If the answer is yes ask the for a record of the test and what it indicated. If they cant provide it to you then there may be a problem with the installation or prep.

How old is the house/slab? What area do you live in? Does your area have a high water table (very damp soil)? Did the GC/flooring company test for moisture in the slab? If so, you should have been given a copy of that report (you paid for it, you own it).

A few more details will help shed light on this situation...but in essence you have water/moisture moving up THROUGH the slab and into your house. The porcelain is forcing the moisture to leave via the grout lines...which is the only place that is permeable to water. Porcelain tiles can "cap" a damp slab which then causes the slab to gain more and more water as it seeks a way out (it used to be able to evaporate into the air but the cap stops that from happening so the slab gets wetter and wetter by the hour). Older slabs can have this issue when they go from a finish that allows moisture to move through (like carpet) to an impermeable finish like porcelain.

Thank you! The house is almost 41 years old. We did have moisture tests done and they did have high moisture content results. We originally put down engineered wood floor and after 6 months it began to blister and warp, which led us to ripping everything out and going with tile. We had tile in the same areas before but never had water or effloresence...which is why we are scratching our heads?!?!

Sigh...everything was pointing to high moisture levels. If you had AREAS which were "uncapped" (like floating engineered hardwood or carpet) and areas that were capped (like tile) then the moisture had an ESCAPE ROUTE. It escaped via the "uncapped" area (which is why the engineered hardwood was so badly damaged...all 100% of the moisture in the slab was using it as the escape route).

If you then put down tile ALL OVER (100% floor covered in tile = 100% capped) then the water in the slab no longer had a place to escape so it then pushed through the grout as best as it could.

To deal with this (for anything other than carpet) you will need to bring in some concrete experts (people who deal with wet basements, etc) to come in and seal your slab. Once it has been sealed and then recovered in a new layer of concrete you can then have any floor you want. The cost to deal with a wet slab like yours can be around $5/sf (which should include a microtopping of new concrete...but it might not).

Until then, carpet is your friend.

Hi there - we have the exact same thing happening, and it is heartbreaking. Home built in 1980 in West Central Florida, so no basement. Never had a moisture problem previously. Pulled up carpet in a large living room, dining and hallway and replaced with ceramic tile planks and dark brown epoxy Mapei grout throughout and also replaced the tile in the kitchen and pantry July 2018. Appx 1000 sq ft, and $14k worth of materials and labor.

Our contractor did do a moisture test on the concrete prior to the install of 25 bags of leveler and tile, and stated the moisture was too high for wood but ceramic tile should be fine. Here's what the concrete looke like before leveler was poured.

Well, guess what, it's not fine. This is what we have had to look at for a year, and it is only getting worse.

It's EVERYWHERE like this, and the carpets in the bedrooms also get moist when things like plastic bins or plastic bags are on the floor for a few days. We have a 70 oz dehumidifier running almost nonstop and empty it three times a day.

We had a leak detection done, it came back clean. We were told we have a wet slab due to groundwater, so we have since spent nearly $16k on french drains cut down to below the footer around the house, draining to daylight as well as cutting in a swale and redoing the gutters to drain to a second draining system to daylight, all to try and alleviate the groundwater, and nothing has worked. We are totally over it.

We don't want carpet in the main living areas of the home, but have no idea how else to fix the problem. Cleaning the grout with a mild detergent and brush every weekend is getting ridiculous, and it's really not even working anymore - we have white/brown grout at this point. Any ideas on what to do are more than welcome.

A few more photos of our stupid floor

One edit: I just checked our invoice and the tile is porcelain, not ceramic.

@itsminenow: The only "complete fix" is if the ENTIRE house slab is sealed at the same time. Ouch...not many people look forward to removing all their furniture, all their flooring, all their window coverings, etc, to get something like this done. But once it is complete, the water doesn't 'go' anywhere. It stops moving up into the house.

It's like filling a straw with water...and then 'capping' it with your finger. The water is caught in the straw with nowhere to go. It doesn't go up. It doesn't go down. It just sits there. Doing nothing. But the hardest part of this is the 'complete slab sealing' in a home that already has walls, cabinetry, doors, trim, flooring, etc.

For most people they do NOT have the money or the energy to move out for a couple of weeks + move their furniture into storage so that a 'wet slab' expert can come in and seal the slab. The cost would turn out to be 3-4 TIMES the amount of a traditional flooring renovation.

For these very reasons, carpet is one of the few options out there. As experienced by Melissa Howard, even areas with carpet (next to areas that have been capped) the moisture will try to escape through the carpeted areas. This is normal. Sadly her slab has SOOOO much moisture that it is creating 'wet carpet' should anything be placed on the carpet for a few days.

The only 'fix' for Melissa is complete removal of the tile and start again...with a full sealing of the slab if she wishes to continue with tile in the house...which includes removing the carpet, sealing the slab in all areas and then replacing the flooring with whatever she wishes.

@Both OP and Melissa,

Problem is Thinset mortar doesnt like sealed concrete at all. Youll need a vaporproof membrane between tile and slab that is compatible with thinset and tile if you intend to re-tile CORRECTLY.. And the choice is critical being you have high moisture content.

Melissa Looks like you have a few issues, efflorescence and possibly latex leaching or A bucket grade?? organic adhesive is re-emulsifying. You can only remove efflorescense from (cement based grouts) with acids and only a few times before its no longer effective and it will strip grout color as you continue using it. Not w epoxy.

The flooring company came out and basically left scratching their heads.

You have a full tear out on your hands im afraid and moving fwd should be a very selective well thought out process with an actual tile professional this next time if its tile you install.. theyll Need to consider things like hydrostatic pressure and such when choosing membranes and adhesion.

Melissa, We have a similar problem in our home. We’ve had several experts out. There’s no leak and it’s not the water table. I’m just wondering if you were able to resolve your problem and if so, what steps did you take? We are losing our minds over this!

Hi amyiap,

Unfortunately the answer is no. Since the last post, to combat our wet slab, we have had 4 1/2 foot deep French drains installed around the perimeter of the house along with a giant swale to divert rain water. It has done nothing. To put "nothing" in context, it has not rained here in a month, which you would think would equal a relatively dry foundation, but as of this morning, I have water seeping up through my kitchen tile grout.

The efflorescence has only increased and worsened since my last post, and as previous posters have stated would happen, it has now bleached much of our dark brown epoxy grout white. It is awful.

We clean the floors as often as we can with a vacuum scrubber and a solution on the grout lines made to treat efflorescence build up, but all it does is clean the powdery bits away, and that only lasts a day or two.

As you can tell from the latest pics attached, the white powder ends up getting caught on shoes and pet paws and spread on the tiles, so it's all just a mess. For reference, I wet vacuumed and scrubbed the floors in the pictures below yesterday. The pictures were taken this morning.

Interestingly, we also now have a stalactite/stalagmite situation going on under the bench installed in the master shower. As the installers used leveler to fill the bench in before tiling, we suspect that is leveler now leaching out and creating the new landmark. Again, it's all just awful.

We are contacting an attorney at this point, as the flooring contractor was adamant at the time of install that moisture was non-issue with our home, and stated they had moisture testing to back them up. Obviously, its a problem. So, I hope some remediation may come from discussions between our attorney and the flooring company. Any advice from someone who has had to get an attorney involved with contractor negligence is more than welcome.

@ Melissa...If you were to test you slab TODAY you would find the moisture levels would be extremely high.

Please be aware that your flooring experts who ran the test BEFORE putting in the tile *might have shown a lower level of moisture. That is NORMAL if the concrete was bare or had carpet over it for a few weeks/days before the new tile was installed.

You will find out (either in court or from your attorney or via a building engineer who deals with soil conditions) that a moisture test is ONLY GOOD for the DAY it was taken.

The moisture level tested on THAT DAY is a 'snap shot' in time. Like a photo of a sunset. The photo lives forever (the numbers on the moisture report) while the sunset slips away into darkness (like water draining from a bathtub).

It is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE (and I am not making this up) that 2 weeks after your slab was 'capped' (again...porcelain is a cap...it does not allow water to go anywhere but through the grout lines = ground salts sitting on your tiles) that a second moisture test would have shown your slab had turned from "OK" for tile to "disastrous".

And in court/building law, if the contractor/installer can PROVE that the numbers were ACCEPTABLE on that day....they are not responsible for issues that came later.

Sorry...I know...that's nasty to hear...but that's the way it works. Now if you had a second set of numbers that stated a HORRIBLE water level in your slab on the DAY they started the install, now you have a condition that makes them responsible. But again, a wet slab that does not show itself on the day the contractor measured it means the contractor could not REASONABLY have anticipated high moisture levels LATER.

Your ONE SAVING GRACE is the fact that the numbers were "too high" for wood but were "OK" for porcelain. This could be a false statement. Porcelain tile and thin-set have MAXIMUM moisture ratings. Any amount of moisture above the thinset's rating = flooring specialist needs to tell the homeowner to STOP the flooring install and to CONTRACT a wet-slab specialist to do the $5/sf fix (see below). That is your one leg you have to stand on. You will need to have a building expert make such a statement on paper and you need the actual number the installer came up with (and the test used) and the name of the materials (thinset is EXTREMELY important). You will need to have all of this documentation in your hand when you sit down with the lawyer for your first visit.

The only other thing you could try would be sump pumps to drain the water from underneath the slab. That is often needed in settings like yours. Florida has water tables that sit higher than peoples above ground pools!

Other than a sumppump addition, this is a complete redo. The tiles have to come up, you have to engage the use of a wet slab/wet basement expert and have them come in a seal your slab from above.

That includes shot blasting the surface (old concrete doesn't like to hold onto sealants). Then they will add 1-2 coats of epoxy sealant (usually 2...especially when it is this bad). They might have to use a primer (either before or after the sealant is put down) and then they have to add a microtopping of new cement over top. Once the top layer of cement has dried, you can then move forward with new flooring.

But to get this to work PROPERLY you have to do the entire house. Cause if you miss a spot that has carpet on it, all that back-pressure is going to POUR into your carpet. And then you have another mess on your hands.

I have this problem, but live in a second floor flat - so any other ideas what this could be?!