Hi H1 team.

I've got an odd issue. My builder has finished off our bathrooms (using rectified edge polished porcelain tiles). Tiling is to the ceiling (whole wall).

The issue is the tiles are ivory (CTM marina cloud is the type) 300x300 floor and 300x600 wall using a light grey grout (with very small gaps). the grout is light in color, almost invisible,

At the very end of the project his guys have placed a bead of silicon around all the corners (floor meets wall and at the corners of the room up the walls to ceiling). The problem is that he's used a "light grey" silicon on floor meet wall and white on wall/wall (which looks very dark).

Now when I walk into the bathrooms all I see is this mass of white silicon and frame of dark grey around the floor - it overtakes your eyes and looks terrible (it's like putting big clown lips on a supermodel! - just looks wrong).

I explained my disappointment but the builder said they do this because grout in corners cracks and falls out etc silicon is a better seal. I suggested either way there must be a better way. Currently we're all "thinking about it" and adjourning to discuss tomorrow.

What have other people done in this situation - do you use silicon, grout, how do you get it to blend in and disappear? I really can't stand the current finish.

Many Thanks
Mark

They have done it the correct way. Its the same in kitchens. The join between tiled splash back and bench top has to be in silicon. Grout cracks and then allows water behind the tiles.

The only real option you have is to find a silicon colour that you like.

Silicon is the correct way to finish the floor and wall joins.
Selleys make an ivory coloured silicon, the builders should have used it...

Yes I agree, the trick is to use the same coloured silicon that matches the colour of the tile, this is the best way as it blends in perfectly, specially on natural stone.

Craig

We have a silicon finish too and in the powder room had a problem with the floor join being too "thick" - picture explains below .... is that the problem with yours or is it the colour that's "in your face"? Turned out ours was caused by the gap between the tile and skirting being too wide ... the rest of the silicon throughout the house is quite fine now it's been fixed (we had a lot of problems).

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Don't panic, the silicon is your friend - believe me, as someone who grew up in a decades-old home with sealing problems, it's better safe than sorry. Most people don't consider it an eyesore either, as far as I've heard..

hi All

Thanks for the replies.

We've got 2 issues with our tiling.

First the colour of silicon was all wrong, the builder agrees and is happy to have it all removed and replaced with the right colour. What is interesting though is that they ask me what colour I want, my answer is "well, the correct colour - whichever that is". It's hard to be asked to make decisions that I would expect a tiler/builder to know!

The bigger issue; and the problems with the silicon has exposed this is that some of our tiling is really not up to standard. I've been trying to find the appropriate resource on the net to understand what my expectations should be - so that I can align the job with the minimum standard of workmanship.

My issues with the tiling are:

1) Some cut tiles (and some full tiles as well!) - especially around window and door jams have chips in them (not clean cut) - my hypothesis is that they need to use special tools to deal with porcelain and they didn't have these. Once you see the chipped edge tiles you can't not notice them - they look uneven and unfinished. Is this acceptable at all - or should all cuts look and feel like a non cut edge?

2) The grout is bad uneven and already looks "dirty" in some areas.

3) In 1 powder room area they've lost the "squared" pattern - some tiles are misaligned (slightly but you can notice it).

4) Not all tiles are seated right; some liping even on the walls. they explained that the floor needs fall and that is hard with rectified edges (becuase of the small grout line and sharp tile edge); but even still some look out of level beyond explanation.

5) in some corners they have cut tiles too short leaving uneven gaps to silicon; should I expect that at wall to wall interections (corner of room) that the tiles should have the same fine gaps that the grout lines run on (the big lots of silicon they used hide this now but look bad).

I'd be keen to see examples of people that have good (or bad) porcelain tiling done - what should I really expect.

I'm also near hand over for the house and this is one of the itesm I've raised, so I'm not sure how it is handled from here - is it an easy or really hard fix (to replace a good number of badly laid tiles?)

cheers!
Mark

Q. 1 Most times a tiler will hide the cuts with the use of skirting boards or silicon.

Q. 2 If the grout is dirty than that can happen but we sometimes see this due to the way the grout was mixed and installed.

Q. 3 That is just bad workmanship they should relise this during the install.

Q. 4 The floor should have been screeded before tiles were laid but does cost alot more.

Q. 5 Same answer as qestion 3

Craig

Hi Craig

I think in general we need to have our tiles re-grouted, some tiles pulled and replaced and all the chipped tiles the same.

I'm just so disappointed because besides that the house is looking great, just the darn tiling isn't up to the standard of the rest of the house.

I've met with the builder now and I'm waiting for their response, they did agree it wasn't great; I've explained that it isn't acceptable to have any chipped tiles laid and all the grout needs re-doing to make sure its' supreme.

I assume it's reasonable to expect no chips when dealing with a new bathroom/house? (some of the tiles where they cut to great around doors or windows are really (really) rough.

Thanks for your input.
Mark

Hi

A quick question about Silicon in the corner areas; do you use Silicon instead of grout or over the top of the grout? The builder seems to have grouted the corners then added silicon - meaning that you have a large silicon line (about 5-8mm) in the corner as the silicon bridges across the join not "in the joint" where I would think it should be.

As the other grout is all narrow (about 2-3mm maximum I'd say) it looks out of place. What is the norm with polished porcelain in the corners - do you push the silicon in so it looks tight like the grouting?

cheers
Mark

We just renovated our bathroom, and in the corners we used silicon, I actually picked Davco ivory grout because they also make a Davco ivory grout coloured silicon that is a near perfect match, most grouts have a matching silicon!

And the silicon was used instead of grout in the corners, because grout is not flexible like the silicon!

I wouldn't expect chipped tiles, especially un cut tiles, as for cut tiles maybe a little on the cut edge, but should be hidden where possible!

I thought that the tiles should look level next to it's neighbour, you need some fall but it should be a subtle slop not sudden steps! I wouldn't expect to be able to feel uneven tiles under bare foot for example.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

We had some tiles replaced because they were chipped or not laid properly - still have lots that aren't level but we had to stop somewhere Same as you - house is great, quality of workmanship very poor....

Hi Mark

You can only use one of the two silicon or just grout only but never both. We do see this more than we would like the only reason is the tiler was lazy and did not want to remove the grout before installing silicon. In most cases they will not have grout because they know they are going to use silicon.

Craig

Here's a perfect example of laziness ... under the shower door - grout instead of silicone or maybe both

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That is horrible Mark very poor workmanship indeed. It looks like grout but hard to tell from just looking at the photo. I would not be happy with that at all.

We weren't happy so they've been back to "fix" it

Glad you are getting it all fixed.

Our builder spent a few days this week doing the same, however there are still some issues.

I'm trying to get a third party "specialist" porcelain tiler in to take a look and quote to do a final fix, however the builder is already a bit jumpy about this so we'll see how it pans out.

My issue is that you pay all this money for a house, you pay extra money for full wall tiling of wet areas and you expect the result to be appropriate to the house cost, area and "upper market" quality you should reasonable expect etc. Then the tiling lets it down (otherwise the house is great); the builder commented that they felt the tiling met the BCA standard (but I believe I could probably tile to the BCA standard - we're paying for excellence not just a pass mark).

I'd be keen to understand if there is an expected standard for this sort of stuff (ie grout evenness, laying consistency and clean and concise cuts etc).

A person I know had a look at a bit of it (they are in realestate) and they said to reject it as unfit for the property of this type (ie reasonable expectation is that the tiling should appear "near" perfect especially for the cost of house and location) - we're dealing in the $1m+ property market on this project.

Cheers
Mark

I agree with you Mark ... we are not in your league but still forked out $14,000 for what we consider a very poor job. The tiler was shocked at how much we paid when we told him - he was grumbling that he only gets $38 per sq metre from the builder and has to do the job quickly therefore that leads to mistakes ... no apologies of course The builder shouldn't take your money for the tiling if they can't give you a near perfect result ....