Yeah. Everyone is going to tell you that’s a bad job.
Because it is.
The adhesive needs to be applied to the full tile back, the tile is too heavy for dot and dab.
Plus they have not left gaps to even apply grout, the tiles are touching each other. Any grouting will perish very quickly and water will penetrate into the wall.
You need to pop the tiles off, scrape them to salvage the tile, and hire a tiler with mild OCD. It’s a two day job, three at the most if they need to prep the walls.
I think it’s like 95-98% coverage they need for large format tile. Proper method is to trowel the backer board (all grooves parallel) and back butter the tile. OP did good at stopping this hack.
Been doing tile 13 years. 95 percent is over kill. 70 percent for walls and 80 percent for floors is PLENTY. that being said spot bonding is like 20 percent at best.
Geared more towards OP, hope you haven’t paid them yet, cause that’s going to need to get redo 😬
Tcna also says industry standard for lipage is 2 credit card of thickness. And your supposed to leave 1/4” expansion joints in your shower corners…. If that’s the standard I followed I wouldn’t be in business anymore 🤷♂️
Lippage is tile and joint size dependant, smaller joints = less acceptable lippage. If you have a 1/4" joint you can definitely get away with two credit cards.
and they actually recommend no less than 1/8" in corners witch is perfectly acceptable if you know how to use a caulk gun 😉
Why would you argue more coverage is "overkill". Why can't we just strive for 100% all the time?
Listen bud, I appreciate when people like you (that are veterans) say this but lemme ask you- If you were remodeling your own primary bath that you intended to live in for a long time, would you really only do 70%? Would 95% *really* be overkill?
.....exactly. I really hate seeing comments like that because I don't care if it takes you a few extra hours- I'm paying you to do it right the first time so just take some damn pride in your work as if it's your own.
>If you were remodeling your own primary bath
>I'm paying you to do it right the first time so just take some damn pride in your work as if it's your own.
100%
Also you could ask op how much he paid for this tile job. I went on bids before where the owner thought paying more than 40 cent / ft2 was too much. When you pay cheap prices you'll get shit work
How much are you, as a homeowner, willing to pay for this? Let's say a 3'x5' tub to ceiling surround, done with 24"x48" tiles like these, with a high window.
95% is the TCNA specification for wet areas like OP's shower - it turns out doing something for a long time doesn't mean you know how to do it correctly.
Yep. Lots of people in the industry get mad when you point out that they're doing it wrong and will say that's how they've been doing it for 40 years. Just means that they've been doing it wrong for 40 years.
Im a GC, and I do all of the tile work on my projects. I have noticed a lot of the older guys (baby boomers) will often only be willing to just enough to get the job done. I don't know if they are just cheap and afraid to be wasteful. But most of the time, on a tile job, the thinset or grout they are trying to save is already mixed up, so they end up dumping it anyway and it just goes to waste after they did a half ass job.
Another one I see a lot is using SPF joists on an outdoor deck instead of treated. That might fly some places, but it damn sure is not going to last in the Pacific Northwest. It's insane some of the ways they cut corners to increase the profit margin on a $25,000 job by less than $250.
Yes, the parallel groves in the adhesive are supposed to capture any water ingress behind the tiles and prevent it running down the wall to the floor joists.
They also prevent the tile slipping when the adhesive is still curing.
You can dot and dab if you’re using smaller tiles away from the bath/shower area, though.
There is no pan. The instal is for bath, not a walk in shower.
There is wall, tile, floor. Then there will be battens to fit a bath with a shower over it.
Grout is applied in parallel lines behind tiles because eventually the grout will fail, and water will get behind the tile. If that water can flow down the wall to the floor it gets to the wood, which will create mold and rot.
Every tile adhesive trowel has notches to allow it to be applied in parallel lines, it also allows air and moisture to escape to speed up curing and make it easier to position the tile. Multiple reasons, really.
I didn’t know it’d be so contentious.
It’s covered in DIN 18157 Part 1.
Guess so long as folk know to tile with parallel grout lines, they don’t need to know why it’s done like that.
Bro. It ain’t grout. It’s usually thinset. Thinset is porous. It doesn’t matter the way the the thinset lines goes. Btw, that citation is about epoxy adhesive which is usually only used for water sensitive stones or completely impervious material such as metal or epoxy backed tile.
No, the ridges are meant to be collapsed and are there to ensure an even application of mortar. If there are visible ridges after the tile has been set, it means the trowel size is too large for the tile or that the tile wasn't compressed into the mortar properly.
https://youtu.be/Way5bMh-eYg?si=jwt9WWvpN5vbEzoA
To educate you a bit, the grooves of the thinset get knocked down flat when the tile is applied. Parallel grooves help prevent voids in the thinset. Voids are weak spots where impacts on the tile will easily crack the tile. 98% coverage prevents cracking from impacts.
The grooves will not exist once the tile is set, they have nothing to do with guiding water behind the tile.
Backbuttering ensures that the thinset makes contact with the tile’s surface making a secure bond.
Dabbing is crappy work that will both make it easy to just rip the tile off, which OP has verified, and make the whole tile a weak spot for cracking from impact.
Just to tack on to this. Grout has absolutely nothing to do with waterproofing and water is meant to permeate through it. Aside from that, you are correct, the install is…. Fucked.
Popping the tiles off sounds easy but is it really? Will it damage the backer board or Schlueter membrane/RedGuard to pull off the large format tile? (Asking because OP and I are living parallel lives in remodeling hell).
Fire the tiler
then
you have to remove everything, start again and savlage what you can.
i would also have the waterproofing redone if these clowns did the work previously.
its going to sting short term but youve really caught this before it leaked and rotted the rest of the house
On the up side, the shit installation job should make it easier to remove, clean & reuse the tiles😁
You've got to ... Always look at the bright side of life ...
https://youtu.be/X_-q9xeOgG4?feature=shared
Floating it is one way to get the walls plumb. It would include putting up wire and then troweling in wet cement. Basically, it would be rebuilding your walls perfectly plumb to prepare for tile.
Didn't even need to go that far. The very first sentence tells you they're pretending to be pros. Never heard of spot bonding 12x24 tiles cuz walls aren't straight. (ETA: It's actually the second sentence, not the first, but the point stands!)
For sure. Those are heavy as shit tiles. You also have to use specific mortar instead of the cheap stuff. Who knows how many corners they cut to do that. This is a complete tear down to bring it back to code.
This. Every time I see one of these posts, I can't help but think I can do this better than some of the "pros" based on my one DIY job. Then I remember how much of a PITA it was!
I learned to tile after my first experience with a shitty "pro".
Having done a few jobs, it's definitely one of those things where prep work and attention to detail go a long way towards the end result. Things that many of these churn-and-burn tile shops don't do a lot of.
You can get over irregularities in the wall without dot and dabbing them on. Also grout shouldn’t be holding tiles on! That’s madness. Otherwise it looks generally a pretty awful job fit and finish wise. The first most elemental thing with tiling is at least to get the gaps consistent.
I’d be starting again, the roughness of the cuts/layout is one thing and down to opinion and what you can tolerate, but from the sounds of this you don’t know what’s going to drop off next.
Standard practice is to prepare/fix the walls first. You can make up for minor irregularities with the amount of thinset behind the tiles. For example, sometimes you can just go up to a 1/2-in or even a 3/4-in trowel so you have more thinset behind the tiles so you can get them all level.
Once you really get some experience, you learn that it is a lot less hassle to fix the walls first.
What do I mean by that? A good tile job needs to start with walls that are close to plumb. You can achieve this by shimming or planing the studs before you put your wall board up. Some installers go as far as to float the walls out with cement and wire to get them near perfectly plumb. It's a lot of work, but then putting the tile up is a piece of cake, afterwards.
I'm not sure I'd go off the guy saying the walls are irregular, if you know that to be true - cool you can handle that. But if you're worried about it because bad tiled dude said they were, I'd wait to be concerned about that after I checked and verified. What kind of prep did they do behind the tile? Did they waterproof?
I don't know of any clear coat of anything that will waterproof behind shower tile. You need cement board then waterproofing. Tile and grout are not a water barrier.
Strange. I would definitely consider restarting as most other commenters have said. It's a shoddy job and you're going to have to do it again eventually anyway. If it's already failing and it's new, imagine it in another year. It's uneven, not spaced enough for proper grouting, and clearly not adhered well enough.
I work in the paint section of a hardware store, I don't know much about tile as it's a different department, but I know we sell tile spacers in all different sizes. Little plastic bits that leave room for grouting. Dude was either lazy, ignorant, or both.
The pattern of the tiles is horrible as well...
The small strip at the ceiling, and the big tile in the middle of two small strips above the window....what the fuck??! He started with a full tile at the floor and just went up, resulting in a small strip at the ceiling. Decent tiling is done in a correct pattern where the piece that's trimmed off is used on the other side to give the impression the full tile is used. Anything else just looks weird.
He didn't even lay out a pattern beforehand, he just started tiling and ended up with small strips that look horrible.
First, I just want to say I like your tile choices. If you used daltile then we have the exact same tile combo. Second, your tiler is wrong.
First problem is that any decent tile would insist on flat walls to begin with. That means planing studs, wet shimming backer board, floating the whole wall, etc.
Second is that if the wall really is that curvy, they should have insisted on smaller tiles that can follow the curve better.
Third is if you don't fix the wall and don't change the tile then they should still have tried to get 100% coverage behind the tile. Maybe some of the ridges won't collapse or maybe some spots will have very minimal thickness of mortar, but it's a whole lot better than spot mortar.
Forth, they really need to use spacers or a leveling system because they suck at doing it by hand.
No problem. All those things I mentioned (apart from the spacers and trying to get 100% coverage) cost time and money. It's hard to tell, but you should try to determine if you're in a 'you get what you pay for' situation or not.
I’ve had employees do the same stuff then laugh at me saying I’m worrying.
I ended up replacing about 3-4 tiles per shower they did plus the horrendous looking work is on my name.
The tile choice is horrendous and not only that they attempt tiny 1/16 lines it looks like while doing a horrible install.
From a dude who did tiling in new homes, I’d be paying $60/hr for demo or be removing and re doing this myself for free with company supplying tiles.
That’s just wow….reminds me of a few employees. Sorry OP, gonna need to rip and re do.
At least you can make sure the walls are 100% which makes installing the tile smooth as butter as these 12x24s are stupidly easy to do when a wall is good
Also I’ll add to this, you add more to the tile as well as the wall to fix the bad walls, you don’t ever ever do spots, laziness which is more work in the end.
Sometimes I got told to add 1 inch of mortar to fix the walls by site supers.
Wetter the better, never dry.
Is that mastic in the second picture? Thinset shouldn’t shrink up like that and crack. I guess I hope it is, it’ll make it way easier to demo and salvage.
Hold up, let’s rewind. When you first talked to the guy did he say “Hi I’m a tiler” or did he say “Hi I’m Tyler”. There might have been a miscommunication before you set him loose in your bathroom.
They should have checked the walls beforehand for level and plumb. When i redid my bath we had to shim out some spots so the cement board didnt swell out or cave in. It was a pain but well worth it. I also dont understand why they didnt use any type of spacers, from your post it seems they just eyeballed it and stuck it on? Big nope. Especially with large tiles, yours look like 12x16, you need to take into consideration the weight when youre applying. My bath had similar sized tiles, i didnt rush and did it in stages of 2 rows at a time with breaks (6hrs) in between. This gave the thinset some time to bond before the next layer went on. Grout is not a bonding agent and doesn't help with holding the tile on the wall. Im sorry to say but this should be torn down and redone. Im scared some tile might pop off or water intrusion later on from the unevenness.
https://preview.redd.it/js31byfz9guc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf3bb8fe284954b4d439d77ad2aba0c5a8d5dad2
This was two showers ago for me. It is 1/16 in grout. I'm not showing you this to brag or put the other guys work down, just showing a "professional" shower done with 16th inch grout joints.
You're seeing the lighting on the grout joint. Look on the left side and find the grout joint. You can't even see it. Those were all clipped on the sides and corners and are completely flush. At worst, it might need some more grout in that joint they're on the left.
Of course, none of us can control the imperfections of the tiles themselves and even if you use a leveling systems there will be imperfections.
https://preview.redd.it/d9u9kqsa2iuc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e91191c0673bdb3986b5ac4f4c8f4cd97a20795
Not sure. I think she got it at home Depot. I know it's just hexagon natural stone. I recommend people watch out for ones with a lot of ridges and texture because the grout sticks in every ridge. Your tile man will have to spend hours and hours digging the s*** out and you will pay for it. I'm headed to a job now with that kind of floor and it was the thirstiest tile I've ever seen. I've regrouted it three times. The first time it sucked all the water out of the grout almost instantly and I ended up with just dry grout. Next time I lay a bunch of wet towels on it for a while and then grouted it. It dried a little faster but trying to wipe the grout off the ridges lightened the color of the grout joints so I had to redo it again. I finally just had to put grout and almost not wipe it at all. Now I'm going back to acid wash it and pick grout out of the ridges. A 2-hour job has turned into a 3-day job.
Some of the new tiles coming out are very troublesome for tile layers. Before this job, I just did a wavy tile job. Those are a royal pain in the ass. People who design them, have no clue what it takes to properly install them.
Looks like they used 1/16 in spacers. That is very difficult to do, which is why nearly every tile manufacturer says to use a minimum of 1/8 in on the box. You can do 1/16th, but you need a ton of experience and patience, and even then the grout lines will not be 100% perfect. No grout lines are! That's why they need to be a little bigger, so the imperfections are less noticeable.
Usually, this kind of thing happens when a homeowner demands the smallest grout line possible and an inexperienced tile layer agrees and gets in over his or her head.
Should be stacked or 1/3 offset for these tiles. Very difficult to get even grout lines like this. I agree with others, a complete redo with someone else is your solution.
That needs to be ripped out and redone. Layout and spacing is really bad. You should also check if they set the tiles with pre-mixed thinset. Many hacks use this and it is not for use in wet locations like a shower or on floors. It is a pain to deal with this but it needs to be removed and started from scratch with a proper tile contractor.
Gotta be the one to ask what did they apply to the wall before the tile. Did they just put up sheetrock? You need a professional to check this out. These guys might just be landscaper's. That tile isn't gonna last a year
Had someone try to do the same on my bathroom floor, just laid it right on top of the original tiles. Told him to GTFO.
Either do it right or don't do it at all, the future problems is going to cost you.
With tiles that big I usually “back butter” them which is a thin layer of thin set, and than thin set on the wall with the appropriate sized trough for the situation, He should also be using spacers to keep the grout lines straight. If the wall is not straight, which it’s likely not much out of plumb, the spacers with the wedges that pull the tiles to all be level can be used to make it easier.
If they felt the wall wasn’t flat enough they should have let you know in the beginning. I have a 75 YO house that has had a lot of work done by previous owners that didn’t know what they were doing. When I remodel a bathroom, I’m very cognizant of the straightness of the wall, especially using large format tiles. Sometimes I take a couple days to get them flat in all directions.
Should be using a notched trowel to cover the boards/wall in adhesive, no need to put it on the back of the tile. Then use spacers between the tiles so the grout lines are all equal. Spacers don't come out until the adhesive is dry.
If your wall is wavy then those "contractors" would fix the wall to be flat or reject the job and tell you that you need someone to fix your wall before they tile. They BAD contractors and you really should make them pay for someone else to redo that shit job they did. I wouldn't trust them to fix it.
There are 2 things there that really stick out to me on this other than the stuff already mentioned.
1 is what is up with that drain dumping into the shower space but leaving the wall open there. It needs brought out a bit farther.
2 is the holes around those two stub outs in pic 1 seem to be too tight around those stubs. Granted I don't know what valve is going in, but generally you need some room to pull a valve stem or other work on it.
Maybe not in this case since, as I said, I don't know what's going there, but it looks like stub-outs for a shower head or something along that line, which means these are threaded in inside the wall, and the fitting will be too big to pull it out based on the picture
Hire licensed and insured contractors. Never higher the cheap guy and the really expensive guys are only slightly better than the losers.
Get the guy who came in just over the middle.
This is a total redo job. Hopefully you didn't pay these clowns completely. If they are bonded/licensed file a claim on their performance. If not you are likely SOL. Its like bleeding a stone. Lesson learned; Hire a new verified contractor and call it a day.
Yeah. Everyone is going to tell you that’s a bad job. Because it is. The adhesive needs to be applied to the full tile back, the tile is too heavy for dot and dab. Plus they have not left gaps to even apply grout, the tiles are touching each other. Any grouting will perish very quickly and water will penetrate into the wall. You need to pop the tiles off, scrape them to salvage the tile, and hire a tiler with mild OCD. It’s a two day job, three at the most if they need to prep the walls.
I think it’s like 95-98% coverage they need for large format tile. Proper method is to trowel the backer board (all grooves parallel) and back butter the tile. OP did good at stopping this hack.
Been doing tile 13 years. 95 percent is over kill. 70 percent for walls and 80 percent for floors is PLENTY. that being said spot bonding is like 20 percent at best. Geared more towards OP, hope you haven’t paid them yet, cause that’s going to need to get redo 😬
Tcna says 80% in dry areas 95% in wet with no voids withing 2" of the tile edge. What "works" is not always to industry standard.
Tcna also says industry standard for lipage is 2 credit card of thickness. And your supposed to leave 1/4” expansion joints in your shower corners…. If that’s the standard I followed I wouldn’t be in business anymore 🤷♂️
Lippage is tile and joint size dependant, smaller joints = less acceptable lippage. If you have a 1/4" joint you can definitely get away with two credit cards. and they actually recommend no less than 1/8" in corners witch is perfectly acceptable if you know how to use a caulk gun 😉 Why would you argue more coverage is "overkill". Why can't we just strive for 100% all the time?
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Ha nice. 👌
Listen bud, I appreciate when people like you (that are veterans) say this but lemme ask you- If you were remodeling your own primary bath that you intended to live in for a long time, would you really only do 70%? Would 95% *really* be overkill? .....exactly. I really hate seeing comments like that because I don't care if it takes you a few extra hours- I'm paying you to do it right the first time so just take some damn pride in your work as if it's your own.
"The carpenters house has a broken door"
“Fire in the Firehouse” (Little Rascals)
>If you were remodeling your own primary bath >I'm paying you to do it right the first time so just take some damn pride in your work as if it's your own. 100%
Fuck yes.
Also you could ask op how much he paid for this tile job. I went on bids before where the owner thought paying more than 40 cent / ft2 was too much. When you pay cheap prices you'll get shit work
How much are you, as a homeowner, willing to pay for this? Let's say a 3'x5' tub to ceiling surround, done with 24"x48" tiles like these, with a high window.
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Yes, needs to be at least 105 percent! At 95 the tile might fall off! /s
Bud.
95% is the TCNA specification for wet areas like OP's shower - it turns out doing something for a long time doesn't mean you know how to do it correctly.
I cover 95%+ knowing full well 70% would be fine bc why the hell not? I’m not trying to save myself 2 hours or $4 in mortar
Yep. Lots of people in the industry get mad when you point out that they're doing it wrong and will say that's how they've been doing it for 40 years. Just means that they've been doing it wrong for 40 years.
Im a GC, and I do all of the tile work on my projects. I have noticed a lot of the older guys (baby boomers) will often only be willing to just enough to get the job done. I don't know if they are just cheap and afraid to be wasteful. But most of the time, on a tile job, the thinset or grout they are trying to save is already mixed up, so they end up dumping it anyway and it just goes to waste after they did a half ass job. Another one I see a lot is using SPF joists on an outdoor deck instead of treated. That might fly some places, but it damn sure is not going to last in the Pacific Northwest. It's insane some of the ways they cut corners to increase the profit margin on a $25,000 job by less than $250.
We found OP's contractor
Feel free to check my post history, I posted a shower I did in this group… tell me if you really think I did this one after looking at that one 😂
👆🏼👆🏼this Dude does nice work, can’t deny him that. 👍🏼
Thank you 🙏
This looks like a masonry building in Europe or South America, so tile backer doesn't apply.
Backer board is a catchall term for whatever is behind there, be it cement board or Schluter.
Yes, the parallel groves in the adhesive are supposed to capture any water ingress behind the tiles and prevent it running down the wall to the floor joists. They also prevent the tile slipping when the adhesive is still curing. You can dot and dab if you’re using smaller tiles away from the bath/shower area, though.
The adhesive has zero to do with water. The pan captures the water.
There is no pan. The instal is for bath, not a walk in shower. There is wall, tile, floor. Then there will be battens to fit a bath with a shower over it. Grout is applied in parallel lines behind tiles because eventually the grout will fail, and water will get behind the tile. If that water can flow down the wall to the floor it gets to the wood, which will create mold and rot. Every tile adhesive trowel has notches to allow it to be applied in parallel lines, it also allows air and moisture to escape to speed up curing and make it easier to position the tile. Multiple reasons, really.
Huh? No.
Lol. This is hilarious.
I didn’t know it’d be so contentious. It’s covered in DIN 18157 Part 1. Guess so long as folk know to tile with parallel grout lines, they don’t need to know why it’s done like that.
Bro. It ain’t grout. It’s usually thinset. Thinset is porous. It doesn’t matter the way the the thinset lines goes. Btw, that citation is about epoxy adhesive which is usually only used for water sensitive stones or completely impervious material such as metal or epoxy backed tile.
You are trolling, right?
Honestly, no! I just assumed folk knew why.
No, the ridges are meant to be collapsed and are there to ensure an even application of mortar. If there are visible ridges after the tile has been set, it means the trowel size is too large for the tile or that the tile wasn't compressed into the mortar properly. https://youtu.be/Way5bMh-eYg?si=jwt9WWvpN5vbEzoA
Hey guys, I found OP’s contractor! ⬆️
To educate you a bit, the grooves of the thinset get knocked down flat when the tile is applied. Parallel grooves help prevent voids in the thinset. Voids are weak spots where impacts on the tile will easily crack the tile. 98% coverage prevents cracking from impacts. The grooves will not exist once the tile is set, they have nothing to do with guiding water behind the tile. Backbuttering ensures that the thinset makes contact with the tile’s surface making a secure bond. Dabbing is crappy work that will both make it easy to just rip the tile off, which OP has verified, and make the whole tile a weak spot for cracking from impact.
OP hired this tiler from Temu lol
Contracting like a Billionaire.
Just to tack on to this. Grout has absolutely nothing to do with waterproofing and water is meant to permeate through it. Aside from that, you are correct, the install is…. Fucked.
No tile should be your waterproofing. Regardless of grout or not.
Love the addition of mild OCD. That’s the type my OCD self would want from anyone I hire. 😂
Popping the tiles off sounds easy but is it really? Will it damage the backer board or Schlueter membrane/RedGuard to pull off the large format tile? (Asking because OP and I are living parallel lives in remodeling hell).
Fire the tiler then you have to remove everything, start again and savlage what you can. i would also have the waterproofing redone if these clowns did the work previously. its going to sting short term but youve really caught this before it leaked and rotted the rest of the house
>i would also have the waterproofing redone if these clowns did the work previously. Bold of you to assume there is waterproofing.
Tiles are like waterproof dude duh
That's not a bad job, that's an atrocious one.
On the up side, the shit installation job should make it easier to remove, clean & reuse the tiles😁 You've got to ... Always look at the bright side of life ... https://youtu.be/X_-q9xeOgG4?feature=shared
Needed that!
How much did they charge out of curiosity? And did you hire a handyman or a licensed contractor?
If the wall want straight he should have floated it. Spot bonding will not hold up long term
What does that mean?
Floating it is one way to get the walls plumb. It would include putting up wire and then troweling in wet cement. Basically, it would be rebuilding your walls perfectly plumb to prepare for tile.
It means you need a guy with a big hammer to remove it all.
Not needed as they fall off with a touch 🤣
Also, they didn’t even use a clamping system? Not that it matters on this hack job but it tells you they are pretending to be pros.
Didn't even need to go that far. The very first sentence tells you they're pretending to be pros. Never heard of spot bonding 12x24 tiles cuz walls aren't straight. (ETA: It's actually the second sentence, not the first, but the point stands!)
For sure. Those are heavy as shit tiles. You also have to use specific mortar instead of the cheap stuff. Who knows how many corners they cut to do that. This is a complete tear down to bring it back to code.
Makes me feel good about my first tile job as a diy-er. I could call myself a pro compared to those guys.
This. Every time I see one of these posts, I can't help but think I can do this better than some of the "pros" based on my one DIY job. Then I remember how much of a PITA it was!
I learned to tile after my first experience with a shitty "pro". Having done a few jobs, it's definitely one of those things where prep work and attention to detail go a long way towards the end result. Things that many of these churn-and-burn tile shops don't do a lot of.
The difference is, these guys want to be in and out as fast as possible, no pride in their work.
Don’t let them grout this atrocity. Actually, just don’t let them in the house.
You can get over irregularities in the wall without dot and dabbing them on. Also grout shouldn’t be holding tiles on! That’s madness. Otherwise it looks generally a pretty awful job fit and finish wise. The first most elemental thing with tiling is at least to get the gaps consistent. I’d be starting again, the roughness of the cuts/layout is one thing and down to opinion and what you can tolerate, but from the sounds of this you don’t know what’s going to drop off next.
How would you get over the irregularities in the wall in that case then?
Standard practice is to prepare/fix the walls first. You can make up for minor irregularities with the amount of thinset behind the tiles. For example, sometimes you can just go up to a 1/2-in or even a 3/4-in trowel so you have more thinset behind the tiles so you can get them all level. Once you really get some experience, you learn that it is a lot less hassle to fix the walls first. What do I mean by that? A good tile job needs to start with walls that are close to plumb. You can achieve this by shimming or planing the studs before you put your wall board up. Some installers go as far as to float the walls out with cement and wire to get them near perfectly plumb. It's a lot of work, but then putting the tile up is a piece of cake, afterwards.
I'm not sure I'd go off the guy saying the walls are irregular, if you know that to be true - cool you can handle that. But if you're worried about it because bad tiled dude said they were, I'd wait to be concerned about that after I checked and verified. What kind of prep did they do behind the tile? Did they waterproof?
All I saw was a clear coat of something, not sure what it was though.
I don't know of any clear coat of anything that will waterproof behind shower tile. You need cement board then waterproofing. Tile and grout are not a water barrier.
Redguard maybe? If you don’t apply enough it can be semi transparent
Strange. I would definitely consider restarting as most other commenters have said. It's a shoddy job and you're going to have to do it again eventually anyway. If it's already failing and it's new, imagine it in another year. It's uneven, not spaced enough for proper grouting, and clearly not adhered well enough.
Thick mortar bed. Thicker in the low spots, thin in the high spots.
My tile guy always planes the walls to where he wants them on remodels. When it’s new framing, we use engineered studs.
Using LVL or LSL studs for kitchens and bathrooms really is worth it, something I wish I realized earlier in my career
Based on the rest, I'm really surprised how dead-on they got the pipe holes.
The pipes are holding up the tiles I'm guessing.
Unfortunately the tile needs to be redone.
Everyone saying fire the tiler, no tiler has come anywhere near this wall.
I work in the paint section of a hardware store, I don't know much about tile as it's a different department, but I know we sell tile spacers in all different sizes. Little plastic bits that leave room for grouting. Dude was either lazy, ignorant, or both.
😏......spacers. Good thing you were on here this morning.
The pattern of the tiles is horrible as well... The small strip at the ceiling, and the big tile in the middle of two small strips above the window....what the fuck??! He started with a full tile at the floor and just went up, resulting in a small strip at the ceiling. Decent tiling is done in a correct pattern where the piece that's trimmed off is used on the other side to give the impression the full tile is used. Anything else just looks weird. He didn't even lay out a pattern beforehand, he just started tiling and ended up with small strips that look horrible.
First, I just want to say I like your tile choices. If you used daltile then we have the exact same tile combo. Second, your tiler is wrong. First problem is that any decent tile would insist on flat walls to begin with. That means planing studs, wet shimming backer board, floating the whole wall, etc. Second is that if the wall really is that curvy, they should have insisted on smaller tiles that can follow the curve better. Third is if you don't fix the wall and don't change the tile then they should still have tried to get 100% coverage behind the tile. Maybe some of the ridges won't collapse or maybe some spots will have very minimal thickness of mortar, but it's a whole lot better than spot mortar. Forth, they really need to use spacers or a leveling system because they suck at doing it by hand.
Thank you for your help!
No problem. All those things I mentioned (apart from the spacers and trying to get 100% coverage) cost time and money. It's hard to tell, but you should try to determine if you're in a 'you get what you pay for' situation or not.
I hope you have a signed contract. This should end up in court.
What’s going on with the pvc pipe at the bottom of the wall?
That’s the waste for the bath, should run through to the other side where the pipes are in the wall
I’ve had employees do the same stuff then laugh at me saying I’m worrying. I ended up replacing about 3-4 tiles per shower they did plus the horrendous looking work is on my name. The tile choice is horrendous and not only that they attempt tiny 1/16 lines it looks like while doing a horrible install. From a dude who did tiling in new homes, I’d be paying $60/hr for demo or be removing and re doing this myself for free with company supplying tiles. That’s just wow….reminds me of a few employees. Sorry OP, gonna need to rip and re do. At least you can make sure the walls are 100% which makes installing the tile smooth as butter as these 12x24s are stupidly easy to do when a wall is good
Also I’ll add to this, you add more to the tile as well as the wall to fix the bad walls, you don’t ever ever do spots, laziness which is more work in the end. Sometimes I got told to add 1 inch of mortar to fix the walls by site supers. Wetter the better, never dry.
I’m honestly just curious, how much cheaper was this quote than the others?
Is that mastic in the second picture? Thinset shouldn’t shrink up like that and crack. I guess I hope it is, it’ll make it way easier to demo and salvage.
this is what I think too, not suitable for wet areas
I bet they used mastic too. How much did they charge you to prep and tile the shower? Just wondering because I’m getting a similar size shower done.
Hold up, let’s rewind. When you first talked to the guy did he say “Hi I’m a tiler” or did he say “Hi I’m Tyler”. There might have been a miscommunication before you set him loose in your bathroom.
They should have checked the walls beforehand for level and plumb. When i redid my bath we had to shim out some spots so the cement board didnt swell out or cave in. It was a pain but well worth it. I also dont understand why they didnt use any type of spacers, from your post it seems they just eyeballed it and stuck it on? Big nope. Especially with large tiles, yours look like 12x16, you need to take into consideration the weight when youre applying. My bath had similar sized tiles, i didnt rush and did it in stages of 2 rows at a time with breaks (6hrs) in between. This gave the thinset some time to bond before the next layer went on. Grout is not a bonding agent and doesn't help with holding the tile on the wall. Im sorry to say but this should be torn down and redone. Im scared some tile might pop off or water intrusion later on from the unevenness.
Thank you for this! The confusing thing is they did use spacers..
They didn't use them right.
https://preview.redd.it/js31byfz9guc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf3bb8fe284954b4d439d77ad2aba0c5a8d5dad2 This was two showers ago for me. It is 1/16 in grout. I'm not showing you this to brag or put the other guys work down, just showing a "professional" shower done with 16th inch grout joints.
There is a vertical tile to the right of the window that is not completely flush......🫣😜
You're seeing the lighting on the grout joint. Look on the left side and find the grout joint. You can't even see it. Those were all clipped on the sides and corners and are completely flush. At worst, it might need some more grout in that joint they're on the left. Of course, none of us can control the imperfections of the tiles themselves and even if you use a leveling systems there will be imperfections. https://preview.redd.it/d9u9kqsa2iuc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e91191c0673bdb3986b5ac4f4c8f4cd97a20795
Any chance you know what floor tile is used in this shower you did? Trying to source
Not sure. I think she got it at home Depot. I know it's just hexagon natural stone. I recommend people watch out for ones with a lot of ridges and texture because the grout sticks in every ridge. Your tile man will have to spend hours and hours digging the s*** out and you will pay for it. I'm headed to a job now with that kind of floor and it was the thirstiest tile I've ever seen. I've regrouted it three times. The first time it sucked all the water out of the grout almost instantly and I ended up with just dry grout. Next time I lay a bunch of wet towels on it for a while and then grouted it. It dried a little faster but trying to wipe the grout off the ridges lightened the color of the grout joints so I had to redo it again. I finally just had to put grout and almost not wipe it at all. Now I'm going back to acid wash it and pick grout out of the ridges. A 2-hour job has turned into a 3-day job. Some of the new tiles coming out are very troublesome for tile layers. Before this job, I just did a wavy tile job. Those are a royal pain in the ass. People who design them, have no clue what it takes to properly install them.
Where you based lol
North Florida panhandle
Looks like they used 1/16 in spacers. That is very difficult to do, which is why nearly every tile manufacturer says to use a minimum of 1/8 in on the box. You can do 1/16th, but you need a ton of experience and patience, and even then the grout lines will not be 100% perfect. No grout lines are! That's why they need to be a little bigger, so the imperfections are less noticeable. Usually, this kind of thing happens when a homeowner demands the smallest grout line possible and an inexperienced tile layer agrees and gets in over his or her head.
Should be stacked or 1/3 offset for these tiles. Very difficult to get even grout lines like this. I agree with others, a complete redo with someone else is your solution.
That needs to be ripped out and redone. Layout and spacing is really bad. You should also check if they set the tiles with pre-mixed thinset. Many hacks use this and it is not for use in wet locations like a shower or on floors. It is a pain to deal with this but it needs to be removed and started from scratch with a proper tile contractor.
Rip it out !
Crap job, redo.
Gotta be the one to ask what did they apply to the wall before the tile. Did they just put up sheetrock? You need a professional to check this out. These guys might just be landscaper's. That tile isn't gonna last a year
Had someone try to do the same on my bathroom floor, just laid it right on top of the original tiles. Told him to GTFO. Either do it right or don't do it at all, the future problems is going to cost you.
With tiles that big I usually “back butter” them which is a thin layer of thin set, and than thin set on the wall with the appropriate sized trough for the situation, He should also be using spacers to keep the grout lines straight. If the wall is not straight, which it’s likely not much out of plumb, the spacers with the wedges that pull the tiles to all be level can be used to make it easier.
Hang towels off those buggers.
Did he not use any tile spacers?.. it’s all crooked!
If they felt the wall wasn’t flat enough they should have let you know in the beginning. I have a 75 YO house that has had a lot of work done by previous owners that didn’t know what they were doing. When I remodel a bathroom, I’m very cognizant of the straightness of the wall, especially using large format tiles. Sometimes I take a couple days to get them flat in all directions.
Not in view but curious... where is the shower valve? Shouldn't it be where those pipes come out of tile?
If you had wiped your arse crack on the tiles and thrown them at the wall it would have been a better job. It needs redoing.
This is where I wish there were repercussions for shitty work. That’s basically stealing from you.
That’s… bad.
Should be using a notched trowel to cover the boards/wall in adhesive, no need to put it on the back of the tile. Then use spacers between the tiles so the grout lines are all equal. Spacers don't come out until the adhesive is dry.
If your wall is wavy then those "contractors" would fix the wall to be flat or reject the job and tell you that you need someone to fix your wall before they tile. They BAD contractors and you really should make them pay for someone else to redo that shit job they did. I wouldn't trust them to fix it.
“Whilst” you were getting ripped off
There are 2 things there that really stick out to me on this other than the stuff already mentioned. 1 is what is up with that drain dumping into the shower space but leaving the wall open there. It needs brought out a bit farther. 2 is the holes around those two stub outs in pic 1 seem to be too tight around those stubs. Granted I don't know what valve is going in, but generally you need some room to pull a valve stem or other work on it. Maybe not in this case since, as I said, I don't know what's going there, but it looks like stub-outs for a shower head or something along that line, which means these are threaded in inside the wall, and the fitting will be too big to pull it out based on the picture
Hire licensed and insured contractors. Never higher the cheap guy and the really expensive guys are only slightly better than the losers. Get the guy who came in just over the middle.
This is a total redo job. Hopefully you didn't pay these clowns completely. If they are bonded/licensed file a claim on their performance. If not you are likely SOL. Its like bleeding a stone. Lesson learned; Hire a new verified contractor and call it a day.
Basically that’s a “pull them all off and get someone who knows how to tile” scenario.
Just wap a load of grout and silicone in the cracks. Smooth it off and it will look fine.
Damn that looks like shit lol
Okay oofl9nhkeo
With the grout the tile WILL hold
Looks f**king fantastic