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Bathroom Tile Question

last year

Hi,

We just built our home 2 years ago, but we already got water under our shower tiles (hexagon mosaic pattern). I had a tile guy come in (most reasonable priced and good yelp ratings) and he started to remove the tile. It turns out that water seeped throughout all the foundation cement in the shower and most of it just broke apart like loose sand. He removed everything and re-cemented it.

I have a few questions:

1. He's coming back about 5 days after the cement was laid (almost 2 inches over a 4x5 area) to lay tile. Is that too soon?

2. We had a marble mosaic installed, but I don't think it was sealed, thus the water underneath. We're going to switch to porcelain tile, but should we still seal the grout (Mapei Ultracolor FA)?

3. What is the best sealer? I currently have 511 H2O plus sealer.

Thank you!

Comments (8)

PRO
Dragonfly Tile & Stone Works, Inc.
last year
Sorry that happened and it is unfortunate that the builder/contractor did not use qualified labor to begin with. You might want to check out these professional resources from the National Tile Contractors Assn.: https://www.tile-assn.com/page/trade-professionals-consumers .
HU-629673584
Original Author
last year
last modified: last year
This is what was done to the old tile. It was all ripped out to the foundation. The old tile was marble, but there were cracks in the grout where the water entered. After all the cement/foundation was taken out, it was dry.
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If you tile the cabinet all the way to the top, I doubt it would be too noticeable. The counter top will fill in some of that few inches. You could also alter your design an maybe do a smaller back splash all around, maybe something like this, even taller if you wanted. It would be okay to have some sheetrock showing on the shower wall, as long as it's enough to look deliberate and and not an error.
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The PEI rating of the cheaper tile is 2. My gc told me to stick with bathroom tile that is a 4 or 5. Now if this was a guest bathroom not overly used I might be ok with it. But for heavy use I’d stick with what my gc recommends.
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I'd go with the 18 X 18. My master bath has 12 X 24 on the shower walls, 12 X 12 on the shower floor, and 24 X 24 for the non-shower floor. It doesn't look busy because it is a very uniform, low-key pattern. If you use a linear drain, you can use any size tile since the shower floor only needs to be a single, flat plane. I dealt with the issue of slipperiness by getting a tile that has great skid resistance. They aren't rough, but they have an almost unnoticeable striation on the surface that makes them entirely safe. I have another shower where the tile is very slippery so I went with 2 X 2 tiles: this means I have a lot of grout lines that increase the traction.
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It is helpful to compile some inspiration photos so you get an idea of what you like. You can create an Ideabook in Houzz. For me this would be too much of the same pattern, but when you look at pictures you'll see that some people like it. So this is a matter of preference. I used a porcelain slate look on the floor of my master bath. You need to also be thinking about what color of vanity and countertop you're going to use.
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PRO
Floored You: TileDesigners
last year
last modified: last year
The mudbed is porous. Concrete is porous. Placing the mud bed directly on top of the concrete just ensures that water will wick out very far into the room, and into any adjacent stud walls, causing moisture damage. There is no waterproofing in any of those pics. Both the floor and the walls must have a waterproofing system, beneath the tile. That is a complete redo.
HU-629673584
Original Author
last year
last modified: last year
Well, that kind of sucks. The tile guy looked at a video that I sent him and came in and said that it's not worse than water going through the grout cracks and saturating the mudbed. I'll ask him a ton of questions when he gets here to lay the tile then. This is what the shower was just after 2 years of building it. Shower Floor Video
cpartist
last year
Understand that if a shower is properly waterproofed, you could shower in it BEFORE any tile is put in. Tile, grout and sealer are NOT waterproof. Only what goes in BEFORE the tile will make or not make the shower waterproof.

Ask the guy how he will follow TCNA standards.
HU-629673584
Original Author
last year
Thank you. I get that. I’ll ask the guy.
PRO
Joseph Corlett, LLC
last year
"Understand that if a shower is properly waterproofed, you could shower in it BEFORE any tile is put in."

Correct. I took a two-week vacation between a customer's Schluter installation and her tile installation. She showered in orange for a bit.
HU-629673584
Original Author
last year
Thanks all!

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