The sealer isn’t allowing the marble to dry out. Strip it.

The crack looks like a control joint in a concrete slab, or a support beam that has flexing to either side. What type of foundation do you have, and do you have pictures of that area before the tile went down?

thank you so much. the manufacturer assessed the photo and said the following: and asked the installer to prove he installed correctly. the installer states he installed it correctly and when asked if he can prove it he said he doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. he said the only way he would be willing to fix it is if we replace the floor with porcelain. he said it's a problem with the tile. we had already paid for this project. what recourse do we have? please help us. thank you

this is what the manufacturer said: Improper drainage – the secondary drain / weeping holes are blocked.  Therefore, the water sitting there.    It also explains why the wall is wet – you can follow the trail of water that is trying to travel down the membrane and drain through the weep holes.  But it can’t.

The dark area around the drain can happen even when proper installation methods have been followed. You selected marble. That's what you get. Sales person should have warned you of this characteristic. Installer does not want to redo and have you still not be happy due to something that is unavoidable. A valid point. The remainder of the dark area is on him. That is proof that proper methods were not followed and it needs to be redone because of that alone. Educate yourself on shower preslope. It is required and was not done (certainly not properly) on your project. Take photos of replacement in progress.

Sorry you are dealing with this. There might be some parts of this story that will help you, especially the parts about taking pictures and managing the communications and agreements by email. I don’t know what your recourse is since you have already paid, but it will for sure be tied to your contract and warranty. If you went through a big box store like Lowes or Home Depot, you can get them involved. Ask the contractor to come back and look at the situation.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5725013/what-to-do-when-a-project-goes-completely-south#n=13

thank you for being so helpful. when I inform the installer that the manufacturer and the tile distributor both state it is not properly installed, he states that it IS properly installed, and it is a problem with the tile, that the water is going to sit there, you just won't see it with any other tile. at this point, I am at an impasse. he still has to fix the floor tile that cracked too. is it time to demand a refund? and ask someone else to fix it? and I eat the cost of the extra tile? thank you guys

"A problem with the tile"?? Wow. He is not only at fault, he is an idiot. I am afraid you are going to find that you need to have someone else fix this. So sorry that you got an incompetent installer.

Oh dear: "...when asked if he can prove it he said he doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. he said the only way he would be willing to fix it is if we replace the floor with porcelain. he said it's a problem with the tile. we had already paid for this project."

That's not a good sign. At this point, you will have a heck of a time getting him back in. Because the project has been paid for, you will have very little leverage to get him back to deal with the issues. And with his attitude, I'm going to guess it would take a trip to court to deal with this.

There are two ways to go about this (using original installer). You have to check your CONTRACT to see if it states "installation to follow both NTCA and manufacture's guidelines". The second thing that is going to get you somewhere are the PROGRESS PHOTOS which you would have been taking every night/day that the installer was there.

These TWO things will save your bacon.

In the building world, the installer is responsible for any INSTALLER ERRORS. Anything that s/he did WRONG is to be corrected at her/his expense (that includes replacing tile if needed). Anything that is 'because of materials used' is on the material itself. And the installer can be on the hook for 'poorly chosen materials' ONLY IF the installer SOURCED THE PRODUCT her/himself. In other words, if the guy picked out and PURCHASED the tile FOR YOU, then the guy is responsible for EVERYTHING....including performance/appearance of the product itself.

First things first: check your contract. Secondly, check your phone/camera for any in-progress photos. Tell us/show us what you found.

I am not a pro but just finished a bathroom remodel with a marble tiled shower.

My shower floor is VERY noticeably sloped at the drain. There is absolutely no water pooling at all after I finish showering. I know this because the last thing I do is aim the hand shower at the floor so that any residual suds go down the drain. I have never seen any kind of water or dampness.

I also have an excellent fan which runs automatically based on ambient moisture levels in the room. It runs for a period of time after I shower - presumably until any moisture within the shower is dried. I also never see any kind of water drops or condensation on my glass shower doors - again the last thing I do is spray them down to get rid of any blobs of shampoo or conditioner. I have Showerguard and I don't squeegee - no problems in terms of my glass streaking.

If your installer is licensed & bonded, I'd report him to the Licencing Bureau and the Better Business Bureau.

Should have held back a percentage of your total remodel. I believe you have 30 days from the time it’s finished. So you would’ve had at least a little leverage to get it fixed, either with the original tiler, or someone else. I might report him to BBB as well. No willingness to resolve the issue & have a happy client sounds off bells & whistles in my book.

I am so sorry you are dealing with this. We had same thing happen to our marble floor! Our builder had a massive stroke near the end of our project and his company was folded by the time our problems began. We had no recourse and had to rip it all out. We hired a professional tile person (our contractor had done the bathroom himself) to come back in and remove the entire floor and shower and basically start new. It costs us around $7K. We were beyond furious but decided to mentally roll this cost into the renovation work and “let it go.” The second time around we did not use marble on shower walls and we had a grout specialist apply a sealer to the floor. It’s been two years and looks like it did the day it was installed. The photo shows the first floor only two months after installation. It took on a brown color that never faded, even when dry. It got much worse over the next two years before we replaced it. I feel ya!

File a complaint with his licensing board and, if necessary, file a complaint in small claims court. That will get the installer's attention. Put him on notice first by sending a demand letter, certified mail, return receipt, giving him 30 days to cure the default. Save a copy of the letter and mail information to attach to the small claims court complaint.

so just to clarify, the consensus from you all is that this IS an installer problem, is that correct? My installer claims its not an installer issue.

Drain detail

Hi there most of tile/marble setters don’t know about weep holes at the drains or slots at strainer this can be a plumber issue to, because over the years I remodeled many home bathrooms,

1: when a plumber uses a rubber liner the under liner (sub floor) needs to be pitched to the drain 1/4” per foot minimum ones the rubber liner is installed and water tested the tile setter moves in to do the mud set pitched to drain and put pee stones around the strainer whit weep hole for proper drainage this way no water stays on top the liner or under the mud set.

2nd: if the work it’s done whit out pitch before the installation of the rubber liner, after the mud set the tile setter needs to install the material that‘s called water proofing all the way to the coller and leave room for pee stones for drainage before he installs the finish floor.

that works the same whit copper pan I hope this will explains the issue best regards Mike

Of course he's going to claim it's not his fault. Do you have pictures of the actual install before the tiles went on? That will really tell the story.

Stay away from marble.

It sounds like maybe you acted as the contractor on this job, and hired individual craftsmen to do the work. I hate to say it, but results like this are what happens under those conditions. Despite my husband having decades of experience in the field, we hired a contractor for our bathroom remodel and other house projects. A good one would have warned you about using marble, and would have been responsible for checking the substrate and checking the tiler's work. Ours was here every day. When something goes wrong, you have one person to call. He has the most to lose, and he makes it right.

You need documentation no matter what comes next. You need all your in-progress photos, all texts and emails between you and contractor, the contract, the texts and emails from the tile people, printed out manufacturer’s instructions for the waterproofing materials he used such as wall boards and pan liner, texts and emails from the local rep for the manufacture (if you contacted them), etc, etc. Buy the TCNA handbook and read the shower chapters.

Ask for a meeting. In meeting explain what your concerns are and cite all the things that he did wrong, with in-progress photos and cross-referencing all the violations to the standards, codes and instructions. Ask what his plan is for re-building the shower. If he refuses, ask him does that mean he’s quitting the project? If he says yes, that means he has quit, you did not fire him, document/confirm that in an email. If he says no he’s not quitting, then tell him remedying this situation is part of the project, so ask him which day he’s coming over to demo and re-build it. He may quit at that point. If he does try to re-built it, if/after that fix fails, you can fire him.

Then send a demand letter certified return receipt asking for full refund plus the cost that you will have to pay to hire a new tile professional to demo and re-build (use local averages or get actual bids). Cite all the violations like you did in the meeting with the references.

We had to do all this stuff when our GC quit rather than fix the issues. It’s a PITA but we got double our money back. Read my “Project Goes South” post, you might find some helpful info in there. Now, if you don’t have any of the documentation I listed above, don’t have a contract, etc, etc, I don’t know what leverage you have. You can still have the meeting and send the demand letter, but if it goes to court documentation is your friend and you want max documentation.

Hopefully you can dig up some photos of the waterproofing process involving both the floor and the walls. If you don’t have much, add this to your meeting: ask the contractor to simply explain each step (like he’s teaching you) he used to build your shower, starting with framing. Then write down every word he says, asking him to slow down or repeat if needed. Don’t correct or challenge anything he says; let him explain his process. That can substitute a little bit for your lack of other documentation. Then you can cross reference any wrong info he told you to the codes, standards and manufacturer’s instructions, and proceed from there with demand letter.

If he refuses your demand letter, which he will, you can decide about suing him. In my state justice court (small claims) is non-binding. We didn’t sue our GC, but he sued us saying we fired wrongfully him. We responded with counter-suit in District Court and asked that the lower case get rolled up to that level because of the $ amount and we wanted a binding decision. It’s a pain and I hope we never have to talk to a judge again, but we had to respond to quit-GCs suit and go through the process. Best of luck to you.

OP, after our project went South, we decided not to sue at all and attribute the failure to our bad hiring decision. That is an option for you here, especially if you don’t have any photos or other documentation. We just moved on and hired a new person (a real pro). Sometimes you have to swallow mistakes and that’s what we decided to do. We hired a real pro to re-build it on our dime

The only reason I’m explaining all this suing stuff is because quit-GC sued us months after we had already remedied the situation ourselves. We had to respond to the suit, and that’s the only reason I know anything about this whole world of lawsuits. I prefer to avoid anything like this.

Best of luck to you.

When I first saw the words marble in a shower, I thought Oh Oh!!

Can you put a comment on an online site where people are looking for tilers and mention his name? Or rate him with 0 stars?

Contact your local registrar of contractors, contractors board, or state agency that deals with contractors/installers/workmanship complaints.

Stay away from marbles.

FYI - this is an older post - I’m asking a question about something else! Hopefully, the OP has figured something out over the past year to address her unfortunate issues!

@Margaret Powers - my stomach felt sick after looking at the photo of your bathroom. I can only imagine how stunning it must have looked initially! Do you have photos of the bathroom right after it was installed? I’d love to see those. Also - did you keep the same countertop when you redid the bathroom? It’s beautiful!

What type of marble did you use? Or is it Dolomite? Do you remember where you purchased your floor tile? I have a good friend who is trying to find that identical tile (or VERY close substitution).

Don’t worry - she’s not using it in a bathroom ! It’s for a fireplace front. Thanks!

Dmac1108 The floor tile was from Morris Tile in Richmond. We kept the marble counter top. We used it throughout the house and it’s performed well. I found a few slabs of it in Midlothian. I think the place is called Classic Marble and Granite.