Help. Shower tiles loose.

[Graham99]

Hi there,

Over the last couple of weeks the shower tiles in the ensuite have been coming loose. I lifted one of the tiles out and this is what I discovered below the tiles!

On the other side of the wall adjacent to the taps there is another shower which is part of an insurance claim for flooding out the house. Insurance has approved the claim but the builders are taking their time on the other side of the wall (Have not started yet)

So, do I need to rip out this bathroom and retile the whole thing. Is it possible that the issues with the shower next door could be causing this. You can also see that the shower taps have not been sealed with silicon either.

Please refer to the attached photo's. Any advice. Jack hammering it all out and starting again an option but open to suggestions.

Regards
Graham

[mic-d]

I don't believe flooding would have caused this damage in a properly constructed shower. It worries me that the mortar bed is missing under the tile with the chicken wire - did you chip away sound mortar or was it "decaying". I would remove the shower screen and dig out the shower to the screen line and take the first row of wall tiles too. then I would rewaterproof it - installing an alum angle along the screen line at the same time if not present, lay a new bed and retile.

Cheeers
Michael

[Graham99]

Hi there,

The mortar came out with the tile. I do not think the shower is properly constructed. Am I below the waterproof membrane here or is that still ok?

Is this new bed a mortar bed?

Regards
Graham

[mic-d]

Hi Graham, yes the new bed is mortar. It's too hard to tell if the membrane is below the bed, but after demo, it may be compromised so best to redo it.

Cheers
Michael

[Batpig]

Dear Graham,

That yellowish colour looks familiar... (said in the way that Adam West would say it when looking up from a microscope down in the Batcave in the original Batman TV series...)

Any chance of giving us a look at the underside of one of the loose tiles?
Also, any idea when the house was built, or when the tiling was done?

You see, back in the 70's there was an epidemic of bad tiling glue that was used for several years but took quite a few years more to raise it's ugly head and reveal itself to the world in all it's gory glory. The glue in question was not-at-all grey and cementitious, but rather yellowish and something more like dried Liquid-Nails in appearance. As far as I can remember, the bad glue had a habit of not letting go of tiles for quite a while in locations where there was a regular source of moisture. In other words, it would end up letting go of the tiles when the shower was out of use for quite a while for some reason. The problem sometimes took twenty years or more to become evident... Given the yellowish look of the bedding in your photos, I wonder if this might be the case in your ensuite? (mind you, in concert with mic-d's opinion, the bedding arrangement that is visible in your photos does look like "carp"...)

Also, don't let it worry you that there isn't any silicon visible around those taps. This would just make them harder to get off, or would trap moisture inside the wall. Just take the decorative trims off (as you have in the last photo) and have a look at each tap with a torch when the tap is running. If you can't see any leaking water, you won't have any "in-wall" tap problems that silicon can fix. If however you can see some leaking water, it will be from either the Spindle o-ring (the spindle is the chrome piece that turns around when you twist the handle) or the body-washer (the large red fibre washer that you can't always see because it sits between the lower and removable upper, or in your case the inner and removeable outer, halves of the main brass body of the tap). In either case (ie. whether spindle o-ring or body-washer), silicon is not the answer. Post a new thread in the event of visible leaks, and we shall expound...

In the meantime, see if you can post a photo of the back of one of the tiles...

Regards,
Batpig.

[Graham99]

Hi Batpig,

The house was built about ten years ago. Speaks volumes for the quality of Australian building, but that is another story.......It was a Henley home and we got off light compared to some issues that people had.


Please find attached the pictures of the underside of the tiles. The one with the mortar bed obviously held, but the two little tiles came away freely.

The big downside - we have no ensuite shower until this is sorted.

Regards
Graham

[celeste]

Hi Graham

It looks like the lick and stick stuff I found on my latest reno. It goes a yucky dark yellow colour. You will find the tiles will just fall off with a chisel and hammer with a little tap under one corner.

I pulled off a whole kitchens worth - floor to ceiling in 2 hours and if I had been careful, I could of pulled them all off without breaking any.

So, to be on the safe side. I would pull them all off, patch up the walls, re-water proof and re-tile.

Celeste

[Batpig]

Dear Graham,

Now that I've looked at the photos, I don't think that the glue is the problem (or at least the main problem!) any more. Whatever glue was used, it looks like it at least had enough strength to pull up the bedding with it, so I guess it can't be too bad after all. Which means that either the glue was good, or the bedding was Baddd...

Looking at the photos, what it really, really looks like, is that there is Absolutely-Sweet-Bugger-All cement in your bedding, to the point where the stuff has ended up with so little internal cohesive strength that it's simply come apart at the weak spot caused by the chicken wire.
So if Celeste's "Lick & Stick" adhesive was indeed used, just how bad must that bedding be? ( to the sound of "Psycho"...)

In my opinion, you are going to have to pull it all out and redo the whole lot including the sandy stuff that is pretending to be bedding. See if you can get the Waterproofer to come out between when the Tilers lay the bedding, and when they come back to lay the Tiles, so that the top of the bedding is waterproofed.

If you are time-rich and cash-poor, the tiles may be able to be salvaged. Most of the yellow glue will probably come off using a sharp scraper following a decent soak of each tile in some warm soapy water. Turps on a rag should clean up whatever remains of the glue (after scraping) on the back, as well as polishing off whatever accidentally smears onto the front during handling. Put each tile into another warm soapy bucket of water after the turps stage and leave it to soak for a while to allow the turps to scum off. The whole process will take at least a whole morning, so you'd want to really be in love with that particular design of tile (and not be able to just buy some more of them brand new...)

Last step. Find the previous owners, and sue them. They have thieved money and time from you that you will never get back. They should either compensate you if they did it innocently, or go to jail after compensating you if they knew that they were selling you a dud. This whole Backyard Renovation Housing Boom Blitz sucks very big time... There are yuppy couples out there who every six months or so are just buying, bodgying, and onselling a nightmare to poor innocent battlers in order to make a greedy killing out of this Bluddy Mad Mess that we're going through .

Good luck with it,
Batpig.

[Graham99]

Hi Batpig.

We are in the envious situation of being the first owners. The "work" referred to here was done by qualified tradesmen supposedly contracted to the company who built the house. This aint a backyard blitz gone bad, but a professional job gone bad. The company who did it now only trade in Queensland under a conditional license.

So we were screwed by professionals.

Regards
Graham

[Don777]

hi graham,

i agreed with the others the mortar bed looks like the what i found behind the wall tile of our bathrroom in a 70's apartment, all sand little mortar and no water proofing, on a concrete block wall........

do what i did, open a bottle of red............

then i pulled all the tiles off, knock most of the mortar off put up fibro sheet, then water proofing and new tiles, and all fixed ( but a lot of work )
it started with as soap holder fell off..........

Cheers don