feeling of dread

[mattthomas48]

Hi all, wonder if there is anything I can do to sort this out.....

I was a bit hasty laying ceramic tiles on my bathroom floor and tiled over chipboard sheet flooring with no extra nails, additional layer of boarding, nothing. Having completely finished the bathroom I have noticed that the grout is cracked. Not everywhere, just the bits that are walked on. A couple of tiles even click and move a half a mm or so when stood on now. I did use flexible cement and grout but it appears to have flexed a bit too much. What can I say, it's my first house and the first floor I've ever tiled - it seemed nice and solid before hand. Novice mistake. I'm gutted and don't know what to do. The thought of pulling the floor up and starting again is a nightmare - the sink unit is standing on it, fixed and sealed to the wall. The toilet is in but tiled around.

Bottom line - if I have to unseal and take out the sink unit, take out the toilet, pull the floor up and start again then I will. But if anyone knows of anything I can do short of this I'd be hugely grateful. Maybe just take up the dodgy areas, knock in some extra nails and relay? Any ideas?

Thanks all.

Matt

 

[roughcaster]

Hi Matt and welcome,
Sounds to me like you have no choice but to start again.If some of your tiles are coming loose,chances are the rest will do the same.I would lift the lot straight away,and hopefully you will be able to take off the old adhesive and use them again.Read gcol's STICKY at the top the page "WALL AND FLOOR TILING BASICS" to get all the info you need to know about tiling.I also gave a reply to MORG,topic:"TILING A BATHROOM CEILING"" which you might be interested in,as he wanted specific info on tiling his bathroom floor as well.

Roughcaster.

 

[gcol]

Yep, sorry matt but they've gotta come up no matter how frustrating it is.

 

[Diyisfun]

If you used ready mixed adhesive & you cant get it off, try soaking the tiles, but you will then need to let them dry.
Dont rush it

 

[mattthomas48]

Thanks people, you're right. Worth doing properly. Can't believe I didn't do my homework first.

 

[Izzy777]

Hi There, just came on this forum and its great, came to look about loft insulation......just to say that I tiled my kitchen floor last year - half the kitchen was onto tiles and half was onto painted parquet floor (wood) - I had a few tiles that waddled (moved ) about a bit on the wood (none on the tiles) - I enlisted the help of a diy person to join down the edge into the hall onto laminate flooring (a bit too much for me to tackle!) and he had a neat trick about the waddling tiles - he got this sucker rubber thingy (think its used to get dents out of car bodys) and pulled up the dodgy tiles - simply put loads of mastic type glue (out of a mastic type gun) or I think PVA would work and put the tile back in place - you have to be careful to put it back exactly the way out it came (so its flat) and also brush out any loose bits of dust etc. Leave it to dry for a bit and then re-grout - its worked for me - it may be a bodge, but its an option if its only one or two - good luck

 

[gcol]

Hi Izzy and welcome.
Sounds like the person that put the tiles down didn't use flexible adhesive so I would hazard a guess that the problem you had is different from matt's problem. You have adhesive that is failing because it's not able to cope with slight expansion movement in the wood, but matt has the problem that his floor is not rigid enough. He also has the issue with chipboard being about the worst surface to tile to (except carpet ).
You can stick down individual tiles with gripfill, but in matt's case, he'd be wasting his time - it'd only be a matter of time before more and more started coming loose.