggest problem areas (for different reasons, including us not being able to make our minds up).

Thanks for wrapping the thread up . Not too bad an outcome, bar the 500 bucks 

[Mr Punter]

On 06/03/2017 at 13:23, Fallingditch said:

Thanks all - appreciate the comments.

The relationship is that I hire the PM. He hires the subs. I supply the materials.

To date, all has gone OK - work has been carried out to a very high standard and I am very happy with it.

This is the first major problem. Its very unfortunate indeed that it wasn't spotted earlier.

It is a big ticket item and I should have double checked early on.

Hopefully, other self builders following this thread will learn from my mistake.

* * * * * * * *

A dispute has been opened. I will post on progress.

Back to the other topic about who is the Principal Designer or Principle Contractor - who carries the can for CDM here?  Really shitty tiling BTW.  Bad luck to get a cowboy but it happens to the worst of us.