Bill or Mongo; advice on tile please?

15 years ago

We are just now getting our Laufen rectified tile installed. Our tile installer just informed us that he can not do a 1/16" grout line as we agreed because some of the Laufen pieces are uneven. He pointed out that even on the box the manufacturer states the grout should be 1/4" and he would do a 1/8" to "make us happy" since we were expecting to go as tight as we could but he didn't feel comfortable going any tighter. This is why we bought the Laufen in the first place~we wanted it to look like stone~anyway does this irregularity happen sometimes with rectified tile? We are having a medallion made and that width will be 1/16" and I really wanted it all to blend in together. Any advice would be appreciated. I don't want him to think I am telling him how to do his job if this is what happens with that tile sometimes.

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Comments (10)

bill_vincent
15 years ago
This is Laufen rectified porcelain with a 1/16" grout joint:

You might let him know if he's not interested, or good enough, to install it the way you want that someone else WILL be.
MongoCT
15 years ago
I've never had a problem with rectified tile being non-uniform in size.

Do you notice any deviation in the tile? If you take a stack of them and stand them on edge, and square them up, do you notice and deviations?

And not to pick on your installer, but is he keeping the grout lines clean or getting them gobbed up with thinset? It takes skill and patience to set tiles tight, even rectified.

I'd be on the phone to the manufacturer and/or the supplier and give them an earful of what your installer is telling you.

If you really want tight joints, don't cave just yet.

Mongo
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My primary concern is why are the tiles lifting in the first place? Was the base ever sealed with anything? And you said this is a "concrete pan", is this deck mud over a membrane, or are you going over a slab? There's a membrane somewhere under the "concrete", right? Just asking. The thinset should not be from an old bag that's been laying around for months and months. Old thinset can undergo partial hydration in the bag, weakening the final bond strength. If your thinset is old, go crazy and splurge $15-$30 on a new bag. The thinset should be mixed so it spreads like soft butter; loose enough to spread, but tight enough so that when you do spread it with a notched trowel, the ridges hold and don't flow out and collapse. The idea with using a 1/4" notched trowel is that after the tile compresses the thinset, the 1/4" high ridge is compressed to a 1/8" thick setting bed of thinset, evenly coating the underside of the tile. You want to bed the tiles in the thinset so you compress the thinset ridges down, but you don't want to mash them so hard that you squeeze out all the thinset from between the tile and the substrate. All that said...yes, clean off the old thinset so that there is no loose powder or clumps adhered to the bed. You want it smooth. You can have a residue of old thinset on it, but you want it smooth. If youre using Custom thinset, then as Bill mentioned, use a modified thinset for your next attempt. Either VersaBond (lightly modfied) or FlexBond (highly modfied). My apologies if I'm being too much "Tile 101" on this reply, but even dryset will provide a good bond to a properly prepared base. Mongo
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They should be able to fashion a depth-of-cut jig for whatever they are using to do it without nicking the wires. But it's always worth working out liability before hand. When they pull the grout make sure that none of the tiles are loose. If it's over cement board, do you know if the cement board was bedded on the subfloor with layer of thinset? Not using thinset between the cement board and the subfloor can result in micro up/down flexing of the cement board and over time the first thing to go is the grout. As Bill wrote, have them review the make up and deflection of the floor.
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Looks to me like you're now going to have a small piece at the top of the upper niche once he moves it up. What's it do at the bottom of the wall? PLEASE tell me he didn't start with a full tile on the bottom? If he did, you're now going to end up with that sliver all along the bottom of all the walls. Can you back up and take a pic of the whole thing?
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momofmne
Original Author
15 years ago
My husband and I checked five different boxes of the tile, and they are all straight and true with no deviations. I called our contractor and he talked to the installer who said he "might have had a bad box." Anyway, he said he would do the 1/16" grout now and it seems it is all taken care of! Thank you so much to Bill and Mongo and I would hug you both if I could for all the advice and time you give to people like me~I know I need the reassurance.
MongoCT
15 years ago
The truth comes out! He didn't have a "bad box", he had a bad attitude.

Tight joints can be difficult, make sure he is up to the task. Good layout, no lippage.

Mongo
momofmne
Original Author
15 years ago
The truth comes out! He didn't have a "bad box", he had a bad attitude.
Tight joints can be difficult, make sure he is up to the task. Good layout, no lippage.

Yes-I agree with that~it was interesting how quickly he changed his mind. I will watch as this progresses and hopefully it will be fine.
bill_vincent
15 years ago
Check each day after he's done and make sure there's no lippage beween the tiles.
momofmne
Original Author
15 years ago
Bill,

I looked up what lippage means and I will do that~I am a little anxious whether or not this will be installed correctly but am crossing my fingers here.
MongoCT
15 years ago
Lippage is where the tiles are not even vertically, the edge of one tile sticks up higher than its neighbor.

Magnified to an extreme think of lippage as a toe stubber.

With 1/4" wide grout joints, a 16th inch in lippage can be sort of disguised by the width of the grout joint.

With thin grout joints, and with rectified tiles, you should be able to slide a playing card across the floor and not have it catch on the edge of a tile.

Mongo
bill_vincent
15 years ago
Take a look at the walls above. That's how flat it should be. Matter of fact, I'll post even a better one to show your guy if he decides it's impossible:

Right in the middle of the pic, you're looking straight on at the plane of a marble tile wall. It even has a niche in it. Here's a pic where you can see the face of the wall a little better:

THAT'S how it should look when he's done
MongoCT
15 years ago
Bill,

One picture that you posted a long time ago I really liked. It was of a foyer floor, and there was a reflection off the floor of light coming through the window/door. The reflection was perfect. No "zig zags" in the reflection, just a spot-on mirror image. Dead-flat floor.

Nice.

May your beer be cold and the bass be hungry. Have a good weekend!

Bill or Mongo; advice on tile please?

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