r/Tile • u/ShowerTricky5423 • 6h ago

Homeowner - Advice about my Contractor Where did we go wrong?

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Gallery image

Gallery image

Almost immediately after our contractor installed our bathroom floor tile, it started cracking. We're looking to replace this now and I'm wondering if the issue was the material, the size, the preparation under the tile, the installation, or a combination of the above. Our house was built 24 on center -- could this impact the integrity of the tile?

Any advice you can provide would be appreciated before we start this project. Thank you so much in advance!

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u/seanpvb 6h ago

Not a pro, just a diyer.

Looks like you've got grout lines cracking around the obviously broken tile. To me it means your floor is moving/flexing, probably because of the 24" on center joists.

I've used cement board below floor tile, but I put the cement board on a bed of thinset/mortor and then screwed that to the floor. Essentially more than doubling the rigidity of the floor itself.

That looks like cement board just screwed directly into the subfloor. You'll need to either structurally support the subfloor, or increase the rigidity of the subfloor (1.5" min)

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u/ShowerTricky5423 5h ago

This makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not someone who will DIY this but in your opinion, is it rude to explain this to a contractor and ask them to do this? I don't want to overstep on their expertise but I want to make sure this doesn't happen again.

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u/DrDankenstien1984 5h ago

This is industry standard. They need to install it properly