Flooring is by no means beneath me, but I haven’t really done anything below a shoe molding. So question for the tile high club: What would you do in the pictured situation? These are floor sections that have always felt a bit “squishy”. Today they finally popped up into the tent formation you see here.
Wait for it to settle and then add glue to keep it down? Cut it to fit?
Additional context:
I did not do this install myself, so the history is a bit of a mystery. This is installed in a full bathroom and is made of what feels like a smoothed slate material. I believe it is a composite tile.
More photos for context:
Flooring is by no means beneath me
Are you underground?
No, but my standards for humor might be.
I just assumed you lived in a multi-story house.
So you know how bricks aren’t lined up in neat rows vertically? You need to stagger the courses of flooring in a similar way. Also you need to leave an expansion gap around the perimeter of the entire room for when the wood expands. Also did you let this flooring heat up in the room for a full day before installation? Not letting it acclimate can lead to this but the most likely culprit is just not lining up the joints like that.
I did not do this installation, so any history of the install would be speculation.
Well you can see the courses are wrong just from the picture so you should fix that first. It’s fairly easy to do since one is already popped up.
To figure out if there is an expansion gap just take off one of you base boards. There should be a centimeter or so gap near the walls. If there isn’t that’s going to suck a lot more than just redoing the pattern since you might have to start trimming an edge or two of the entire room.
Unfortunately there is no baseboard to speak of in the bathroom. Here’s a better picture of the floor meeting the wall. This extends all around the room.
Yeah, it looks like whoever installed it didn’t know what they were doing. You should be able to fix it fairly easy but it’s going to have to be the whole floor since there doesn’t appear to be a gap. You’d have to pull the whole floor up and reinstall them all making sure to leave a 0.5-1 cm gap around the perimeter and properly aligned like in the picture I posted above. The person probably didn’t leave a gap because it will look like shit and stuff will get in it since there is no baseboard. A better option might be to pull it and put vinyl planks in there instead of laminate. Vinyl planks have less thermal expansion than wood or laminate so you wouldn’t have to leave an unsightly gap or install baseboards.
Is this not tile?
Looks like bamboo or laminate click flooring to me.
Edit: Looking at those new pics he posted though looks like you might be right. The backs look like tiles so maybe it’s that tile that is printed to look like wood/bamboo. If that’s the case then he can pull the tiles and lay down some tile cement and put the tiles back after cutting the door one a little so it fits.
It’s really weird to not have grout if it’s tiles as that would make the floor not waterproof.
This is 100% porcelain tile. I worked in a tile factory- there’s no mistaking it.
It’s a hard, inflexible material. I have heard it referred to as composite.
Not sure if it changes anything, but they added what looks like a dark grout or potentially caulking between the wall/floor seam.
You know, that does look like they grouted it. You might be able to get away with just removing that grout/caulk and then just redoing the pattern. If the floor can’t move it will buckle but the pattern will make that problem even worse. So with both problems it was kind of just a given. If they added that grout because the whole floor moves then you can get non slip underlay to prevent that movement.
I actually disagree with this, only because the flooring is tile, not LVP. Tile can be installed in this pattern, and it is actually recommended to have no more than a 33% overlap with rectangular tiles to prevent slippage in installation.
Yeah. I agree with you. I was working off only a couple pictures which made it look like lvp or laminate. He added extra ones later that showed they were tile.
I have nothing to contribute other than the ‘Tile High Club’ joke was very funny. Well done 👍
To correct any misinformation in this post- what you have is porcelain tile installed very, very poorly. You can install tile in this pattern- it is not an issue with tile. However, what’s underneath is very concerning. I have never seen that much mortar used.
You need to get a professional in, even if to look at it and give advice. My guess is if they used that much mortar, it would all need to come out and actual cement board would be needed as a base to bring the flooring to the appropriate height.
This is the correct answer. With all that mortar, the rest of the tiles are sure to come off too eventually. The whole thing needs to be redone. Take out all tiles and all mortar. Subfloor needs to be properly prepped and then you can lay the tiles back correctly. There’s enough information online to do it yourself or you can hire someone.
That is an utter mess of self-leveling compound poured way too thick all at once, not fully covering the area, and then not using a proper thinset base. I guarantee the rest of that shitshow is going to go the same way.
That needs to be torn out, the self-leveling garbage pounded out, proper plywood laid in and screwed to the joists for the majority of the space to get taken up, then maybe a thin layer of self-leveling if needed. A layer of Schluter uncoupling membrane can be used to disconnect the expansion of the walls and floor from the tile, with appropriate gaps (like 3/8") around the tile and hidden by the baseboard, with a snap down transition strip at the door that also allows expansion.
And then find whoever installed that and slap the bejesus out of them.
I’m working on finding out the contractor so I can ban them from my coop.
The way it separates in clear lines between the tiles, it looks like it was applied to the tiles, not to the floor. So I think they didn’t use self-leveling compound at all and just put on ridiculously thick globs of mortar to raise the tiles to the desired level.
Yikes! Don’t bother trying to patch it. That floor is a disaster and needs to be completely removed and reinstalled. As at least one other commenter mentioned, the tiles should be staggered and have room around the edges for expansion. The reason those popped up is because there are no gaps for expansion around the edge of the room. Also, they did a really sloppy mortar job. I’m not even sure they used the right mortar but it’s hard to tell from just the photos.
The tiles don’t expand, though. Wood does. So perhaps the wood needs to be trimmed back a quarter centimeter.
Thanks for the comments! I’ve always hated the flooring in this room, but didn’t have the hands on experience to say why. My biggest concern at this point is referenced in another poster’s comment regarding floor leveling.
If it’s a matter of replacing tile, I can probably do a decent enough job, but I might be over my head if there’s significant problems with the sub floor.
The main concern about an unlevel floor is why is it unlevel? If you can figure out the “why”, that will tell you if it’s easily fixable or if it will potentially get worse.
How hard it is to investigate depends on how accessible the underside of the floor is. It’s going to be pretty hard to tell from the top side without ripping off the tile first.
If the room has a crawlspace or basement underneath and you feel like playing detective, get a bubble level and go check the joists and beams in the vicinity. Work downhill until the slope stops. That will give you a general area of the source of the problem.
There could be a variety of causes, some of which are obvious, some not as much.
My brother don’t, spin your head. Those are run off the mill homedepot porcelain/ceramic tile. Go to the home depot and ask for a bag of tile cement./ mortar. They will give you what you need. Get a bucket too. Put a bit of the cement into the bucket and add a bit of water mix until it’s got the consistency of mashed potatoes that need a bit more milk but your gona serve them any ways because you already put the milk away. Now butter up the floor with the cement mix and dampen with a cloth the back of tile. Butter the tile too. Don’t be shy put a good bloob on the floor and spread it. Set the first tile down and smash It down until it’s level with the rest. If it’s to high and won’t seat, slooooooowly and carefully pry up the tile with a wide tool. Don’t force it you run the risk of braking the tile. Scrape some cement of and try again. Put about the same amount pf the cement on the second tile and set it down. Wipe up the extra/mess and wait 24hrs.
There is just not enough cement making actual contact with those tiles to begin with. Yeah you could re do the floors and “do it right” or for like 20$ and 3hrs fucking about you can have the floor back to what it was and it will probably last a good long time any ways.
Edit also you should probably chisle out a bunch of the old cement that was under the tile that will help with better adhesion. When the new stuff goes down.
Thank you for your comment. The imagery in your description is fantastic. I think I’m going to try my hand at this. What’s the worst that could happen?
Theoretically, from flooding your home to burning it down.
Realistically, the two tiles behind those two you reset pop up because they are now the weakest link. But it’s all good because you still have about 3/4 of a bag of cement left lying around somewhere.
On the note of flooding, though. Dont flush the unused cement down the drain or toilet. Straight to garbage. You can save the bucket if you wish by scraping everything out into the trash. I’ve seen it when guys just dump it down the drain. Boy, that ends up being expensive bill. Full night of back to back lap dances at the good place probably be cheaper.
Those “planks” don’t have the right proportions for laminate flooring. It kind of looks like large format tile. Can you confirm? It would have a huge impact on how to properly fix it.
There’s no give or flexibility to these. I’d say tile of some sort. Here are the sides and bottom:
I just saw the other pictures of what it looks like under the tiles. That’s a proper mess. You can probably temporarily fix that, but it doesn’t look like it was properly installed at all. Unfortunately fixing it correctly will most likely involve redoing the entire room.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but this is how I’m leaning as well.
An alternative, you can install a temporary landing, since it’s by a door. Transitions are a solution I use when I needed a patch of floor done. Whole floors get expensive even if you diy.
I’m no floor expert, but I did put floor like this into a room. The instructions we got was to leave a small gap all around the room, since temperature fluctuations will cause the floor to expand, and if there is no space to expand into it will buckle. Baseboard trim that I installed later disguises the gap.
I think gluing it down is not the answer. It may just cause it to buckle in the middle where it is harder to reach. If it’s like the stuff we used, you can score it with a straight edge and a knife and then cut it.
Any flooring will dilate and shrink along the seasons, you have to leave the space for it. If you glue it it will find a way to break so I wouldn’t recommend.
I’d say cut a few mm and add a threshold to mask it.
I would lead with questions for both context and for you to determine your plan of action.
Its “always been” squishy…how long have you lived here? 1 year? 10 years? It matters in the context of if it was a quick flip install to sell the place and you’ve only been living there a short time, the rest will probably be falling apart soon too. If its been a long time, it could point to just that spot being an issue and needing repair.
There’s also the question of your time and budget. There’s a good chance the entire floor needs to be replaced, but if that’s just out of the question then a patch job could keep it together a very long time if done right.
What room is that? Bathroom? Mud room? There’s tile on the wall too so I’m wondering if water is playing into the problem (either in the tile install or damage to the sub floor in that spot).
I’ve been here for 2 years. I believe at least the tile flooring in the 2 bathrooms and kitchen all are subject to similar poor craftsmanship.
Regarding budget vs time, time is the limiting factor. I’m in a HCOL area and will be getting some estimates in the near future from contractors.
Make sure to ask the contractors about the subfloor. If its flexing at all (you can step on the empty space and see if your weight shifts it) then no matter how good the fix it’ll pop again.
This is wood right? If so, wood floor does expand/shrink a bit depending on temperature. It looks like maybe it wasn’t cut to the right size and needs to be shaved down ⅛-¼ inch to fit property.
I’ve updated the original post, but no, not wood. Seems like a smoothed slate, I’d assume artificial material.
It’s probably bamboo flooring looking at the pattern but it might be laminate made to look like bamboo.
Is it supposed to not be staggered?
It’s very possible this was installed poorly.
so this looks like click and lick vinyl plank?
I had to do quite a bit of repair and can give you tips if that’s the case
I don’t think it is. Seems like a large format synthetic slate material.
so… is it grouted? what’s the under layment?
Yeah it’s a dark grout.
Okay first off those are large ceramic tiles not the laminate etc it looked like.
Second off, why the fuck??? I am guessing somebody wanted to level the floor. Instead of doing it properly they just tossed globs of mortar on the floor and shoved the tiles on top.
100 year old building here. The floors were definitely not level prior to this project. This bathroom was originally two rooms combined into one and I’m sure the prior owner cut corners on the renovation.
I would get a professional in to take a look at it personally. That looks like a complete tearout and redo to me. I assume there are voids under all of those tiles. They will all be popping up or breaking if left.
I’ve kind of suspected as much for a while. I can feel certain other areas with a similar wobble.
I have similar, I believe it’s a type of laminate (they call it that, it can be inflexible but has a fake wood look). Does it have a tongue and groove edge where two pieces meet? Either way, new floor needed. If you can’t afford it, a temp solution is to make a transition since it’s by a door, you can kind of get away with a slightly different floor and a cover over the gap.
Having done a little work on mine, good flooring can get costly. Just a pack of 18 sq ft here was $50, though it was very good, textured laminate. Waterproof stuff, too, doesn’t require mortar.
No tongue and groove in this one. I’d be looking at at least 90 sqft of tile. Pricey, but still much cheaper than going the contractor route.
Hmm, that does explain why it’d need mortar, too. The tongue and groove stuff works like puzzle pieces and if you follow a lot of the other advice, it’s not a terribly hard diy project. There’s cheaper stuff out there, too, though you definitely notice the difference.
